Africa Race: stones and some sand

30.12.12
The first stage of Sonangol Africa Eco Race began at 9:40 am for trucks. Motorcyclists started at 7:30, jeeps at 8:30. The goal was the one for everybody – to enter into the race without loss on a long and difficult special stage.
Frequently changing road surfaces created for racers many problems. In trucks category five crews finished by 6:00 pm. Jean-Louis Schlesser was the first in auto category. Among trucks the crew of Anton Shibalov, Evgeniy Yakovlev and Dmitriy Sotnikov was the first, in the overall they were sixth. MAN of Elizabeth Jacinto takes the second place. The third in trucks category is Miklos Kovacs on Scania.
Tragic news was declared at the briefing - right on the route, Christian Craff, the pilot of the crew 225, had a fatal cardiac infarction. He was 63 years old.

For the others the race continues, even for those who broke and did not even start like one of the Kazakh crews.

Pilot Anton Shibalov: Across the road there were stones, a lot of stones. This was the most difficult. We passed sand in one breath, we saw much more difficult sandy routes, but we were very cautious on stones. I set a goal to save tires. But from the wheel loss nobody is guaranteed. There are rocks along the edges on mountain descents, there we cut the wheel, but we were lucky and we reached the finish line. We saw that the wheel was cut only on the finish. I think that to go slower in those conditions is more favorable than to waste time changing a wheel. We had to overtake many times jeeps and motorcycles. There were places where it was impossible to overtake; sometimes we had to horn a long time to be able to pass. We started in a minute after Tomecek, constantly saw him before us, and when bad roads started we even rolled over on him. Before dunes on the 120th km we were very close to him. They began to low the speed and we overtook him. Then I saw in the mirror that they stopped and opened the door.
When we came to Morocco for training, the sands were very complex compared to those that we had today. But anyway we can’t not to underestimate them. Yakubov, Chagin and Schlesser said the same - the main thing is not to hurry, to move quietly.
At the end of the SS there were stones of various sizes everywhere. We couldn’t see the land at all and there was very narrow road, and at one point, I thought that when driving into the curve I could chafe sides, because we were really in tight place.

Co-pilot Evgeniy Yakovlev: We were second of trucks; there were no traces at all. Road book is very well spelled out; we have to make not too many changes. Organizers choose, probably, the best route path, considering all obstacles, and put this version on the road-book. I can tell nothing about my impressions because I did not look around, I was concentrated on navigation.

In general, the day was successful for our guys, there is not too much work for mechanics, and we will be able to go to bed early.
Tomorrow our crew will start at 8:54 local time (12:54 MSK), they will be sixth on the start together with jeeps and in a minute behind a legendary woman Elizabeth Jacinto.