Dakar bivouac in the Chilean Copiapo settled down in the small picturesque valley surrounded with mountains from all sides. On the top they are covered by sand, rocks are visible only in some places. The bright sun and extraordinarily clear blue sky make the picture unreal beautiful. By evening silhouettes of the distant mountain tops closing the horizon and shivering in a hot haze create a sense of presence in some fairyland. There is no plant around.
Lying between the Pacific Ocean in the west and the Andes in the east, the Atacama Desert is rich in original records. According to the latest data of scientists it is the oldest desert in the world. Riverbeds remain dry for 20 million years! Atacama — the driest desert in the world. A few oases of the Atacama are located generally in valleys of the small rivers fed by glaciers. In 2003 the American agency NASA within the project on studying of a surface of Mars decided to use dry and impassable places for test of the research vehicles – mars rovers.
Very high dune is visible from the camp –participants of the rally marathon will start today the stage Chilecito - Copiapo exactly from this dune. Due to the fact that participants of the race should pass through the Andes today, and also to pass formalities on the Argentine-Chilean border, the start of the first truck on a 174-kilometer special stage took place only at 16:36 local time.
The first sand on a route and the first serious problems among the participants. After the second control point suddenly Dutchman Gerard De Rooy is left. His time is not reflected in all subsequent control points any more. After the finish the situation was cleared by Eduard Nikolaev who saw the car of the Dutchman standing in dunes at the very beginning of a sandy section. Perhaps Gerard intended to overcome the sandy rise and didn't notice a pit at its very beginning. By the time of writing this release we did not learn what exactly happened to him. At the bivouac we met former navigator of De Rooy Belgian Tom Colsoul who said only that the breakdown is very serious.
MAZ crews and Martin Kolomy on TATRA stopped today. According to preliminary information in both cases the punched wheels became the reason of a stop.
Andrey Karginov who was the fastest at a stage gave a short picture of the day (by the way French in their press release beat his surname and Vladimir Chagin's nickname as a result the title turned out "This is Tsar-ginov!"): "We woke up very early, then there was a long pass of 600 kilometers and all this at the height about 4800 meters. I felt low before SS. The route was ours today - at first stony road where it was possible to cut accurately on stones, trying not to damage wheels. And then the fast sandy route where there were a lot of hidden pits began. There is talk of our rivals Gerard De Rooy got in such pit. I didn't see him as I started earlier. Then there was the so-called "camel grass" –sandy hillocks of big size. All jeeps and motorcyclists go round it, and the suspension of the truck allows to go at a speed directly on it. In dunes we also had our own trajectory. Dunes are not so difficult, but it was possible to find adventures here and stay in them for a long time. On this race there are not a lot of dunes, we expected much more, after all Dakar is famous by its sandy part that for what sportsmen are coming here. We will see further what organizers have prepared for us."
Andrey though was the fastest today, but he didn't become the winner of a stage because of a penalty of 1 minute given him by organizers. In a zone of one of CP the crew exceeded a speed limit in 50 kilometers. Nevertheless three KAMAZ pilots: E. Nikolaev, A. Karginov, A. Mardeev headed the final table of a stage today. Also, this trio (but in other order: A. Mardeev, A. Karginov, E. Nikolaev) heads the general classification of trucks category following the results of 4 stages. The closest rival to the Russians Czech Ales Loprais concedes to Ayrat Mardeev almost 13 minutes.
General classification after the 4th stage
