San Salvador De Jujuy, 6 January
“It will not rain today,” – said confidently Stéphane Le Bail, a famous developer of rally routes and road books, passing by “KAMAZ-master” bivouac. The Frenchman points to the mountain ridges, where today’s stage is laid and stormy clouds are really much lower than sun-drenched tops.
The route of the loop has been laid at an altitude of 3400 meters, and Jujuy, which has already been covered with stormy clouds for two days, is situated lower. It means that rain showers of these days, which turned our bivouac into a big mud bath, are also lower. However, it wasn’t sunny and dry everywhere in the mountains. Concerns, that the speed section might be shortened due to bad weather conditions were not borne out: the truck crews had to pass 419 km on a quite fast course.
Since morning assistance crews began to leave the washed out Argentinian military area, which is used as a bivouac for Dakar. Today they have to reach a border town Tarija. On today’s rally stage sport crews and assistance teams are set apart. Moreover, when vehicles come back to bivouac after the loop, they will be placed in a secure enclosure without any possibility to make a repair. That is an idea of the rally stage, which will finish tomorrow, on the 7th of January in Bolivian town Uyuni.
When organizers and journalists were dealing with the border formalities of crossing the border of Argentina-Bolivia tomorrow, the first news started to convey from the Jujuy loop.
The start for trucks was given at 11:56. Yesterday’s failure in the timing system was already repaired at night. As a reminder, due to the system failure Airat Mardeev had been 30 min behind the leader Martin Kolomy in the rankings, and in the morning, after the repair he was the fifth in the starting, just where he must be.
Today rivals of “KAMAZ-master” used the opportunity of fast rally stage in WRC-style in order to make a margin from the Russian drivers. Gerard de Rooy on Iveco was celebrating his win after the stage. The Netherlander passed the 419 kilometer section for 3 h 58 min 16 sec. The second position was taken by Pieter Versluis on his MAN (+00:37).Hans Stacey (MAN) is the third (+01:18), the Argentinian Federico Villagra is the fourth (+01:46). Eduard Nikolaev (“KAMAZ-master”) took the fifth position(+03:32). The rest of the team – Airat Mardeev, Andrey Karginov and Dmitry Sotnikov are on the 9th, 11th and 18th positions. Sotnikov’s crew had a technical issue – failure in the high pressure loop of the fuel system.
“Our rivals want to make a good performance, as well as we do, - commented Andrey Karginov the beginning of the race. – Dakar is one of the most important events of a year. We put a lot of efforts at preparation for the rally, but currently it all goes the way we wouldn’t like to. Today there was a high mountainous stage. We don’t often test our engines on such a height. It was quite difficult to drive. We had to constantly gear down for high-speed engine operation, in order to pick-up the speed”.
After finish Eduard Nikolaev told of the current race peculiarity: “If last year drivers had an access to their vehicles after a marathon stage, this year we could only fuel them and change a wheel if it is punctured, and since then we must place our vehicles in a secure enclosure without any access. If any repair is needed you can do it only after start of the timed section. In other words, you start the special, stop and make a repair. One will not be able to make a serious repair on liaison, as very little time is given to pass it. Everyone comes just on time and it is impossible to do something.
Today’s special section was high but not rocky. As one can say, it is laid on roads of common usage. The fight goes for seconds, 20-25 km of attachment and driving at high speed all day long. It is a very fast special section. Off-road conditions are very rare. Our truck is configured to sands, impassibility, beds of dried-up rivers, etc. We are not very used to this tempo.”
Gerard de Rooy celebrated his first victory in the stage of Dakar 2016. After the finish the Netherlander said that this year he gathered a team of his dream and is committed to rival seriously with “KAMAZ-master”: “Federico Villagra, Ales Loprais, Ton Van Genugten are very serious drivers. We didn’t try to improve anything in our vehicles this year - just small things. For instance, we have worked with a wheel pumping system. This year people are the most important. Together with MAN, you know, they also drive very well, I suppose we are capable to ‘resist hegemony’ of KAMAZ on Dakar. Federico Villagra is a particular breakthrough. His first competition in the truck category was Moroccan rally in October. He had only some tests before it. He is a rally driver with a great experience in Argentinian Championships and he is not afraid to drive fast”.
Dakar 2016. Trucks. 6 Stage Results (First 20 crews)
