Dakar. "Blue armada" increases the pace

January 9, Arica
On the fifth day of the "Dakar", the competitors left Peru, in order to continue the race on the territory of Chile. But before passing the formalities related to border crossing, sportsmen had to overtake the 172-kilometer special stage Ariekipa - Arica. Now the race events moved to the foothills of the Andes. Already yesterday's stage was full of narrow mountain roads and to ensure that the rally didn't turn into "tram" race, where competitors have to go without the possibility to overtake each other, the organizers planned in advance the particular stages for motorcyclists and car drivers. Moreover the start for jeeps and trucks also was separate.

By the time of the first truck start the bivouac in Arica was almost filled with arriving Assistance cars. "North Gate" of Chile - Arica, for the third time welcomes Dakar. World Football Championship 1962 – it is probably the only worldwide event like Dakar, which saw the city before the arrival of the rally on the South American continent. Today, there are again a lot of people in the city.

So, the news from the route. Gerard De Rooy is not going to give up after yesterday's failure. With the support of his teammate Hans Stacey, during the whole stage he had to constrain an impact of Russians from "KAMAZ-master" team. Describing today’s day, the head of team Vladimir Chagin says: "Today, by the standards of Dakar the special stage was quite short - only 172 km. Very often, on such special stages there are big surprises. Our crews drove, changing positions, in good powerful pace, literally in seconds of each other. In this fight, Ales Loprais apparently didn’t find the right path and got stuck in the section with fesh-fesh (fine viscous sand as cement). Even at small special stages it is necessary to be good organized and very attentive. Dakar always requires maximum concentration." Following the results of a stage Eduard Nikolaev - the second, he conceded only 1 minute 53 seconds to Hans Stacey. The third is Gerard De Rooy. Ayrat Mardeev and Andrey Karginov are right after him in the standings. Eduard Nikolaev is now very close to the leader in trucks category Gerard de Rooy and following the results of five stages of the race he is second with the lag from the Dutch 5 minutes 33 seconds. Certainly the fact that Ayrat Mardeev (00:17:06) is right behind him will help Eduard to feel more confident. Meanwhile, on January 9 in Africa another famous race came to the end – Africa Eco Race. This year the "KAMAZ-master" team for the first time took part in it. The colors of the Russian flag at this race were defended by the crew of Anton Shibalov, Dmitriy Sotnikov and Evgeniy Yakovlev. Of course, all the time from the start of the race every member of the "KAMAZ-master" team was mentally with the guys. And the long-awaited result: legendary Semen Yakubov's pupils - the first in the trucks category and second in the overall! Certainly, when the guys were sent to Africa, we had plans for the podium in the trucks category, but we didn’t think that they will compete on an equal term with jeeps, and even to become second after a recognized authority Jean-Louis Schlesser! Nobody was expected from the young crew such result. Vladimir Chagin said: "This is the first victory for the KAMAZ-master team in 2013. I wish that there were more such victories. Well done guys, keep it up! "

At the KAMAZ-master team’s bivouac at Dakar there is good mood today. The good luck of "Africans" will be very useful for the team in South America.

Eric Khayrullin

The results of the 5^th stage

General classification after the 5^th stage