Since the morning I have in my head the chant from the Chilean revolutionary anthem of times of Salvador Allende "El pueblo unido jamás será vencido" – " When people are united – they are invincible!". No one knows if it was more popular in the 70th in the USSR or in Chile. The good song helps to support a high morale, especially, when inconsistent information about our crews comes from the route. Neighbors in the press center journalists from Argentina accompanying the race and inspired by a vigorous gait "KAMAZ-master" suggest a new interpretation of the old international hit: "Equipo unido - KAMAZ no será vencido!" - "The team is united – KAMAZ is invincible!". Thanks, colleagues, I hope, you will transfer to the audience and readers the kind attitude to a Russian team by your broadcasts. After all Dakar-2015 only reached its equator and for our crews the support of local fans during the second half of the race will be very useful.
So, on Dakar the rest day came, it was preceded by two exhausting days of a so-called marathon stage during which racers spent the night on the special isolated bivouac where service of cars was authorized only to members of sports crews. The access of mechanics of the team, as well as the delivery of spare parts and fuel were strictly forbidden.
Organizers promised that for trucks, sand will be twice more this second marathon day. "Someone will surely get stuck in dunes on the way to Iquique, and it is fraught with consequences in fight for a title in category", - the official release said. There were a lot of crews in trucks category who left the race in these two days.
Eduard Nikolaev, crew 503:
"Yesterday, as soon as we drove out dunes on the sandy tyagun we felt that something was wrong with the engine. We left the car to see what happened - all branch pipes of the engine were dry. At first it was difficult to understand that we have a problem with turbocharger. To replace it we lost one hour eleven minutes. Annoying breakdown especially as we drove accurately, because we understood: that if something will happen – we have to repair the car on a bivouac without the help of assistance group.
In general it was interesting, but concerning remarks I would like to pay the organizers attention that it is necessary to limit the movement of civil cars on the sports route, today there were a lot of cars driving to a forehead. It is very dangerous".
Ayrat Mardeev, crew 507:
"Yesterday all drove accurately and fortunately didn't bring mechanical problems to the bivouac. Unfortunately, yesterday Eduard Nikolaev lost time because of turbocharger replacement. We had to go with the broken pump of the power steering. There was a small "shock" in sand; in general it is usual situation. But most likely the pump has already damaged in previous days. We drove to the finish slightly slowing the speed because at low speeds the wheel has already began to block up. On the bivouac we changed it. We had a spare one.
The bivouac of the marathon stage represented the closed perimeter in the open field. The idea is to prevent access from the outside. Crews could prepare cars for the next stage only by own efforts. Even phones didn't work. There was enough work for us. Catering was organized in the small dining room. Many trucks didn't finish. We slept in the open air, we did not set tents.
Today we had a good pace. On the start I was a little bit mistaken in piloting– I didn't take a dune on the first try, because of that Hans Stacey caught up with us. But, having got out, we quickly caught up with him and went round on off road terrain. We also went round Loprais and De Rooy on off road terrain. We drove round Andrey Karginov because he was mistaken in navigation. We drove the first, but then got lost and have been searching for a control navigation point for a long time ".
Andrey Karginov, crew 500
"Today in the morning there were 45 cars at the bivouac. Yesterday at a stage there was a lot of sand. Pep Vila from Gerard De Rooy's team, for example, told that dunes were difficult for him. I saw Artur Ardavichus only in the morning, at 1 am he wasn't yet at the bivouac. Sergey Vyazovich on MAZ truck wasn't lucky, he broke a cardan. It seems that today he has the same problem. Many were stopped by dunes. We went to bed and saw lights of the cars coming to a bivouac. In general the idea of marathon stages is very interesting; organizers should continue to develop it in the future. The atmosphere of a bivouac is unusual, warm, there are crews of trucks category only. All competitors together and we have something to talk about. A kind of exclusive club of trucks".
Dmitry Sotnikov, crew 520
"As for me, today's stage was boring because we drove in the same places, as to previous days, passed some places even twice. There are traces everywhere. Unfortunately, because of that we made a navigation mistake. In one place it seemed to us that it is possible to cut off successfully. But we began to stray. We had to return to one of the previous points again to be attached to the route. We lost 20 minutes. A lot of confusions on the route. Yesterday there was mostly clean sand. At high sun, when there are no shadows, relief is almost not visible, everything seems smooth. Especially if there is no trace. It was very difficult to the crews going the first. There were invisible sharp dunes and pits. On a bivouac we had to adjust bumpers.
Today's descent to a bivouac in Iquique seemed to me not such rapid as last year's. I looked at devices not to overwind the engine. It is difficult to control the car, it goes down very quickly. It remains only to steer. It is impossible to reduce speed even".
Day on a bivouac of "KAMAZ-master" came to the end with the general meeting at which the head of the team congratulated Anton Shibalov and Sergey Kupriyanov's crews which showed excellent results at Africa Eco Race and took 1st and 2nd places respectively in trucks category and, moreover, the 2nd and the 3rd place in overall classification of the race! Today crews received their awards in the capital of Senegal Dakar. The ceremony took place at the famous Lac Rose. "Africans" set a good pace. The part of "KAMAZ-master" team which is fighting for the title in South America can only take up the baton. At the moment there are 3 KAMAZ crews in general classification - Ayrat Mardeev, Andrey Karginov and Eduard Nikolaev who head the final table. The fourth is Czech Ales Loprais. On the fifth position one more KAMAZ crew – Dmitry Sotnikov. After rest day on January 12 participants of Dakar will have another 5 stages and 3500 kilometers of route, 1800 km of which are high-speed sections.
