“From start to finish it was a good special section, where good driving skills were essential. There was traditional for the area fesh-fesh and dangerous for wheels thorny bushes. Today we set a goal to keep the second position in the general classification, the gap between us and Villagra is not very big. We realize that on last two stages, which are more like fast classical rally routes, the Argentinian will drive fast. Also, Cordoba is a familiar place to him. Therefore, it is important to use the challenging and usual for us stage to increase the gap and preserve a status quo. We caught up Pascal de Baar and Gerard de Rooy, who had started earlier. We drove in a confident way and attained the objective,” – that was the characteristic of the 11th Dakar stage by Airat Mardeev, “KAMAZ-master” driver.
Indeed, if today’s 431-kilometer SS La Rioja – San Juan was the last opportunity for many participants to improve their position in the standings, then for others it was important to keep their result of previous days of the race.
The organizers mapped last 20 km of the route among old mine dumps. Evgeny Yakovlev, co-pilot in Eduard Nikolaev’s crew, shared his opinion of the timed section: “During the special there was little navigation and good ‘killing’ roads. We overpassed 5 trucks and plenty of cars. But in the end, when mine wastes began, the road was curvy. The organizers prepared a road book with short references. Probably, it was done more in a view to spectators. By the way, there were a lot of spectators, notwithstanding the heat.”
The crew of Andrey Karginov stopped due to technical problems only 2 km before the finish line: “We started in a mix of trucks and cars. We overpassed a lot of motorbikes that had started the route earlier. One can judge about difficulty of the special according to the driving conditions. There was a strong heat, people were very tired, 52 degrees according to our thermometer. The route was quite challenging. We realized that it was a kind of SS, which gives us advantages, where we can show ourselves and catch up our rivals. There was a lot of impassibility. We were at the bottom of the starting list, drove in the dust, caught up cars and trucks. We had to risk. We caught up Iveco and MAN, following it. Thanks to our co-pilot we cut the road and overpassed it. We saw the crew did not like that. The pace was close to ideal. The engine worked well, the same as brakes, though they warmed. Two kilometers before the finish line the engine suddenly faded. There was a small rift before, but we passed it “in whisper”. We were searching for the reason for a long time. We changed electronic engine control module. Eventually, connected the starter straight to the engine, ‘fired up’ and reached the finish line. Approximately an hour was lost.”
Speaking about two last days of the race, the Argentinian Federico Villagra (Iveco), taking the 3rd position in the general classification, said that his main target was to be in top three and he was not going to blow his chance; therefore, he was not going to attack Airat Mardeev, overdrive him.
In the current situation the most important is to keep the result and ‘bring’ it to the podium in Rosario.
Trucks. Results of the 11th stage (first 20 crews)
1. NIKOLAEV EDUARD (KAMAZ) 05:31:37
2. VERSLUIS PIETER (MAN) + 00:05:02
3. VAN GENUGTEN TON (IVECO) +00:05:36
4. MARDEEV AIRAT(KAMAZ) +00:07:51
5. SOTNIKOV DMITRY (KAMAZ) +00:09:38
6. DE ROOY GERARD (IVECO) + 00:13:49
7. VALTR JAROSLAV (TATRA) +00:15:00
8. KOLOMY MARTIN (TATRA) +00:15:10
9. VILLAGRA FEDERICO (IVECO) + 00:26:47
10. DE BAAR PASCAL (RENAULT TRUCKS) + 00:33:28
11. ARDAVICHUS Artur (TATRA) +00:35:02
12. VILA ROCA PEP (IVECO) + 00:35:28
13. SUGAWARA TERUHITO (HINO) +00:48:31
14. STACEY HANS (MAN) +00:55:55
15. KARGINOV ANDREY (KAMAZ) + 01:21:34
16. VAN DEN HEUVEL MAURIK (SCANIA) +01:25:08
17. HUIGEVOORT MARCEL (MAN) + 01:39:21
18. VRATNY TOMAS (TATRA) + 01:39:35
19. HOONDERT ADWIN (DAF) + 01:41:11
20. VAN DE LAAR JAN (DAF) + 01:59:16
Trucks. Results of the 11th stage (first 20 crews)
1. DE ROOY GERARD (IVECO) 39:10:29
2. MARDEEV AIRAT (KAMAZ) + 01:09:21
3. VILLAGRA FEDERICO (IVECO) + 01:45:45
4. VAN GENUGTEN TON (IVECO) + 02:08:42
5. STACEY HANS (MAN) +02:31:03
6. VERSLUIS PIETER (MAN) +02:46:27
7. DE BAAR PASCAL (RENAULT TRUCKS) + 02:57:08
8. NIKOLAEV EDUARD (KAMAZ) + 03:41:31
9. VALTR JAROSLAV (TATRA) + 03:53:33
10. SOTNIKOV DMITRY (KAMAZ) + 04:22:46
11. VILA ROCA PEP (IVECO)+04:33:33
12. VAN DEN HEUVEL MAURIK (SCANIA) + 04:55:53
13. ARDAVICHUS Artur (TATRA ) + 04:58:28
14. SUGAWARA TERUHITO (HINO) + 05:19:48
15. KARGINOV ANDREY (KAMAZ) + 06:23:16
16. VRATNY TOMAS (TATRA) + 07:36:56
17. KOLOMY MARTIN (TATRA) + 08:05:44
18. HUIGEVOORT MARCEL (MAN) + 08:16:57
19. HOONDERT ADWIN (DAF) + 08:59:38
20. ROTSAERT STEVEN (MAN) + 12:10:35
