A small town Chilecito had its best time in the end of the 19th century, when miners prospered there. Near the town was built a rope-way Chilecito-la Mejicana 35 km in length, which was used for auriferous ore mining in mountains Sierra De Famatina. Now only piled up lorries in one of the town suburbs remind about past battles for the “sordid” metal.
On the route of Dakar-2018, that moved here on 17 January, continues the racers’ own battle for gold, and sometimes it looks dramatic. Hot weather made sands of Fiambala Desert loose, making today’s 280-km special one of the most difficult tracks of the anniversary Dakar. The race officials repeated the experiment of 2016, when results of the previous speed section defined the starting order, with mixed start of 25 fastest contestants from categories MOTO (10 bikes), AUTO (10 cars) and TRUCK (5 trucks). The top-5 trucks were 2 trucks of IVECO team (Villagra, Genugten), 2 trucks of KAMAZ-master Team (Nikolaev, Mardeev) and 1 MAZ truck (Viazovich).
Dried-up river-beds, dunes, impassibility, a lot of small-grained sand fesh-fesh, a lot of dry branches and stones dangerous for tires: weather conditions in Chilecito and a route prepared by organizers are incredibly constant every year.
On 83 km there was a serious breakdown on the truck of Eduard Nikolaev (then they had not faced with wheel punctures yet). By an unlucky train of events, in the stony river-bed, defined by organizers as a trial, a huge stone hits distributor gearbox mounting bracket and bends the cardan shaft. To help the crew in the first (wheel) and second (cardan shaft) situations stops Airat Mardeev. The cardan shaft was taken out of his truck and put to the truck of Nikolaev. According to the timing results on finish, Federico Villagra (IVECO) moves to the first position in the general standings after 11 stages.
It should be noted that in this table the 10-minute penalty of the Argentinean upon complaint of S.Peteransel (crew #300, for incorrect behavior while overtaking) is not included. The fact is that by the decision of the stewards, it is a postponed penalty and it will be applied for Villagra only in case of a similar second infringement. But by the evening of 17 January the Argentinean received a 15 minute penalty for torn belts of suspension travel limit. Let us remind you that the suspension travel of a race truck has a limit – 300 mm, this coefficient is controlled by special belts, mounted on every wheel and sealed by stewards. With this applied penalty the Argentinean is in front of Eduard Nikolaev for 1 min 7 sec after 11 stages of the race.
2 hours were lost on the track due to the power steering breakdown by one more member of IVECO Ton Van Genugten.
Stable and fast today was crew of Dmitry Sotnikov. The third result in the stage. Despite the loss of time in the beginning of the stage connected with the wheel change, change of air-to-oil booster clutch and loss of approximately 50 minutes, later he could cut the gap to 28 minutes. The stage winner was Siarhei Viazovich on MAZ, providing himself with a third position in the general classification and increasing the gap from fighting for this place Airat Mardeev.
The whole day marks of passing CPs by Anton Shibalov’s crew appeared on the monitor system of the race officials. But in the final result table and in the general standings after the stage the timing of crew #505 was not shown. The reason becomes clear only late at night. The stewards made a decision to withdraw Anton Shibalov’s crew from the race. As a reminder, after the fire on the first section yesterday, Shibalov’s crew could eliminate the damage of fire by his own forces and start yesterday’s second speed section. Then realizing that the fire had still made effect on the truck, he decided to finish without taking control points. A usual decision of stewards in such situations is a time penalty. That is why the withdrawal of crew from the race, moreover, of the crew not pretending for the podium – was a very strict and ambiguous decision in the experts’ opinion point of view, that would weaken the Russian team. According to the decision of Vladimir Chagin, function of fast assistance is now laid to the crew of Dmitry Sotnikov. In the race stay three Russian crews. Three race days are ahead.
Evgeny Yakovlev, navigator of Eduard Nikolaev’s crew #500:
“At the beginning and end of the special there were curvy sand tracks, with big amount of dry branches and trees. I had not seen it before. The whole field of dead trees. That was where we punctured our wheel. And then on 83rd kilometer in the stony trial, crossing a river-bed, our gearbox touched a stone a little. The truck weight is big, and the gearbox moved back for about 50 mm. The cardan shaft stretched. Then the vibration started. It was a good thing that Airat Mardeev was going behind. We used his truck as a donor. Many thanks to them, they helped us a lot. 6 km before the finish, unfortunately, we touched dry branches, punctured a wheel. The tire inflation system did not help. We had to change a wheel. We lost about 7 minutes on that».
1.VIAZOVICH SIARHEI 05:14:10
2.VILLAGRA FEDERICO + 00:01:24
3.SOTNIKOV DMITRY + 00:28:51
4.KOLOMY MARTIN + 00:30:24
5.HUZINK GERT RENAULT + 00:34:13
6.ARDAVICHUS ARTUR + 00:36:29
7.NIKOLAEV EDUARD + 00:42:15
8.MARDEEV AIRAT + 00:55:28
9.SUGAWARA TERUHITO + 01:11:21
10.VAN DEN HEUVEL MAURIK + 01:11:55
11.MACIK MARTIN + 01:45:56
12.VAN GENUGTEN TON + 02:03:22
13.BEHRINGER MATHIAS + 02:32:13
15.INGELS DAVE + 02:45:50
16.KADSHAI AVIV + 03:13:08
1.VILLAGRA FEDERICO (IVECO) 40:04:27
2.NIKOLAEV EDUARD (KAMAZ) +00:01:07
3.VIAZOVICH SIARHEI (MAZ) +03:07:22
4.MARDEEV AIRAT (KAMAZ) +04:40:00
5.ARDAVICHUS ARTUR (IVECO) +05:28:39
6.MACIK MARTIN (LIAZ) +05:30:13
7.VAN GENUGTEN TON (IVECO) +05:31:08
8.SOTNIKOV DMITRY (KAMAZ) +05:52:44
9.SUGAWARA TERUHITO (HINO ) +06:25:32
10.HUZINK GERT (RENAULT) +07:13:09
11.VAN DEN HEUVEL MAURIK (SCANIA) +07:53:53
12.KOLOMY MARTIN (TATRA) +08:58:29
13.BEHRINGER MATHIAS (MAN) +47:24:35
14.INGELS DAVE (MAN) +74:12:35
15.KADSHAI AVIV (DAF) +75:18:37
