Dakar entered its second half
13.1.2020
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This year's 42nd Dakar Rally has entered its second half. The winner of the day was Andrej Karginov, but Martin van den Brink with the North Bohemian truck was sixth and lost to him less than ten minutes.
“I would like to say that we all had a good rest on Saturday day off, but the opposite is true. A day off is more of a hell for the technicians. On Pascal’s truck, we changed the damaged differential, the front springs, we were welding a lot, we did a full oil service, and we did countless other things to keep the trucks in top condition for the second half,” said Mario Kress, head of the MKR Technology design team.
The full service was successful, but the more was everyone disappointed that Pascal's truck could not continue in main competition after the aforementioned Friday problems. Problems with the rear differential forced him to leave the race course, because he was driven only by the front axle, which would not allow him to overcome the treacherous dunes. The penalty for missing the waypoints meant an end in the main competition. So, on Sunday, Pascal de Baar got orange-numbered racing bib, the so-called mini-dakar, which means the second half, which is intended for racers who had to quit early, but otherwise could have gone on. And the Dutch rider showed that he and his truck are capable of great things, and he on the stage from Riyadh to Wadi Al Dawasir he had the tenth best time. His fellow countryman, Martin van den Brink in a truck from Židovice, was even better – he got sixth position. It was the longest timed stage of this year's event, which was almost five hundred and fifty kilometers long. So even more unexpected was what happened in front of the race. The stage was won by Russian leader Andrey Karginov by only three seconds ahead of the second racer Sotnikov. He won the longest stage by an incredible small margin - ninety meters. Pilots of the other two Dutch special trucks were classified on 14th (Gert Huzink) and 17th (Richard de Groot) place.
The Russian Karginov with Kamaz is leading overall standing. Martin van den Brink of the Mammoet Rallysport moved closer to the top ten. De Groot is fifteenth and Huzink is twenty-fourth.
Dakar continues on Monday with eighth leg on a loop starting and finishing at Wadi Al Dawasir, is nearly seven hundred and twenty kilometers long, with a timed special section of nearly four hundred and eighty kilometers. Crews will be facing mountain landscapes, canyons and surprising color contrasts: black stones on white sand, for example.
