Libya Rally's Stage One Cancelled
17.4.2016
The first stage of the Libya Rally had an unexpected ending, with the organizers forced to neutralize its outcome. Fortunately, the cause was neither a dramatic accident nor severe weather, which postponed the actual start of this year's Dakar. This time it was the technology's fault, more specifically that of the failing GPS coordinance system. Consequently, crews in the Moroccan race were going to start for real only on Saturday.
“We were told that errors occurred in the conversion of waypoints from one system to another. Consequently, the points were located somewhere else than they were supposed to have been. In reality this meant that the crews had to climb into an inaccessible ravine. A terrible mistake, but still better than if something has happened to someone somewhere. Practically, it's nothing, but we'd like to focus on why we're here – to test new components,“ commented Mario Kress from Morocco, boss of the MKR Technology development team who sent a Renault Trucks machine of the Mammoet Rallysport team piloted by Martin van den Brink into the rally. The truck has number 501 and in addition to the co-pilot Wouter de Graaf, there is the Roudnice crew mechanic Daniel Kozlovský in the cockpit with them.
Eventually cancelled due to technical issues, the opening Friday stage from Agadir to TanTan was supposed to measure five hundred kilometres. On day two the crews are going to start in the original order based on their starting numbers. This time they are about to tackle the distance from TanTan to Akka which stretches over 550km.
