Pascal de Baar Back in Top Ten after Stage Nine
13.1.2016
Hell on Earth. That is exactly what the crews felt like at the Dakar Rally’s stage nine on Tuesday. In many respects, it reminded one of the preceding episode - like stage eight it was dominated by the Dutch de Rooy, while his fellow countryman de Baar was slowed down by a tyre defect. In spite of that, as well as the scorching heat that drove a number of drivers to the verge of breakdown, eventually cutting the stage short, the pilot of the North Bohemia’s Renault Trucks special landed on a great eleventh place. As a result, he is back in the elite ten of the overall ranking.
“What to say, it’s bad luck. From the start Pascal was among the five fastest trucks until he got a puncture again, forcing the crew to replace the tyre. On the other hand, the truck was going really well given the heat and put up another solid performance. Basically everyone had trouble on the track. The temperatures were so high that not only the people, but also the technology was breaking down. All in all, we can be happy that nothing worse had happened,” commented Mario Kress, boss of the MKR Adventure project.
Even before it was cut shorter, stage nine, with a start and finish in Belén, had been supposed to be this year’s shortest test, stretching over a little less than four hundred kilometres including the linking sections. Because of the heat the organizers had to reduce the distance due to safety reasons. With the assistance of helicopters, they had to distribute water, especially to motorbike and quad drivers, with the medical teams operating non-stop. Each stop or technical issue meant exhausting energy expenditure for the drivers. Combined with the sand dunes, the stage became literally hell for many of them. Except for the defect, Pascal de Baar tackled it really great. Arriving at the finish on eleventh place, thirty minutes after the winner de Rooy, he moved up the overall ranking and returned to top ten. In contrast, de Rooy defended the leader position, and the Russian Nikolaev is currently losing almost half an hour on him. De Baar on tenth is two hours and forty minutes behind de Rooy.
Stage ten from Belén to La Rioja consists of seven hundred and sixty kilometres in total, out of which two hundred and eighty form the special stage. Once again, the organizers promise extreme conditions and the toughest stage of all – high temperatures and most importantly the sand dunes around Fiambalá with fine white sand that could be, in many respects, the deal-breaker. “This is the Dakar at its best – rough, merciless, giving a chance to skilled desert racers. Anyway, I believe we’ll be able to deal with all the pitfalls,” added Mario Kress.
