DAKAR FLOODED: SS5 SHORTENED, SS6 CANCELLED

Jan 07, 2017

Dakar brought longwaited rains to Bolivia, that had suffered from heavy drought. The bivouac near the old mining town Oruro is flooded with rain. The second half of today’s special was cancelled due to poor weather conditions. However, the first part was really interesting and various.

A navigation mistake made Airat Mardeev lose 15 minutes. They chose the wrong dried-up river bed. But the constant rival of KAMAZ-master team Gerard De Rooy could show the best time today and now leads the general classification.

The crew of Eduard Nikolaev could arrive on time to stuck in loose sand Dmitry Sotnikov. They continued their way quite fast. Later they drove altogether. They saw stuck in a very hard place IVECO of Ton Van Genugten.

WPC points (control way points) became a real headache for many contestants of the Dakar-2017. Their purpose is to complicate the work of navigators. On one point the crew of Anton Shibalov also made a mistake. Approximately on 182 km a lot of sportsmen tried to find the correct way – they couldn’t find the football field from the road book. As a result Anton Shibalov and Federico Villagro chose the wrong direction, and they had to pay precious minutes.

All Russians, taking part in the race: Anastasiya Nifontova, Sergey Karyakin, Sergey Shikhotarov and Aleksandr Ivanyutin successfully finished the today’s stage and Ravil Maganov (UTV, No378) even could win the SS and move up to the second position in the general classification.

When riders came to the high-altitude (the height of 3700 meters) and quite cold bivouac Oruro, they couldn’t warm themselves even in the canteen. Most of them were shaking on their way to the bivouac. It is hard to imagine the repair of the race machines for tomorrow’s stage knee-deep in water.

On the evening briefing it was announced that the stage Oruro-La Pas was cancelled. The contestants and especially the assistance breathed a sigh of relief. However, shortening of the SS doesn’t work in favor of KAMAZ-master – they need to change the current positions in the general classification.

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