Father and Son FROMONT Sonangol Stage 9

RALLYE SONANGOL AFRICA ECO RACE Thursday January 9th 2014 STAGE N°9: AKJOUJT / TOUEILA: 309 km SPECIAL STAGE: AKJOUJT / TOUEILA: 289 km TRANSFERT: TOUEILA / BIVOUAC: 20 km

Bike: ROBIN comes back

Michael PISANO, who is leading in the general rankings, is doing his best to take good care of his 450 HONDA bike whereas Dominique ROBIN, second for the moment is pushing as hard as he can to get back some time on PISANO. Some bikers such as Robert THEURETZBACHER really want to stand out by doing eceptional performances and others like Harite GABARI and Norbert DUBOIS just want one thing, to arrive at the end of the race.

ROBIN was delighted at the end of today’s stage: “ After yesterday’s difficulties, I took a lot of pleasure today and I’m really happy to have won the stage. It makes me forget yesterday and winning is always a great feeling. For me victory won’t be possible in my opinion, so I’ll do my best to keep my second place until the end.”

Michael PISANO was quite happy with his second place, 4’10 behind the winner: “ All I did all day is do my best to take care of my machine, especially for gear changes. It worked! But the problem when you use this policy is increased errors and decreased concentration. Of course I prefer pushing, but I’ll stay as is until the arrival in Dakar."

Behind the two leaders of the day and in the general rankings, Austrian Robert THEURETZBACHER had great day once again as he finished 3rd at 4’47, right in front of Harite GABARI from Morocco, staying 4th, Guillaume MARTENS finished 5th.

A little further behind, Christophe CONREAU was really lucky has he seized the piston of his engine 55 km away for the end but after waiting a while he managed to restart. The mechanics of Team Motards du Desert are doing their best to repair Friday’s stage in order to arrive in DAKAR.

Car: Father and Son FROMONT win today

In this last episode of the battles in the Mauritanian dunes, Michel TURON BARRERE was facing a quite big issue as he spent the whole day trying to get out of a bowl where he got stuck in the first dunes. Finally, with some help given generously by Jean Luc and Marlene VIDAL.

Thursday’s victory went to Yves FROMONT, navigated by his son Jean. The Frenchman was pleased with his performance at the wheel of his VW Tarek: “ We started 17th, and as we could not see much mainly due to dust, during the first 50km, we took a parallel track which gave us the opportunity to overtake a lot of opponents. We were also very competitive in the first dune field, where a lot of participants were stuck. The second dunes field also went well even if SABATIER overtook us. It’s nice to win after such a complicated rally.”

Once again Stephane HENRARD finishes 2nd of the day at 2’26, proving the performance of his VW Dunbee on this kind of field. The Belgian is 15 minutes in front of SCHLESSER and Gilles FLORIN who finished 4th. Jackie LOOMANS classifies 5th and strengthens his 2nd place in the general rankings in front of HENRARD.

In the long battle between Philippe PORCHERON with his Buggy and Jean Noel JULIEN at the wheel of his Megane Prototype, the fight went to JULIEN, finishing 2’50 in front of PORCHERON.

In the rigid axles category, victory was for Remy CHAPOT on his BOWLER.

Truck: JACINTO and KOVACS are fighting

Tomas TOMECEK restored the order in the rankings of the truck category finishing 6th on the stage. The Czech TATRA stays on top in the general rankings, but behind him the battle is still on. Miklos KOVACS who won yWednesday’s stage, was beaten back by JANCITO and her MAN retakingher second place. But KOVACS hasn’t said his last word as he is only 2’50, so the last stage of the race should be very interesting between the two.

Friday 10th of January, the 10th stage between Toueila, in Mauritania and Saint Louis, in Senegal will be the last selective sector of the SONANGOL AFRICA ECO RACE 2014. In other words, after the 202km of stage, the rankings will be frozen and the winner of each category will be known. But remember anything can happen in Africa.


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