BOULANOUAR / GUELB AGANTOUR
As soon as entering Mauritania, country of sand and wind, the Africa Eco Race 2011 becomes more and more difficult. Many crews will remember this seventh stage, with difficult dunes to cross and a lot of navigation.
This stage, the first on the Mauritanian ground for the 2011 Africa Eco Race, was really tough for almost all the crews. There were a lot of changes all stage long. Before the first CP of the day, in the dunes described as easy, many crews were already stucked in the soft sand. They also had problems with an unusual dunes shape, due to the last months rain. Indeed, the desert was green today, whereas it’s usually really dry.
First to start… and first on the finish line, few kilometers from Akjouijt, Jean-Louis Schlesser (Original Buggy) keeps his invicibility in 2011. Four victories in a row for the “boss” and Céline Merle-Beral, his teamate, bluer than the famous Mouans-Sartoux’s buggy. Four perfect wins which allows the “blue arrow” to catch up with the others in the overall classification. He is now fifteen minutes behind the Wildcat Bowler of Jérome Pélichet and Eugénie Decré. As last year, on the same stage, the second Schlesser buggy, driven by François Lethier and Konstantin Zhiltsov is second. They are just behind Pélichet and Decré. Second to start, Régis Delahaye and his MD buggy had a lot of mechanical problems. The Belgian Stéphane Henrard is fourth in this crazy stage, even if he had some problem with its power-steering, behind the Tatra’s of Tomas Tomecek.
Tomas Tomecek was hardly waiting for these Mauritanians stages… Brillant, he won today, and Elisabete Jacinto lost the lead, facing problems in the soft sand, where she lost almost one hour… and the first place in the overall truck classification.
WHAT THEY SAID
BIKES
Thomas Bourgin : «Despite of my pain ankle and the hematoma on my hip, I want to keep riding everyday! I want to reach Dakar because, when I was a kid, I watched all these riders on TV, with my father. The dream would come true…”
CARS
Jean-Louis Schlesser (Fra/Buggy Original): “ It was tough. Really tough… Dunes, navigation, everything! Here, René Metge was really good… It was for a while that I hadn’t seen such a difficult stage… I think a lot of competitors suffered in this stage.”
François Lethier (Fra/Buggy Original): « A stage without problems, at last. Konstantin did a good job. If all Mauritania is on that level, everything is still possible for the overall classification…”
Jérôme Pélichet (Fra/Bowler Wildcat): « Jean-Louis is really a good driver! He was really the best today. How does he do! Tomorrow, in the loop, we will have to fight hard. Today, two birds came into the car but we took time to burden them…”
Stéphane Henrard (Bel/Buggy VW TDI): « We took a very good start. We went on Lethier and Pélichet while the power-steering broke. From this moment, it was more difficult… But the car is good in the sand. We are still waiting for a stage win. In the desert, most important is to be patient…”
Kees Tijsterman (P-B/Proto Cherokee): « I really enjoyed this stage. This is Africa, as I have ever known it. Everything went well, even if our fuel consumption was a little bit too high. We finished with hardly no diesel…
Patrick Sireyjol (Fra/Buggy SMG): « Sadly, we had to stop twice because of mechanicals problems. We lost two hours… »
Mido Abouyoussef (Egy/Desert Warrior): « Our main problem was to lose the fifth gear at the beginning of the stage. So we lost a lot of time in the fast sections.”
TRUCKS
Tomas Tomecek (Tch/Tatra) : “What I wished before this stage was to reach the finish line. We had to drive, without any stop. This is what I did. But I am glad to be here.”
Elisabete Jacinto (Por/MAN) : “ We had huge problems to cross the dunes. The sand was so soft. My truck is heavier than the Tatra. We deflated the tires, but finally we had two punctures.”
