Wednesday evening round up
The second stage between Boudnib and Foum Zguid, 612km of which 431km of selective sectors, has already affected the SONANGOL AFRICA ECO RACE caravan. Indeed, at 20:30 ( 21:30 Paris ), one third of the auto and bike participants were still missing.
A normal situation if we consider the difficulties on the field and with navigation. Actually, most of the latecomers had mechanical problems. Therefore, all of them are in constant communication with the PC, thanks to the organization's modern communication technology.
Most of the participants will arrive at the bivouac before the Check Point close, at midnight. For the rest of them they will have the night to be back, repair if needed, rest a bit and leave the next morning. If its not the case, they will receive the biggest penalty but will still be able to start on the next day, because the SONANGOL AFRICA ECO RACE’s goal is to have as many participants as possible at the Lac Rose in Dakar.
3rd on the opening stage, SCHLESSER to put the ranks back in order in Auto. "I would be called a liar if I would say I’m not happy about today, everything went well as we won the stage. But this second stage was quite difficult and we had to keep really focused all way long. I can’t deny the level has gone up, so I will try to prevent errors.”
The five time winner of the SONANGOL AFRICA ECO RACE won the stage by about 16 minutes in front of Balazs SZALAY, 2nd at the wheel of his OPEL Prototype.
Very nice performance from Jackie LOOMANS, 3rd on the stage today. In the end, the Belgian driver was third in the general rankings, just in front of Philippe PORCHERON fourth of the day at the wheel of his Peugeot BUGGY.
Tomas TOMECEK stays on top
He left Boudnib as leader of the truck category, Tomas TOMECEK dominated his opponents once again. At the wheel of his TATRA, actually pretty agile in the dunes, the Czech crossed the dunes in Merzouga quite easily and went fast during all the stage, to end 5,50 minutes in front of Elsabete JACINTOs MAN, while the SCANIA of Milkos KOVACS ended 3rd about 20 minutes later. On the general rankings Auto/Truck TOMECEK is 9th, 14,54 min away from SCHLESSER.
Harite GABARI confirms on his bike
Some say the Moroccan biker Harite GABARI is a pretender to victory in the bike category for the SONANGOL AFRICA ECO RACE. We had to see him in action to confirm. This second stage was quite difficult so the test was ideal and all we can say is that the YAMAHA biker confirmed. He didn’t only win the stage 2,38 min in front of Michael PISANOs HONDA, he even also helped him out : “I stopped when I saw Micka trying to repair his fuel tank. I helped him out for about ten minutes than his machine restarted and continued my stage to the end. I happy to see how my year has started.''
PISANO confirmed he received help from two participant: “ Today I got help from two participants, first one was Harite, who helped me out with my fuel tank. And then Jean Louis SCHLESSER helped me out to find my way back, when I saw him I was just about to do an error. I want to thank both of them.”
A nice performance from Martin FONTYN, 3rd today and last year's winner and Dominique ROBIN 4th today just a minute behind the Belgian biker. On the other hand, it was a bad day for Nobert DUBOIS who lost 9 minutes by getting lost. The Frenchman is now 7th, but as he says: “ the race is still long”.
Thursday January 2nd, The SONANGOL AFRICA ECO RACE will continue towards southern Morocco as the bivouac will be in ASSA, after a stage of 404km of which 387 of selective Sector.
