STAGE: 440km Liaison TIWILIT / ASSI LOUBBOU: 16km Special Stage ASSI LOUBBOU / TIWILIT: 414km Transfert bivouac: 9km
Last night, at the bivouac of Tiwilit, a small Mauritanian village located at about 100km from Nouakchott, René METGE announced this 8th stage as one of the biggest on this AFRICA ECO RACE edition.
Once again, the sporting director was right as even if the first fifteen cars and the first seven bikes did not have many issues, ithis was not so for the rest of the competitors. Pal Anders ULLEVALSETER on motorcycle and Vladimir VASILYEV in Auto were victorious while in the truck category the 1st place went to Jaroslav VALTR.
Pal Anders ULLEVALSETER waited impatiently for the great Mauritanian open spaces to stage a come back in the overall standings, and won the stage. Gev SELLA, his most serious opponent for the final victory finished only 2'30 '' after the two time winner of the event.Behind the two leaders of the Rally on two wheels, Paolo CECI finished at 12'46 '' but remains 2nd place overall.
Once the first three bikes arrived, it took exactly one hour to see the next biker passed the finish line. More precisely, they were two since Jan ZATKO, a glorious veteran of 61 years, faithful of the AFRICA ECO RACE and 4th of the day, was accompanied by his Slovak compatriot Martin BENKO.
A dozen minutes later, Guillaume MARTENS crossed the line, followed closely by the Russian Aleksandr MAKSIMOV and his quad.
Stefano PELLONI, Laurent WEIBEL and Jean GOSSELIN complete the top 10 and finish within two hours of the leader.
Harite GABARI, 4th this morning before the start will not see Lake Rose since he broke the engine of his KTM at km 50 on the stage.
Overall, Gev SELLA is still the leader, 38'54'' ahead of Paolo CECI and 49'47 '' ahead of ULLEVALSETER.
During his interview on the finish of stage 6, Vladimir VASILYEV declared that he was on vacation, between the last Moroccan stage, the rest day and the first Mauritanian selective stage. It seems that the holidays ended today for the Russian who had to work to win the special stage, ten tiny seconds, or 251 meters if a rule of 3 is applied ahead of Thierry MAGNALDI. A tiny gap after 414 km of sandy tracks, camel grass, dunes.IKazakhstan’s Andrey CHEREDNIKOV, was 3rd at 7'28'' at the wheel of his FORD Raptor, a little less than 5 minutes before the BMW of the Russian Victor KHOROSHAVTSEV, while Dominique HOUSIEAUX, despite bronchitis, places the OPTIMUS in 5th position at 16 minutes.
Jaroslav VALTR is ranked 6th among the fastest cars and like Mathieu SERRADORI 7th suffered from two punctures. Miroslav ZAPLETAL finished 8th.
From 9th to 12th place, we find the four OPTIMUS Buggies of David GERARD, Guillaume GOMEZ, Jean Noël JULIEN and Pascal THOMASSE.
Gerald MOGNIER and his Buggy where also present as they entered the top 20, just ahead of the "small" SSV POLARIS of Frédéric PITOUT which is formidably efficient on this type of landscape.
Overall, Thierry MAGNALDI received a penalty of 10 hours for the missed CPs and the replacement of his Buggy engine, it is now Andrey CHEREDNIKOV who’s in 2nd place, 1h40'35 '' behind the MINI of Vladimir VASILYEV. In third place, we find Pascal THOMASSE, followed very closely by Dominique HOUSIEAUX, himself under pressure by the KAMAZ of Andrey KARGIMOV. Reminder, the AFRICA ECO RACE is the only Offroad Rally where auto and truck are ranked together.
Talk of the desert monsters, since the beginning of the event, Jaroslav VALTR shows a lot of skill on the track at the wheel of his TATRA and finished over 18 minutes in front of the TATRA of Tomas TOMECEK and more than 20 minutes in front of the KAMAZ of Andrey KARGIMOV. Even if KARGIMOV is not really under pressure in the overall ranking, he will have to be attentive to the two TATRAs of VALTR and TOMECEK, respectively 2nd and 3rd.
Tuesday, January 10th, 2017, the AFRICA ECO RACE is heading east, to Azougui, not far from Atar. A long stage of 425 kilometers which should however allow everyone to relax a bit before starting the second hard part of this Mauritanian week.
