The day before the scheduled rest day, the Dakar caravan has reached Bobo Dioulasso, in the heart of Burkina Faso. This second transition day has allowed the competitors to regroup before returning to the normal running of this 26th Dakar.
As far as the Nissan Rally Raid Team is concerned, the ‘adventures’ of the two Pickup vehicles stranded in the Mauritanian sands is continuing. The assistance truck reached Ari Vatanen and Colin McRae in the early hours of the morning, to start repairing the two vehicles. A race against the clock began, to allow the two Pickups to reach Bobo Dioulasso.
At 11 :00 this morning, after hours of uninterrupted work, the two cars were able to get underway, in order to cover the 350 km that separated them from the finish line.
At the end of the afternoon, Colin McRae arrived at Nema…having spent three days and two nights in that cursed sector. He is now on the liaison sector, with nearly 1 500 km of roads to cover before reaching Bobo, via Bamako, where he has to clock in before 18:00 tomorrow. The Scottish driver must succeed, if he wishes to present himself at the start line for the next stage, on Tuesday morning.
At the bivouac, where many guests have joined the caravan for the rest day, everyone is waiting to see the Nissan Pickup turn up. Above and beyond the sheer sporting exploit, everyone is applauding the willingness and the determination of the Champion.
Ari Vatanen also started off around 11 :00, heading for Nema. But Ari had to stop again, at the 644 km point (the special stage is 736 km long), with a broken gearbox. Fate seems to be against the four-times Dakar winner but, like his team-mate, he is showing boundless motivation. The assistance truck, which closes the route, will have to come to the assistance of the Finnish team once more, and we hope to have more news of them at any moment.
Giniel de Villiers and Yoshio Ikemachi reached Bobo without problems, and are using the free day to spend time with their guests.
Tomorrow, we would wage that the there will be good news concerning our two drivers, who have started a veritable marathon to rejoin the race ….
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