The Pons Rallysport team experienced first-hand, this Thursday, how hard the Dakar can be when things go wrong. A mechanical problem in the sixth special, the first part of the 48-hour time trial, has interrupted the good performance of Eduard Pons and Jaume Betriu in the flagship event of the rally-raid specialty. In their first Dakar together, they occupied a magnificent ninth overall position in the SSV general classification after five stages. Now your goal becomes to move forward and try to complete the race.
The 48-hour time trial is the queen stage of the Dakar, with a route entirely over dunes and chotts (dry lakes) in the Empty Quarter desert. The 547 kilometer special is held over two days, with a half part in one of the seven camps distributed throughout it, where the teams spend the night before resuming the time trial the next day.
Pons and Betriu were looking forward to the challenge with great desire to set their pace and surf the dunes, but the mechanics have decided to clip their wings and turn their race into an odyssey.
It all started at kilometer 100 of the special. “We have had turbo problems. We don't know what happens, but after fighting for five hours and changing a thousand things, it worked again... for 10 kilometers. It is an intermittent problem, because it failed again, it started, it failed again, and so we kept going until we reached the first camp,” explains Pons.
However, the peculiar format of this stage complicates things even more for the Pons Rallysport team, because between the two parts of the time trial they do not have assistance. Therefore, they can only inspect and repair the Can-Am Maverick X3 with their own means. “For now, it's still working,” ventures the pilot from Lleida, crossing his fingers.
But that is not all. Camp “A” (“breakzone” in the organization's jargon) is at kilometer 193 of the special. Pons and Betriu will therefore have to cover another 354 kilometers of dunes when they resume the special this Friday morning. For them, the second part of the 48-hour time trial will be another odyssey, with many hours of driving and navigation ahead, if the mechanics respect them. “We are very late, but we are still in the race,” asserts the veteran rally driver, displaying the pride of a true Dakarian.
Automatic translation of the Spanish version available on www.todoterreno.pt
Source: Pons Rallysport Team´s official press release
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