The ninth stage with the descent before finish brought us the fifth place
After the Monday's eighth stage, in which had Ales Loprais blessing in disguise, because last ten kilometres he ran with a damaged cooler, yesterday gave all participants of the Dakar really hard adventure the finish of the ninth stage. Three kilometre long descent to the most northern place of this Dakar - Iquique, where the 422 km long special stage finished, offered a unique experience. The Russian rivals from Kamaz Sotnikov and Nikolajev fought there for the third place. At the last point lost Nikolajev a minute and a quarter, but in the finish lost Sotnikov a second!
Ales Loprais with the Queen 69 held the strong Kamaz as he could for the whole stage. The predominance of the wealthy Kamaz was showed again. Ales Loprais finished on the fifth place 11 minutes after the fourth Sotnikov from Kamaz. He lost 40 minutes to the winning Karginov from Kamaz. Karginov won the second stage in a row and for the third time overall and the lost to the former leader of the truck category de Rooy reduced to only 13 and a half minutes. Ales Loprais is on the fifth place in the overall ranking, two hours and nine minutes after de Rooy. In front of him there is still a Kamaz trio - Karginov, Nikolajev and Sotnikov. But nothing is lost, the chances of podium are still alive! The second team crew of Jan Tomanek went yesterday well too. Tatra number 519 finished as the second best Czech on the 15th place with the loss of an hour and a half. In the overall ranking they are on the 16th place.
By the looking to the results of the other categories is necessary to appreciate the efforts of a biker David Pabiska. He changed a team and a bike and he is doing very well with the KTM machine. In the Moto SP Team he has a colleague Stefan Svitka. He was yesterday on the fourth place. David Pabiska finished on the 27th place. After two stages he returned to the 19th place in the overall ranking and he goes his best Dakar - he was the best so far in 2010 on the 26th place.
10th stage: Iquique - Antofagasta
The connecting sections: 58 km / The special stage: 631 km
The special stage, split into two sections with very different features, will begin with the descent towards the shores of the Pacific. The advance gained in the stage the day before may will be increased in the sand during the first two hundred kilometres. Even more skill will be required to tackle the sections of fesh-fesh in the second part of the stage. It wouldn't be the Dakar without fesh-fesh! Finger crossed, let's all do it!
Have a nice Wednesday and we believe, that our crews 504 and 519 will get everywhere as fesh-fesh. Please, keep your finger crossed in this fine rough fight.
