TODAY WAS a fast and friendly stage through the mountains, allowing the competitors to recuperate after the heat they had yesterday. With the emotions from yesterday still very alive the teams were happy todays roadbook was much easier. ‘It is not a bad thing to have a difficult stage,’ Organiser Abdelhamid Abouyoussef said. ‘There has to be a real challenge, this stage will be remembered.’
Juan Carlos Salvatierra, current leader of the bikes needs all his attention for the roadbook. ‘Opening the stage is special for me, I have to work hard to navigate correctly as there is no one in front of me.’ Sometimes the tracks of the organizer are visible and provide a little reassurance. ‘Sometimes it helps, but on the first stage I made a mistake by following them too much and I had to go back to find the waypoint.’
The bikers have to work hard in rallyraid, navigating and riding at the same time. ‘My goal is to be faster, even with difficult navigation,’ Juan Carlos explains. ‘It can be challenging but I had a good lead on number two so today I could take more time for the most difficult situations. Today we had 100 km on cap (compass heading, red.) and I arrived only 600m. from the waypoint I had to find!’
Loves the rocks
Domenico Cipollone loves the rocks and the mountains so today he was happy. ‘Also I managed to overtake several others and that is a very good feeling!’ After the 300 kilometer of special stage today he sits in the shade to relax a bit. A blue eye is a memory of a crash earlier in the race, but his spirit is alive. ‘Imagine riding the dunes, going over them at great speed. It was fantastic today!’
‘I was racing at 130 km/h when my bike lost it’s power,’ Stefano Chiussi says. ‘First I went from 130 to 100, than even slower, switching gears to keep some speed.. I thought the engine was dying. This is the first time I ride for the podium, and such an important rally so it was very emotional. After I stopped I worked on the bike and in the distance I could hear the others coming. It looked like a problem with the cylinder but in the end it was just the fuel filter.. it was a difficult moment for me!’
The battle amoung the cars is very sharp and today shows anything can happen. Vasilyev in the Mini was extremely fast in the first section of the stage but he had technical problems that cost him almost an hour, landing him on the forth place behind Marek Dabrowski (Overdrive Hilux). ‘We stopped to give him some tools,’ Wouter Rosegaar says, who was happy with the stage today. ‘It is not so difficult here as I expected, expect for the heat which cost us a lot of time yesterday.’
Spent the night in the dunes
Yara Shalaby races her Toyota HDJ80 in team with Tarek El Erian. He lost his good position in the ranking today when he blew the engine of his orange buggy. Tarek has given everything for a good position in the Pharaons Rally but now the team honour is in the hands of Yara Shalaby, the tough female driver. Yara managed to finish yesterdays stage early this morning after a night in the dunes. ‘Yesterday we decided to keep going,’ she says. ‘I don’t give up, we kept going in the dunes untill 01:00h in the night and slept next to the car. My copilot was a real star, we kept each other going but at night you cannot see the dunes, it is very difficult to find a good line. Luckily with the first sun in the morning the sand was hard and we could finish the stage 20 minutes before our start today. I only changed the filters and we went again!’
The blue Isuzu of Adham Mostafa learns to fly this week, reaching over 130km/h on the fast sections. Adham is used to fast cars and learns to deal with specifics of the T2 class quickly. ‘Yesterday was a true adventure for us, we arrived at the dunes only at the lastest time and crossed them in the night. This I will never forget, the two of us trying to get our Isuzu to the finishline and driving the dunes at night!’
Tonight the teams arrived in Baharia, the ancient centre for camel caravans. Egypt is full of special places, oasis and unique terrain and this rally brings the competitors deep into the beauty and the harshness of this country. Tomorrow the Pharaons Rally stays in Baharia for a loop of 315 kilometers, with dunes. ‘Here the quality of the crew will make the difference’, the organizers said at the briefing, announcing a tough stage before the Pharaons Rally heads north again for the finish at the Pyramids.
Check www.pharaonsrally.com for the rankings and be sure to visit www.marathonrally.com and www.world4x4.org for your rallyraid & offroad news!
author: ‘Niels Hatzmann, World4x4.org / Dutch Rally Press