‘We kept our lead in the overal ranking,’ says Nasser Al-Attiyah with a smile, so even though he lost time to todays winner Yazeed Al Rajhi he still has two days to secure or loose his first position in the Pharaons. Erik van Loon finishes as third, a great result after two bad days: ‘Finally we managed to beat Vasilyev!’
The third stage of the Pharaons Rally took the competitors through Farafa over long and fast tracks. ‘We also had some offroad sections and a lot of CAP headings,’ says Wouter Rosegaar, who navigated Erik van Loon to the third place in the T1 category. ’This was full roadbook navigation, nothing else could help you.’ The young navigator is famous for his fast and precise work, which helped them on this difficult day. ‘I was a bit unsure about one roadbook change, where they changed the distance of a crossing. At first I could not see it and the others were looking, so I decided to keep going. It was luck, we found the point right away!’ Erik van Loon is delighted with the result. ’It took us two days to get back to this level, perhaps we have underestimated the effect of the crash in Qatar. It’s the step-ups that I still find difficult. If I brake and push the throttle at the right time we just fly over them, but if I miss it we land on the nose.’
‘I hope I can reach the top ten this year,’ says Balazs Szalay. In 2002 he won the Pharaons Rally with his fast Opel Antara, but times have changed. ‘The speed has gone up! When I won the Pharaons Mitsubishi and Citroen dominated the cross country competition, together with Jean Louis Schlesser. Even with a fast car like we have, all you can hope for is a 7th of 8th place behind Mini and Overdrive.’ Balazs estimates that he uses 25% of the power of the car. ‘Carlos Sainz might be able to use 40%, but that kind of driving would kill me,’ he grins. ‘In the Pharaons Rally it is difficult to be fast, but if your aim is to reach the finish line it is one of the most accessible cross country rallys in the Worldcup. We hit the dunes with 1,8 bar in the tyres, can you imagine that? The only reason we stopped today is to call for assistance for Quadrider 106. He was airlifted and is doing fine, luckily.’
El Balooshi, Piatek and Salvatierra continue their battle for the Pharaons Rally on the bike, with some confusion today as the FIM neutralised a part of the stage because of a problem with a waypoint. El Balooshi managed to win and claims the first position in the bike ranking. Behind the fast bikes many adventures happen, as the bikers try to reach the finish each day and deal with the challenges they face. ‘It was not my day!’ shouts Stefano Chuissi as he arrives at the finish. ‘I went through the dunes without clutch today, it was horrible but I made it!’ His good friend Alvis Lecis has a similar experience as he ruins his roadbookholder in a crash. ‘I had to turn the roadbook by hand, very oldskool in my first rallyraid. But this is an incredible area for a race, the colors and the beauty of the place are overwhelming!’
Tomas Tomecek is responsible for the Camion Balai, the sweeper truck, bringing two Tatras to Egypt to do the work. ‘We pick up the broken vehicles and bring them to the bivouac. Here the competitors are airlifted, they go with the helicopter. So we are alone on the track and work in the afternoon and evening to collect the cars and bikes.’ Tomas is a legendary truck driver, winning his first Dakar as codriver of Karel Loprais and winning the Africa Eco Race several times with the famous orange Tatra 815 4×4 truck. ‘It is quite a change from racing to the Balai,’ grins Ladislav, Tomas’ codriver in the Balai. ‘Luckily not too much accidents happen, but some days are filled with action. Yesterday we drove through dunes where no one had been before, on our way to the Cherokee of Ahmed Barakat. After 16 hours in the desert we brought his car and several bikes back to the camp. It is much harder than racing, but rewarding work.’
Ahmed Barakat and Amira Bahaa had their car brought in by Tomas, and are the friendly ‘racing couple’, one of the Egyptian cars in the Pharaons Rally. ‘We reached the last dunes,’ says Ahmed, explaining what happened. ‘At least I thought they were the last, as we could already see the rocks. Clearly I was wrong, we landed on the nose of the car and rolled it.’ The experienced couple knows the desert but has little racing experience. ‘We push more in the race,’ says Amira. ‘And now I understand all the security features much better, I have never really thought about them. When we were hanging upside-down after the crash I thought I was in the wrong place and we had made a false decision in joining the rally. But the organisation did such a good job to help us, it was very encouraging. Also Nasser Al-Attiyah and Yazeed came to see us. Nasser laughed and said there was a first time for everything, this helped me a lot!’
A major setback for the Pharaons Rally is the discovery several weeks ago of an historical site in the area of tomorrows special stage. ‘We will drive the second stage again tomorrow,’ explains race director Stephane Henrard. Having prior knowledge of the stage will change the playing field for many of the faster teams in this edition of the Pharaons Rally. There are two days left until the rally reaches Caïro!