January 15, 2009: One of the shortest specials, but perhaps the toughest and the most beautiful one, the stage from Fiambala to La Rioja boosts Ales Loprais to 7th place overall.
The windy morning in Fiambala almost threatened by another stage cancellation because of sand and dust storm sweeping through the bivouac. The organizers eventually decided to run the stage in the announced extent and rightly so. It was perhaps the most technical and varied stage in the whole rally: rocky vadis, some fast tracks full of rocks, dunes with high slopes and especially the guadal, an extremely soft, powderly sand reminding of cement. "I have driven a lot in Africa but I have never seen such a kind of sand. In Africa, you can recognize the fesh-fesh by looking. Here this is something totally different, the vehicle on such a sand behaves also differently. We had to deflate tires down to 0.6 bras," mechanic of the racing vehicle Milan Holan adds.
It was a promising start to the special as Ales Loprais placed in the forefront of the rakings both at CP1 and CP2, with only a minimum gap behind the leading trio of Kamaz trucks and Gerard de Rooy. The final third of the special, however, was not the lucky one: "Three punctures are too many, they cost us too much time. Replacing a wheel in soft dunes is not much fun but we made it in twenty minutes. In the meantime, all major rivals had caught us up and we had to compete one-against-one again. The last puncture we managed to regulate through the central inflation system and fortunately the tire could hold it," pilot Ales Loprais says. Although he took a decent 7th place in the stage his average speed was only slightly above 30 kph. Not something to be seen too often at the Dakar, even in the truck category.
"I am glad we could inflate the last puncture from the cab and saved the workout with the wheel replacement. It was a beautiful and amazingly technical stage but it was extraordinarily, really very difficult," navigator Vojta Stajf adds.
The organizers are trying to push the rally to Buenos Aires at every cost. Also the next special to Cordoba was shortened, even by 354 kms! The last stage with an original proposed distance run was stage 2, so unlucky for Ales Loprais. The situation on top of the rankings in both car and truck categories remains more than intricate, with only minimum time gaps of the leading couples. The dramatic finale of the truck category will most probably be played by the duo of leading Kamaz drivers, Chagin and Kabirov. The rally lost its greatest favorite in the cars, Carlos Sainz, after a heavy crash.
