| A successful start to the Dakar for Isuzu team |
| Skrivet av Redaktionen | |
| 2009-01-04 | |
 Första dagen av Dakar 2009 blev lyckad för Pelle & Olle Australia'Bruce Garland and Harry Suzuki have finished 51st of the 157 startersin their class at the end of Day One of the 2009 Dakar Rally inArgentina. Their time of3hr 20min 02sec for the 371km special stage brought them into SantaRosa around 44 minutes behind the leaders. They had started in 62nd place. Swedish teammates Pelle Wallentheim and Olle Ohlsson finished the day in 67th place, having started at 147th. A total of 539 teams from 49 countries were to have contested the event, initially including 188 ‘cars', which is the division the two Garland-built Isuzu D-Max utes are entered in, but last-minute withdrawals whittled the number back. The field was also reduced during the first day of competition. "It was unbelievably dusty," says Garland. "We just ate dust for miles and miles. So many people doing this event don't know how to pass in the dust, so we would come up behind a car and find it was part of a convoy. So then you would have to find a way around the convoy, which could take ages. You just have to be patient and wait your chance and then take a big gulp of brave and do it. "We passed about 12 cars and I think Pelle passed about 32. We knew we would be faster than a lot of them, so we're hoping to be re-seeded within the next day or so. "We know we have another day with these sorts of conditions and then it should get more open and more interesting." Garland says the reception from the Argentinians has been an amazing experience. "The ceremonial start was beyond belief. The news here was reporting around a million people in Buenos Aires to see us, but even if that's exaggerated, half a million wouldn't be. It was incredible. "We had to do a six-kilometre loop around the city and it was supposed to take one and a half hours, but it ended up taking around three and a half. They're so excited by it all. They reckon it's the biggest thing to hit the country since the World Cup back in the Seventies. "And even out on the route today. For the last 150km through all these farms, there were crowds lined up at the side of the road, and everywhere there was a corner, there would be thousands of people with cameras and they're all going nuts as you come through. I've just never seen anything like it and it really is quite amazing to be part of it." Nasser Al-Attiyah, driving a BMW, won the opening stage of the Rally as defending champions Mitsubishi struggled. The reigning world rally raid champion dominated the special stage with a winning time of 2hr 36min 15sec. Originally known as the Paris-Dakar, the Dakar Rally has been staged in Africa since 1978, but last year's event was cancelled on the eve of the start after terrorists killed seven people in the area and made direct threats to the organisers of the rally, hence the move to South America. The new event will take competitors 9500km (including 5600km of special stages) from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso in Chile and back (January 3-17), via the Andes Mountains and the Atacama Desert, said to be the driest place on earth. The event will travel to a height of 4700m, the highest in the rally's 31-year history. Garland/Suzuki and Wallentheim/Ohlsson are driving two Isuzu D-Max utes, hand-built in Garland's Sydney workshop. They put out 160kW of power (up 33 per cent on the standard vehicle) and 500Nm of torque (@2000rpm; up 39 per cent). Stage 2: Sunday, January 4 (results, January 5) Competition (special stage) = 237km; Total distance: 837km. The longest stage of the rally will not necessarily be the most difficult. However, it should still be approached with vigilance and, above all, with rally equipment that works. After a rapid first part of the special, there's a foretaste of the sand to come. On the off-roads of this stage, crews will need to pay careful attention to their course. The more distracted will begin to "turn in circles". |
