Tubus Racing

Tight, twisty and fun is the way the Isuzu rally team has described the penultimate stage of the 2009 Dakar Rally being run in South America.

The 13th stage that wound across the hills between La Rioja and Cordoba is a world rally championship stage. It wasn't part of the original plan, but torrential rain made some of the initial route impassable and organisers slashed it by more than half, from 545km to 220km.

With one day remaining, Australians Bruce Garland and Harry Suzuki and their Isuzu D-MAX ute finished as 10th quickest on the stage; their Swedish teammates Pelle Wallentheim and Olle Ohlsson as 23rd fastest.

"Only about 25 cars did the whole of yesterday's stage [Stage 12], which even the Dakar regulars are saying is out-and-out the hardest they have ever done," says Garland.

"We did every bit of it and I can only describe it as an absolute ball-buster, and I'm just blown away by how the car managed it because the conditions were extraordinary.

"So, after we got through, the organisers neutralised the stage and gave the rest of the field a derived [average] time plus two hours and there are about four crews still listed in the top 20, even though they didn't do the entire stage.

"So those of us who did the whole stage and who have driven every single kilometre of the event, are saying that we are the ones being penalised. It's not a matter of sour grapes. It's about being consistent with penalties and if you've driven every kilometre, that should be acknowledged in the results.

"Sure, if we succeed, Harry and I will be further ahead, but that's not what it's about. There are a number of us who have done every bit of the event and we all believe the organisers are being inconsistent with the penalties so we asked for this meeting so things can be clarified and - hopefully - rectified."  

For teammate Pelle Wallentheim, the feeling at the end of the stage was one of relief. It had been a good day, after a series of good-day-bad-day runs.

"It was a fun stage and we really enjoyed it, although we did have to eat dust for quite a long time. We were following this one car for 70km and he would not let us pass. He was slower than us, but we didn't want to take any risks after all the team's hard work.

"We needed to replace an engine last night because we had a big crash landing on Stage 12 and broke the engine and the team worked all night. They only finished an hour before we had to start and they did such a great job, so we couldn't take any risks after what they had done.

"But, you know, this rally has been one good day and one bad day for us, all the way through, so we hope we will have two good days now, and have a good day running into Buenos Aires - and then we will stand in the shower for a very long time and have a big sleep! I think both Bruce and I are feeling very, very tired now, because it has been a huge rally."

At the top end there were some different names on the leader board, as far as today's stage was concerned. Nani Roma (Mitsubishi) took the stage win, ahead of Krzysztof Holowczyc (Nissan) and Guerlain Chicherit (BMW).

But in outright terms, the VW Touareg duo of Giniel De Villiers and Mark Miller remain in the top two places with one day remaining, with Robbie Gordon and his Hummer in third.

De Villiers has the advantage by two minutes and 20 seconds, with Gordon nearly 90 minutes behind, so it seems fair to assume that one or the other VW driver will win their first Dakar when the event ends in Buenos Aires tomorrow.

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 rally organisers, hence the move to South America.

When it ends tomorrow, the new event will have taken competitors 9500km (including 5600km of special stages) from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso in Chile and back, via the Andes Mountains and the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth. The event has travelled 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).

Their results so far:

Stage One:    Garland/Suzuki 51st O/R; Wallentheim/Ohlsson 67th O/R

Stage 13:       Garland/Suzuki 13th O/R; Wallentheim/Ohlsson 44th O/R

Stage 14: Cordoba to Buenos Aires. Total distance: 792km; special stage: 227km.