Team Delta Kunststoffe Husqvarna UK suffers some bad luck in a difficult and dangerous stage three as the race makes it’s way toward the famous city of Nazca.
Stage three proved to be another difficult stage, with big dunes, soft sand and fesh fesh causing many of competitor’s problems over the stage. The seemingly short day of 280km proved to be deceivingly difficult.
Despite the nature of the stage, Simon had another steady day as he rode within himself to take 69th place on the stage. Uncomfortable with a lot of the terrain during the stage Simon elected to take the cautious approach as the stage was littered with hidden holes and steep dunes.
However, Canadian Don Hatton was involved in a freak incident. Working through the difficult sands of the stage Don was involved in an incident with a truck that saw some damage to his bike. The incident appeared to have damaged his gear selector, leaving him with difficulty changing gear. Don struggled on through the difficult riding attempting to nurse his bike to end of the special stage but the selector finally stopped choosing gear just 4km from the end of the special. Despite hours of trying to get out of the sand, his bike stuck in neutral, and attempting to convince the organisers to tow him the last part of the stage Don was forced to retire at 1:00 am local time.
Simon Pavey – “Today was tough again, some of the riding was technical, more so then we have had so far. I wasn’t comfortable to ride fast today at all, I really took my time. I stopped twice for a few minutes to fix a problem with my hydration pack as well and on Dakar stopping for just a few minutes costs you 20 places.
The terrain on the stage was treacherous again today, there were lots of hidden dangers out there and it was the type stage that could easily bite you. I was lucky to be relatively near the front of the race today too, there was a chunk of fesh fesh toward the end of the stage, but when I got there I was still able to pick a clean line and ride on the crust.
Once again my bike felt really good, I’m finding it strange to have a bike that’s so good for racing, it’s much more than I’ve had in rally’s before and because it wants to be raced it can be a little tiring. It’s a new style of Dakar that has developed over the last couple of years; it takes some adjusting to get used too. The rally still hasn’t really begun yet though, we’ve got eleven days left so we’ll just take each day as it comes.”
Stage four of the Dakar is the first long stage of the race, made up of a tough 288km special stage followed by a gruelling 429km liaison to reach the town of Arequipa.
Stage Three Results.
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70. Simon Pavey – 03:26:11
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Don Hatton – Retired
Overall Standings.
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56. Simon Pavey – 07:29:56
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Don Hatton – Retired
