Stage Six Race Analysis

January 10, 2007

by Ryan Arciero

Stage 5 went a little bit better for Mark then yesterdays stage but nonetheless he had some work to do today both inside and outside the driver’s seat. Three flat tires today cost Mark the chance at a higher finish on today stage and a possible chance at moving up the overall leader board, but regardless he still did a great job

By the audio updates you were able to hear that today’s stage was really hard on tire wear and the terrain composition made it very susceptible to getting punctures. There are sometimes when you get flats that you know you deserve and you hit one particular rock and you squint your eyes and say to yourself as you hit that rock, “oh crap, we just got a flat,” and there are other times when you are in a groove and everything is going great and you know you have made every effort and have been successful at avoiding all the big rocks that can cause flats and then BOOM, flat tire. You then say to yourself and your navigator, “how did we get that flat, there is absolutely nothing around us that could have caused that.” Those types of flat tires I can tell you are the most annoying. You can live with the ones you made the mistakes on hitting, but it really pisses you off when you get them and you have no idea how you got them. That is what happened to Mark today. He really did nothing wrong in the drivers seat, it was just a little bad luck.

Mark still sits in tenth overall but was able to eat away a little bit on the ninth position. He finished eight on today’s stage only seven and a half minutes back from Carlos’ winning stage time. Not bad for having three punctures and cruising the last part of the stage.

Tomorrow they will be hitting the longest stage of the rally at 817 total km. Tomorrow’s special is a tad bit longer than today’s was but expect the going to get a little tougher for everyone tomorrow. They will have a 414km liaison just to get to the start of the special, so they are going to have an early start tomorrow morning. Expect more dune crossing and camel grass on this stage to Zouerat.

Tomorrow Mark is going to have to pick up the pace and drive somewhat aggressive in order to eat away at more of the time gap to the leaders. If Mark and his navigator are on their game, they just might be able to do that. I still see no reason for team orders as of yet, especially since Ari is still a ways back in the overall and he will start behind all of them anyways. My hope is that they let Mark run as fast of a pace as he can and keep our fingers crossed he cleans it with very little issues and he will find himself up more positions in the overall. I also wouldn’t be surprised if there was a shuffle in the top ten after tomorrow’s stage.

Ten more stages to go, so a lot of racing still ahead for everyone and more importantly for Mark, a lot of time to be gained from here to Dakar.