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Issue #4:January 6, 2022
Stage 3 of the rally took place on Tuesday January 4 with a loop course starting in Saudi Arabia’s Al Qaisumah. For the two TLC Toyota Land Cruiser 200 cars, Akira Miura (Toyota Auto Body staff) and Laurent Lichtleuchter in car #242 came in 59th place overall in the car category and 1st place in the production car category. Ronald Basso and Jean-Michel Polato in car #245 came in 65th place overall while reaching the finish in 2nd place in the production car category. As of January 4th, car #242 ranks two spots higher at 48th in the cumulative car category ranking and 1st place in the production car category, while car #245 jumped four places in the overall cumulative ranking and held onto 2nd place in the category.
Flooding at the originally planned bivouac in Al Artawiya made it unusable, so the organizers quickly changed the bivouac for January 3 to Al Qaisumah for today’s route. As a result, a route using the second half of the original SS (competition stage) with a finish in Al Qaisumah was set up.
Just like the previous day, the terrain consisted of high-speed sand tracks and repetitious sand dunes, and to top it off, some massive complex dunes made an appearance at the 168 km mark.
At the start of the stage, TLC car #242 got stuck in the dunes. The team quickly managed to get out, but they needed some time to find the traction board that got buried in the sand. Afterwards, they punctured a rear left tire, but apart from that they made a trouble-free finish. Jumping up in the cumulative ranking they held onto the lead position in the production car category.
Car #245 was also having a smooth run when something started making noise at the front left wheel with only 50 km to go. Using the onboard spare, they made some replacements and returned to the rally after about 30 minutes of work. Apart from that, the stage was cleared without any punctures and without getting stuck.
On Wednesday January 5, the longest SS of the rally will be held (465 km). After completing the stage, participants will be arriving at the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh.
Miura (driver): After getting a little stuck at the start we experienced our first puncture in the rally.
With longer stages coming up in the rally, we tried maintaining our speed without raising our engine RPM too much to improve fuel efficiency, and we got a good feel of things. Also, we’ve been hearing about tomorrow’s stage – it’s not just long, it’s quite tough, so we want to remain vigilant.
Basso (driver): It wasn’t a very difficult stage. We made it towards the end without any punctures and we didn’t even get stuck, but when we had 50 km remaining, we heard a noise coming from the front left wheel. I don’t think we hit any rocks or anything, but we quickly replaced parts and continued on with the rally.