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Issue #7:January 9, 2022
On January 7, teams competed on a loop course starting from Riyadh, covering a distance of 347.57 km. The TLC Land Cruiser 200 cars in the rally reached the finish, with Akira Miura (Toyota Auto Body staff) and Laurent Lichtleuchter in car #242 coming in at 47th place overall and 1st in the production car category, while Ronald Basso and Jean-Michel Polato in car #245 ranked 49th overall and 2nd in the category. This brings the TLC cumulative ranking for car #242 to 41st place overall and 1st in the production car category, and for car #245, 45th place overall and 2nd in the category. The first half of the 2022 Dakar is over, with both cars keeping their one-two formation.
Over the past two days, bikes and quads took one course while cars and trucks took the other, swapping courses on the second day. Today was the second day of this setup and it was time for the cars and trucks to take the course in the east. Teams moved to the start from the bivouac in Riyadh with an 88.51 km liaison. The terrain on today’s SS was similar to the previous day’s, with wide open spaces that give way to higher speeds, but the many tracks made it difficult to navigate through the start of the section. After making it through the rocks on mountainous terrain, they returned to wide open areas of flat sand. On the last 40 km, they crossed over some highly technical dunes to reach the finish. Rain had turned the wadi (dry riverbeds) into sludge, hiding some of the tracks and forcing teams to pay extra attention to the CAP (compass directions) in their roadbooks. After reaching the finish, they returned to the bivouac with a 127.66 km liaison.
Both TLC cars maintained strong focus to cover this SS. In the beginning of the stage, the electronic roadbook device in car #242 suffered a breakdown so a sudden changeover to the emergency paper roadbook was required. After that, they discovered some damage on the front left tire and were extra careful to avoid a puncture as they continued. On top of that, towards the end of the stage they noticed some trouble with the steering getting gradually heavier, but they managed to safely make it to the finish without any punctures or getting stuck.
As for car #245, they burst their front left tire while crossing over some rocks among fesh-fesh. After that, they also punctured their rear left tire. This left them with only one spare tire, but they kept their pace in check and made it to the finish without a puncture.
Tomorrow the 8th of January marks the middle of the rally. There won’t be any racing, but the cars will be completely refreshed to take on the second half of the rally from the 9th. As soon as the cars arrived, the mechanics quickly started inspecting the vehicles.
Miura (driver): Today started off with Laurent’s tablet breaking down. Then, during the neutral zone on the way (where a 20-minute rest is mandatory), we discovered some damage on the front left tire. We were driving with extra care after that, but then at the end we had some issues with heavy steering.
Basso (driver): With lots of headwinds today there was a lot of dust. We had two punctures, but apart from we only bent our front bumper a little on the dunes. It was a good day without any major problems. There won’t be any racing tomorrow, so we’ll be using our time to refresh and prepare for the second half of the rally.