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Issue #12:January 12, 2023
It is January 11, and in the 2023 Dakar Rally a 114km SS (competition stage) was held between Haradh and Shaybah, after which crews arrived at the highlight of the rally - the “Empty Quarter”, a vast desert area in southeastern Saudi Arabia. The TLC Land Cruiser 300 cars arrived at the finish with the following results: Akira Miura and Laurent Lichtleuchter in car #246 came in 113th place overall in the car category and 1st place in the production car category, and Ronald Basso and Jean-Michel Polato in car #250 came in 120th overall and 2nd in their category. In the cumulative ranking until January 11, car #250 held onto 94th place overall and 1st place in the production car category, while car #246 is in 123rd place overall and 2nd place in their category.
Today, TLC drove a long 467km liaison section to the east from the bivouac in Haradh to the outskirts of Shaybah where they took on a 114km SS in the southern desert. With the ground consisting mostly of soft sand, it wasn’t long before they entered a dune area, and more complex dunes in the middle of the stage. Despite its shorter length, it was an extremely challenging stage. After reaching the finish, a 42km liaison took the teams to Shaybah. Eventually, they arrived at the bivouac surrounded by dunes.
TLC’s Land Cruiser 300 made the most of its legendary driving performance, successfully clearing the difficult dune stage. Car #246 finished the stage without getting stuck and had no punctures. As for car #250, they had to avoid a parked vehicle just after crossing a dune, where they de-beaded a tire (when a tire comes off the rim because tire pressure has been lowered to improve driving performance on dunes), and this caused some delays. Other than that, there were no problems, and both cars made it through for a trouble-free finish.
On January 12-13, a marathon stage is scheduled to take place on a loop course starting in Shaybah, where participants will not be able to receive maintenance or replacement parts from the mechanics for two consecutive days. The large loop stage will take teams around the Empty Quarter and on the evening of January 12, crews will need to perform inspection and maintenance in the absence of mechanics in the marathon bivouac. Only the use of spare tires and parts already on the cars is permitted, making this a difficult stage where the crew will need to drive quickly without breaking their cars.
Miura (Driver): I could feel how easy it is to drive the Land Cruiser 300 on today’s SS, and we got through the dunes without getting stuck. We set our tire pressure low, but we had no punctures or tire de-beads, and it felt great getting to the finish.
Basso (Driver): I had to heavily turn the steering wheel to avoid a parked car just after getting over a dune peak, resulting in a tire de-bead. It took us some time to replace the tire and get out, but apart from that we had no problems. It was a grueling SS with endless chains of sand dunes.