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Issue #14:January 14, 2023
It is January 13, and it is the second day of the marathon stage. The 185km competition section was held between the Empty Quarter bivouac and Shaybah. Just like yesterday, Akira Miura and Laurent Lichtleuchter in car #246, who made it through the first day in their TLC Land Cruiser 300, drove carefully once again and reached the finish in 113th place overall in the car category and 1st in the production car category. Ronald Basso and Jean-Michel Polato in car #250 finished the stage in 117th place overall and 2nd place in their category and arrived at the bivouac after sunset in Shaybah. With these results, the cumulative ranking for car #250 is 97th overall and 1st in the production car category, with car #246 running 25h 26'
29'' behind in 113th place overall and 2nd in their category. TLC is maintaining their one-two formation in the production car category.
The two consecutive marathon stage days ran without any maintenance or parts supply from the mechanics. The route was set in the Empty Quarter with endless chains of tough sand dunes in the Rub' al Khali desert, turning it into one of the toughest sections in the second half of the rally.
The course on the second day returned to the bivouac in Shaybah, the same area as the first day, with a series of soft sand hills, tall dunes and chotts (salt lakes).
TLC’s car #246 managed to cross the dunes with their tire pressure set as low as possible to increase their driving performance. They may have gotten stuck a couple of times, but they safely cleared the stage. Meanwhile, car #250 ran into some power steering trouble on their way, so they had to drive the next 100km of dunes without power steering. With the sun setting on their way to the finish, they were forced to slow down their pace, but they safely arrived at the finish.
Moving on, they made their way to the bivouac in Shaybah on a 167km liaison. It had been two days since they were there, so the mechanics were eager to see them and they immediately commenced performing inspections and maintenance upon their return. Soon, the 2023 Dakar Rally will be entering its final stages. Tomorrow, on January 14, the route will head north to Al-Hofuf, where a 154km competition stage is scheduled.
Miura (Driver): Today’s dunes were even tougher than yesterday’s. We dropped the tire pressure as far as we could, but climbing was still a challenge. It reminded me of the dunes in Peru. We were hit by a truck in an accident today, but fortunately it wasn’t serious.
Basso (Driver): Yesterday, we broke a belt, and today, it was the power steering – we’ve had a rough couple of days. We had one tire de-bead both yesterday and today, but no punctures.