The Fiambala Desert SS Is Canceled due to Flooding

Contestants Leave SS Route and Head for Fiambala.
Car 1 Is Back on Track with a New Radiator.

Dakar Rally 2013 is finally in its showdown stages. The three days starting January 16 will pose contestants with the last days of challenges in this race. The course for this day was to take the teams from La Rioja to Fiambala, both in Argentina. En route, following a 256km liaison, a 219km SS was set in the Fiambala Desert. Fiambala is situated on a highland at an elevation of about 1500m at the foothills of the Andes Mountains. The soft white sand in the area creates considerable driving resistance, and tends to slow vehicles down. In addition to this, there is always the risk of getting stuck, as well as the risk of overheating as temperatures in the area can often top 40ºC. Contestants were to race counterclockwise on a circular SS that featured many sand dunes in the foothills of northern Fiambala.

However, due to the rain that fell the previous day, dry river beds were now transformed into rivers and several points along the route were flooded. This forced the organizers to cancel competitions for the Cars and Trucks categories. As most vehicles had already started, officials on site at various points along the route notified contestants of the cancelation, after which the vehicles were re-routed to paved roads and headed for the bivouac in Fiambala. Meanwhile, because some of the vehicles had already passed checkpoint 1 (CP1), it was decided that the results for the day would be defined as the time the vehicles passed CP1. Vehicles that have not yet passed the checkpoint were all clocked at the same time as the last vehicle to pass the checkpoint before cancelation was announced. Both of HINO TEAM SUGAWARA's HINO 500 Series trucks were stopped before reaching CP1, so the rankings for Car 2 and Car 1 in this stage were 16th and 52nd overall, respectively (both trucks being clocked at the same time). This brings the accumulated rankings for Car 2 and Car 1 to 19th and 31st overall, respectively. (Accumulated rankings in the Under 10-litre class for neither truck was known as of this writing.)

Tomorrow, contestants will be crossing the Andes again into Chile, where they are expected to face another stage of challenging sand dunes near Copiapo at the center of the Atacama Desert.

Yoshimasa Sugawara: On the 15th, we got stuck in a huge traffic jam in a narrow spot while a vehicle ahead of us was pulling out another vehicle that had driven off course, and we lost about 30 minutes. The problem with rising water temperature has gotten much better, but we had our radiator replaced with a new one last night. That made a huge difference to the point that we even thought the engine was going to overcool on the liaison leading up to the SS today. We were stopped about 3km into the SS so I can't tell you much, but it seems to be doing well so we are excited about the SS in Copiapo.

Teruhito Sugawara: It was raining while we were driving down the liaison, and once we started, we noticed water flowing in what had been a dry river bed in previous years. The course in Fiambala this year featured some areas that we have not been to in the past and were quite challenging. I was disappointed to hear that it had been canceled because this would have been a great opportunity for us to improve our position.

*Rankings at the time of this writing may be adjusted afterwards.

For the latest rankings, please visit the official site.

Stage ranking
https://www.dakar.com/dakar/2013/us/stage-11/rankings/stage-trucks.html#ancre

Overall ranking
https://www.dakar.com/dakar/2013/us/stage-11/rankings/overall-trucks.html#ancre

ROUTE MAP

PHOTOS

*The HINO vehicle referred in this news in relation to the rally is specially designed, tuned and modified for the Dakar Rally, and most of its specifications are different from those of the HINO vehicles sold in the market unless otherwise specifically mentioned.