Across the Andes into Chile
Car 2 smoothly finishes SS in the Atacama Desert. Comes in at 20th overall.
Car 1 is also in great shape en route to the finish line.

On January 7, Dakar Rally 2015 took the contestants across the Andes Mountains into Chile, for the year’s first SS in the Atacama Desert. The racing vehicles left the bivouac in Chilecito early in the morning and headed for the Andes on a long 594km liaison route. After making their border crossing at Paso de San Francisco (San Francisco Pass), which was situated in 4,800m highlands, contestants drove down to an elevation of 2,500m, still well in the mountain range, where they began their 174km SS. The Trucks category’s route branched off from that of other categories at the 26km point for a 140km shortcut, and merged again 100km before the finish line, meeting contestants with a succession of dunes in the last 40 kilometers. This route, which has become one of the staples of the Dakar Rally, takes contestants over numerous sand hills to the finish line near the bivouac in Copiapo. And again, the course proved to be as challenging as in previous years, if not more so.

HINO TEAM SUGAWARA’s two HINO500 Series trucks had a great race again this day. The Teruhito Sugawara and Hiroyuki Sugiura crew on Car 2 were the 25th to start, and finished at 20th overall and 1st place in the Under 10-litre Class. While Car 1 crewed by Yoshimasa Sugawara, Yoko Wakabayashi, and Katsumi Hamura has yet to arrive as of this writing at 9:30pm, they have passed the final checkpoint at 27th place for the SS, and we are expecting them to arrive at any moment.

Copiapo, which is situated on a plateau surrounded by sand dunes, is located near the center of the Atacama Desert, and has served as a bivouac location since the Dakar Rally relocated to South America in 2009. Although it can get quite chilly after sunset due to its 500m elevation, the scenes here are reminiscent of North Africa, making this bivouac a perfect setting for the Dakar Rally.

Teruhito Sugawara: The area we raced today was exactly the same area that we have raced in previous years. We had a problem with our engine where it would intermittently lose its power so we were somewhat short on power on the dunes, but the suspensions performed really well on the sand.

Hiroyuki Sugiura: The route was set like a huge roundabout so there were quite a few navigating instructions that almost seemed to tell us to head back, which made things a bit more complicated than usual.

* 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.

Photos

Route Map