Another Day of Rough Roads in the Chilean Andes
Car 2 climbs up in overall rankings to 23rd. Car 1 has yet arrive but is en route in good shape.

Yesterday, on January 7, Car 1 piloted by Yoshimasa Sugawara, Yoko Wakabayashi, and Katsumi Hamura had not arrived as of the writing of the day’s report. Arriving at the bivouac soon thereafter in good shape, the truck clocked in at 28th in the Trucks category overall and 2nd in the Under 10-litre Class. Although these results brought Car 1’s accumulated standings to 31st in the Trucks category and 2nd in its Class, there was a possibility that they had missed a number of mandatory way points (GPS points) towards the end, which means that their time may be subject to added penalty time.

January 8 took the contestants from Copiapo to Antofagasta. Chile consists of a narrow extent of land with the Pacific Ocean on its west coast and the Andes Mountains to its east. The race for the day was held in the foothills of the Andes. Contestants first headed northward from Copiapo on a 174km liaison route to El Salvador, the starting point for the 458km SS for the day. The course wound through highlands at elevations ranging between 1,000 and 3,000m where the road surfaces consisted not of desert sand but of hard and rough gravel. Contestants also faced areas with fesh-fesh where they had to contend with massive clouds of fine sand particles, as well as rocky terrain on dry riverbeds. This proved to be another day where perseverance was the dominant theme for all teams.

Car 2, the HINO500 Series truck crewed by Teruhito Sugawara and Hiroyuki Sugiura, tackled this SS in great form. The crew delivered a great performance finishing the SS at 23rd overall and top in the Under 10-litre Class, bringing its accumulated rankings to 23rd overall and 1st in the Class. Car 1, which had to start later down the line at 36th due to its performance of the previous day, nonetheless delivered solid performance this day. Reports show that the truck had passed CP3, the last checkpoint, before 10:30pm. The truck has yet to arrive as of this writing at 11:00pm but appears to be en route to the bivouac.

This was the last day on which the Trucks category would have to wait for all vehicles in the Cars category to leave the start before they could, an arrangement that caused delays in the arrival of all trucks. Indeed, it was already around 10:20pm by the time Car 2 arrived at the bivouac in Antofagasta.Starting with the race itinerary to Iquique tomorrow on January 9, the Cars and Trucks categories will be making mixed starts ordered according to their time performance, so we expect to see the Hino trucks arrive at the bivouac earlier in the day.

Teruhito Sugawara: This was a day of rough roads as we had expected. And since these were the types of roads where we previously found our trucks’ performance to be lacking, we were able to get a good feel for the impact that our suspension upgrades have had on performance. In any case, our start times have been definitely too late in the day.

Hiroyuki Sugiura: We were on rough roads all day and I started to notice some noise coming from the cab mounts, so I will be asking the mechanics to take a good look at these. This was another day of perseverance.

Hironaga Hayashi: I took care in setting the lights just right for night driving, but there were a lot of things that I noticed from direct experience. I think I’ve been able to come that much closer to what the driver’s are feeling.

Shunsuke Sugawara: Once in Chile, we’ve had to take our support vehicles on dirt roads as well so that was quite tough. I’m increasingly feeling the punishing nature of the Dakar Rally day by day.

Hiroya Fukuno: We wash our own working clothes. I’m learning a lot here, not just in terms of servicing the trucks, but also about general day to day life on the team.

Takashi Masuda: Keeping the servicing sheets clean is absolutely crucial in performing our servicing work under the best conditions. I’m approaching everything with care so I don’t miss anything.

* 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