Car 2 delivers stellar performance finishing at 20th overall.

January 8: This day's course consisted of a loop based out of Uyuni, Bolivia. While the Cars and Motorbikes category raced one counter-clockwise lap around the huge 10,000km2 Uyuni sand flats, the Trucks branched off midway and head out for Lake Poopó west of Uyuni. As a result, the Trucks drove on a 295km SS and a 300km liaison this day. Road surfaces for the day's stage consisted of wide open pistes on hilly territory, and road conditions were bad in some areas. Today again, the SS was set in highlands that ranged in elevation between 3700 and 3900 meters.

HINO TEAM SUGAWARA's HINO500 Series trucks did very well on the SS this day again. Car 2 piloted by Teruhito Sugawara and Hiroyuki Sugiura finished in great form at 20th place in the overall Trucks category and top in the Under 10-litre Class.Car 1, despite of running out of gas at one point in the day, the Yoshimasa Sugawara and Mitsugu Takahashi crew finished the SS at 35th place overall and 2nd in the class. This brought the latest accumulated rankings for Car 2 to 17th overall and 1st in the class, and Car 1 to 34th overall and 2nd in the class, giving the team one-two positions in rankings.

Driving a 300km liaison after the SS, Car 2 arrived at the bivouac safely after 9 pm, as did Car 1 after 10 pm. The mechanics, who had been eagerly awaiting their arrival, wasted no time inspecting and servicing the trucks.

Tomorrow marks the final day for the first half of the rally, and the itinerary has contestants traveling back to Argentina and then on to Salta. The day will feature a 336km SS spanning from Bolivia into Argentina with a 133km neutral zone sandwiched midway. Coupled with a liaison of 481km, this will be a long stage extending for a total of 817km. It will be a long day for assistance crews as well who will be traveling 1059km southward on the same road that they traveled on the way to Bolivia. Once at the bivouac the following day, January 10, the crews will have a day of rest, but the mechanics have no such luxury. True to the spirit of Dakar Rally, teams continue to face one grueling stage after the other.

Yoshimasa Sugawara: Mitsugu Takahashi, my navigator, forgot to switch the fuel tank and we ran out of gas. I was surprised when the engine suddenly stopped revving. Our time loss amounted to only about 5 minutes including the time it took to purge air, so we are doing fine.

Mitsugu Takahashi: I regret this mistake because navigation was going fine until I forgot to switch the tank. I couldn't see the Uyuni sand flats during the SS.

Teruhito Sugawara: The wide open pistes were relatively flat so we were able to drive fast, but there were also areas with fesh-fesh, and dirt roads that were very dusty, so it ended up being a relatively challenging stage.

Hiroyuki Sugiura: I was feeling fine physically today even at high elevations. Road surfaces in the first part of the course were hard, but the areas we raced after we split with the Motorbikes and Cars resembled typical off-road terrain.

Seiichi Suzuki: Tonight, we will be replacing the rear leaves and tires on Car 2 as we have been planning to do. Since we haven't encountered any major issues so far, we spend most of our time performing daily inspections, in addition to replacing parts that need to be replaced periodically. But even at that, it usually ends up being 4 or 5am by the time we're done.