Heute steht das Dunerace auf dem Programm – je nach Klasse 30-90km durch die hohen Dünen neben dem Camp in Taghit.
Das ist nix für mich und mein kleines Motorrad – planmäßig starten wir diesen Tag nicht. Aber dem letzten Kontrollpunkt in den Dünen kann man ja zu Fuß mal einen Besuch abstatten. Sind ja nur 1,71km geradeaus:
Während des Aufstieges hat man einen schönen Ausblick auf die Oase
und das Städtchen Taghit mit Station
Es stellte sich aber heraus, daß 1,71km in der Wüste zu Fuß unmöglich zu schaffen sind. Nach 200m hatten wir die erste Düne erklommen und konnten den Kontrollpunkt sehen – aber die Strecke hätten wir bis zum Rennende nicht geschafft. Es geht sich halt nicht so einfach durch die Dünen…
Also zurück zum Show-Ziel, das mitten auf der Hauptstraße vor dem Camp aufgebaut wurde. Daß die Straße dadurch mehere Stunden effektiv für anderen Verkehr gesperrt wurde stört hier keinen…alle feiern mit 🙂 .
Die ersten großen kommen…
…die Zebra Honda hats überlebt und läßt es nochmal ordentlich qualmen.
Der souveräne Sieger der Car Pro Klasse aus Algerien läßt sich gebührend feiern
Die örtlichen Barden geben sich die Ehre und mischen sich mit Ihren Flötentönen in das Gewühl
Nach Vernichtung der Freigetränke…
…ist erstmal etwas Erholung bis zum Abend angesagt, ehe dann nach dem Abendessen die Siegerehrung stattfindet – das Blech will unters Volk gebracht werden!
Die Preisverleihung zieht sich – erstmal die Tagessieger – und dann zeigt sich der Nachteil von einer so hoch aufgehängten Veranstaltung. Der Vertreter der algerischen Telekom hält ‘ne Rede (auf eine Übersetzung nach englisch verzichtet man dankenswerterweise), alle offiziellen Stellen vom Polizeichef bis zum Bürgermeister wollen bedankt und angemessen gewürdigt werden – schließlich wird man wohl nächstes Jahr wiederkommen wollen.
Und dann werden endlich die Pokale in allen Wertungsklassen unters Volk gebracht – da die Kamera im dunkeln keine brauchbaren Bilder macht, gibts davon auch keine gescheiten Fotos.
Es geht aber lebhaft zu – die Freude ist auf allen Seiten groß und insbesondere die algerischen Teilnehmer können ausgelassen feiern – wozu sie auch allen Grund haben! Denn sie haben überraschend gut abgeschnitten – die Car Pro Klasse ist fest in algerischer Hand. Das hätte ich so nicht erwartet. Ich kannte von der El Chott einheimische Fahrer in Tunesien, die zwar schnell gefahren sind, aber allesamt keine Ahnung von Navigation hatten und sich daher ständig verfahren haben.
Die algerischen Fahrer hatten beides: Übung in den Dünen und Navigationskenntnisse und haben damit trotz der technisch unterlegenen Fahrzeuge alle anderen Fahrzeuge ihrer Klasse abgehängt.
Mein kleines nervöses Motorrad landet in der Gesamtwertung trotz des ausgelassenen Dunerace auf Platz 28 von 33 mit einer Wertungszeit von 56h, 43 min und 1 s. Rückstand zum Platz 27 nur 8 Minuten, Vorsprung vor Platz 29 über 18h.
Das offizielle Tagesvideo hat schöne Eindrücke vom heutigen Tag:
Bei Rallymaniacs gibts einen Bericht zum letzten Tag, den ich auf ihrer chaotischen Website leider nicht verlinken kann. Daher ausnahmsweise ein Vollzitat:
No major changes in the last stage of the Tuareg Rallye
At the start of the seventh and final stage of the Tuareg Rally, the cards were more or less shuffled. The three rounds of 30 kilometers through the dunes of the Grand Erg Occidental – an area of a total of 78,000 square kilometers of dunes – hardly brought any changes.
That means that the victory in the Pro class of the motorbikes went to the Lithuanian Arunas Gelazninkas, the second place to the Frenchman Dominique Robin and the third place to the Algerian Abdelkader Mebarki. Gelazninkas also amply came in first in the final stage, with a nice jump over the last ridge. This edition of the Tuareg was only the fourth rally for the Lithuanian. “I would like to gain experience in different competitions,” he said. “I just wanted to do this rally. Last year I did the Merzouga, maybe next year I’ll be looking for something else.”
In the final stage through the dunes, he was able to fully open the gas of his KTM. “At the mass start, I was the first to leave. In the first lap I made my track through the dunes and in the next two laps I pushed as hard as I could. My roots are in the motorcross, and I love sand and dunes, so this was my terrain. I have not had any problems.”
Dominique Robin rode the Tuareg before and finished second for the fourth consecutive time. The Frenchman was a bit disappointed. “I didn’t lose it anywhere, but to my taste it was too much of a motocross race, with little opportunity to make a difference with navigation or technical driving. There are too many waypoints that you can just follow. Arunas is a lot younger than me and can just ride faster. It’s that simple.”
Abdelkader Mebarki was satisfied with third. “It is the first time that I have been in such an international field. I learned a lot this week. I am better prepared for the next time.”
In the Pro cars and the quads, victory went to Algerians. In the cars, even the entire top 5 was occupied by Algerians, but Lofti Ben Mansour stood head and shoulders above it, as did Mohamed Islam Saib – even though it is only a small guy – in the quads.
He rode the last leg through the dunes with a gearbox that only had first and second gear. “That complicated things a lot, but my lead in the rankings was big enough.” The number 2 in the quads, the German Clemens Eicker, did not finish the entire stage. After two of the three laps he gave up. “I’m broken”, he panted at the finish on top of a high dune. “It’s fine this way. I just have had enough.”
Saib was overjoyed with his victory but, above all, had enjoyed the rally. “I come from the deep south of Algeria. Where I come from we don’t have as many dunes, and certainly not as high as here. I thought it was brilliant.”
In the SSV’s the final victory went to Icelander Gunnar Björnsson, who also won almost all stages. With the trucks, that was the case for the German Emmerich Nagy. In the Expert class for cars, the Italians Stefano Dalla Valle and Oscar Polli were victorious.
Only in the Expert class of the motorbikes there was still some excitement. The Italian Lorenzo Piolini had the lead with a margin of two hours at the start of the stage, which was only one lap for the Experts. One after the other came to the finish, but Piolini was missing. Problems with the engine, other riders said at the finish. That suddenly gave Lithuanian Arunas Neciunas new hope. On arrival at the bivouac it was immediately drilled into the ground when organizer Rainer Autenrieth looked at the results. Piolini might have missed the finish, but then it only cost him two hours of penalty time, so it turned out he had won anyway.
“Compare it with, for example, Formula 1: a driver does not necessarily have to finish every race to be the champion in the end”, Autenrieth explained. “As far as we are concerned, the finish is a normal CP, with an extra hour of penalty time in this case. Piolini has simply been the fastest over the entire week. The fact that he was unable to ride the last 6 kilometers does not make any difference.”
For Piolini, the world turned upside down in an instant. “Five minutes ago I was still in tears because of this bad luck,” he said when he heard the news. “Now I am over the moon. I can hardly believe I won. Everything went wrong today. The engine stopped at half gas. I could not climb the dunes because of that. I have always chosen the lower dunes where the machine did not have to work too hard, and grabbed the speed while driving down to get to the next dune. That’s how I managed to 6 kilometers to the finish. The last high dunes were impossible. I had a two-hour margin and tried to save as much time as possible. With those two hours of penalty, I apparently had just enough left to still win. I thought it was over, but from my worse day ever it has now become my best day. I’m a lucky bastard.”
In the final stage, the German Markus Jerg managed to take over the third place from Michael Miggitsch. Jerg was in the lead in the first few days of the Tuareg Rally, but ran into problems with his roadbook and GPS, costing him more than two hours that he could not make up for. With four daily victories, he nevertheless was one of the tastemakers in only his first rally.