3rd stage: San Miguel de Tucuman - San Salvador de Jujuy
Link section: 416 km - Special: 364 km - Total: 780 km
The third stage was divided into two parts with a 124 km neutralisation in between. The first part was very tricky to navigate with lots of course changes, and towards the end, fesh-fesh that literally buried the wheels of the first motorcycles up to the axles. As they say in rally circles, at the front of the race, the riders were “gardening”, and the leaders went walkabout for quite some time.
The second part was easier but the trail climbed to 5000 metres above sea level, where the climate was in stark contrast to the intense heat of the last few days.
Today, setting out behind was an advantage, and it was Barreda (Honda) who went for broke, taking a lead of 13’29 over Sam Sunderland (KTM) and 15’30 over Pela Renet (Husqvarna).
“I had this stage in my sights”, Barreda said later. “I knew that the navigation would be hard, so I went for it and, when I wasn’t sure of the way, Brabec helped me out. I also fell off and had to stop to remove at least 8 cactus spines from my hand. My game plan is to control the race and take advantage of certain situations to attack. It seems to be working out but the race is still long and this edition will be different from the others in terms of race management.”
Another problem with today’s stage, according to a number of riders including some of the best, was the neutralisation time, which was too short. Many of them were penalised by as much as 5’ or even 10’! “Barreda arrived on time”, explained Race Director Marc Ducrocq, “so we couldn’t give more time to the others. Also it was very hard to manage as there was the refuelling on top of the neutralisation.”
Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) came in fourth followed by Gonçalves (Honda), Van Beveren (Yamaha), Franco Caimi (Honda), Gerard Farres (KTM) and Toby Price (KTM), an incredible 22’ adrift in 9th place!
In 10th, Ricky Brabec (Honda) was followed by Matthias Walkner (KTM). Xavier de Soultrait, who had started the race in style, finished over 34 minutes adrift in 14th place after going round in circles for a while.
On the leader board, Joan Barreda now has a lead of 10’ over Sam Sunderland (KTM) and more than 13’ over his Honda team mate Gonçalves. Toby Price (KTM) is back in 5th and 16’ adrift, and Walkner (KTM) is 27’ adrift in 11th.
France’s Loïc Minaudier gave David Frétigné this account of his day: “The first part was really tough going technically, with fesh-fesh so deep that I thought I would get stuck. And the heat was unbearable! Before that it was a total circus with everyone getting lost and no one sure where to go. Sometimes, when you thought you were back on the trail, you would come upon an enormous hole that you couldn’t avoid. It was really hard going. I also lost 10’ on the neutralisation as it was hailing at 5000 m! Everything was white and when I tried to brake, I took off even faster!”
This race still has many surprises in store and there is no shortage of suspense!
Judith Tomaselli