The Africa Eco Race is well underway with half the Rally already completed and the teams spent a rest day in Dahkla, Morocco.
So far, there has been approximately 1400km of competitive stages in Morocco. In the car section, Jean-Louis Schlesser has been dominant with a 50minute lead over Jacques Loomans and Jean-Antoine Sabatier.
As they prepare to leave Morocco for Mauritania, Schlesser has been testing his codriver. The 200mph Buggy has been well honed and as Schlesser said to Marathonrally.com, “ Today I decided to go quicker to test my co driver! Of course, I’m joking, because his qualities have been proven. No problems at all on the Buggy and Thierry did an excellent navigating job. All is going as planned before the start of Mauritania, that’s a whole other story! ”
The bike category is a little closer with Michael Pisano just 12 minutes ahead of Dominque Robin and Norbert Dubois.
There are always great stories of sportsmanship on rallies like this. One example is that of Thomas Schattat. Thomas has been participating to the Sonogol Africa Eco Race since 2009 with his 450 Yamaha. What makes the difference with other is that the 50 year old engineer has no assistance at all and the only things he takes over on the rally is carried by the organization truck. He spent all day yesterday checking up his bike. Ending 12th of today’s stage, he unfortunately broke his engine during the liaison to Chami. But luckily, the legendary mutual aid on off road rallies helped him out. Indeed Elite Racing gave him a spare engine for him to finished the race. After having 10 hours on the bike of which 4 hours to change the 450cc engine, Schattat will take the start tomorrow next to Julia Schrenk, with who he’ll stay next to in the Mauritanian dunes.
Below is the video rundown of the rally so far courtesy of the Africa Eco Race.
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