Rally Weblog
MAN Reporter Richard Kienberger live from the Rally
01/18/07
Glass breakage
"These are not proper truck routes!" The three MAN drivers - Stacey, Jacquot and Echter - were agreed on that after the twelfth special test.
Following their return to the bivouac in Kayes (Mali) the service crew had a lot of damaged glass to repair, above all new mirrors, complete with frame or just the glass. On this stage the trees were so close to the road that the big vehicles had difficulties finding a path through the lush vegetation. "On a stetch like that you can't get into any reasonable rhythm", said an irritated Franz Echter after successfully completing the stage.
The sick bay in the MAN paddock has now been closed again, as both Franz Echter and Charly Gotlib have made a recovery. Hans Stacey was therefore able to tackle the antepenultimate stage of the 29th Dakar Rally without any handicaps. That was reflected in another day's victory for him, and he still leads the truck competition by a comfortable margin. A lot can nevertheless happen on the two tests to come. Philippe Jacquot has in the meantime gathered quite a lot of experience in that regard: in the 12th test contributing to the overall result he was once again held up by a flat tyre and of course lost time as a result.
For Stacey the main thing now is not to take any unnecessary risks - if he manages that then the driver of the red MAN with starting number 501 has good chances of completing the lap of honour at the Lac Rose in Dakar as the victor.
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01/17/07
Almost a rest day
The Exact MAN Team was noticeably relieved about the change of route which was made at short notice for security reasons. (The stage actually planned from Nema to Timbouctou had been cancelled and the timetable altered accordingly.) In this way the contestants (almost) came to enjoy a rest day on the Wednesday of the second week of the Dakar Rally. They only had to complete a 300 km liaison run. The day before Hans Stacey had been the first to tackle the 366 km circuit with starting and finishing line near Nema, but the rest of the day did not go as planned for the current leader in the truck category: Stacey's co-driver, Charly Gotlib, was having stomach problems too. At home that might seem harmless enough, but because of the rigours of the Dakar Rally it usually has much more serious effects.
Because Gotlib was so unwell Stacey had to stop three times and accordingly fell behind. After his return from the race Gotlib was treated in the Medical Centre. It was thus not Stacey who crossed the finishing line first, but Philippe Jacquot in his red MAN with starting number 508. In the day's rankings Jacquot was in fourth place.
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01/15/07
If you like it tough, the Dakar Rally leaves nothing to be desired. After the rest day in Atar there are two really hard stages. Following the special test between Tichit and Nema there was one big topic in the
bivouac: the truly brutal collapse of the VW team, whose ambitions literally turned to dust on this 494 km stretch. On the truck side Hanns Stacey is still on course. Even though the Dutchman managed to finish the ninth section of the actual competition "only" in second place, he is at the moment still the clear favourite in the heavy category. This classification is admittedly somewhat out of place on the Dakar Rally in view of the numerous imponderables en route. That was a lesson learned by Stacey's team colleague, Philippe Jacquot, whose truck set off second after the rest day with good prospects. But after only a few kilometres the Frenchman lost a lot of time in the stony initial phase of the special test, as he and his crew had to repair damage to a wheel and a tyre.
In the last few days Franz Echter, on the other hand, was not to be envied.
On the rest day he suffered "intestinal damage" with the corresponding side effects and, "at the limit", pushed his fast service truck through the difficult special tests. The result achieved by Echter's crew is thus all the more remarkable: on the stage ending in Nema they made it up to ninth place overall in the truck competition.
As the rest of the route has been changed since the original plans were made - security was allegedly the reason for this - the rally caravan has now been at the airfield in Nema for two days. On Tuesday the contestants will have a competition run from and to points not far from Nema, and on Wednesday all contestants have only a liaison stage to complete without any special test. Hans Stacey hopes that he'll be able to master the ensuing final phase of the rally without any problems.
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01/13/07
Day of rest - actually that's a misnomer for the day marking the half-way stage in the Dakar Rally, because in fact the teams have their hands full getting their vehicles fit again in time for the start of the second half of the desert marathon. This year the rally participants are making their break in Atar, and it's now a tradition that on these rest days an MAN service crew comes along to - if necessary - support the many teams participating with MAN racing or service vehicles.
On the rest day, however, there was a first taking stock of the situation to date too. So far the three MAN pilots Hanns Stacey Philippe Jacquot and Franz Echter have put on a sterling performance. No unusual problems have been encountered with the vehicles yet, but a certain amount of wear and tear is of course unvoidable in Dakar conditions. After the Dutch co-favourites Jan and Gerard de Rooy had had to give up the day before because of engine damage, Hans Stacey praised the convincing work done by Stefan Holzmann, MAN's general manager for the Dakar activities, and engine technician Artur Klein, who had also come to Atar. Thanks to their work the MAN racing engines have still not needed to reach their peak performance; "For us durability was much more important", said Klein. And that is a concept that has so far paid off well.
Apart from that the MAN vehicles make a good impression in the pictures made by the numerous journalists actively covering the rally. While many contestants' trucks emit black smoke (which is actually prohibited), especially during the acceleration stretches, there isn't a cloud in sight with the MAN used by the Dutch Tridec Team.
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01/11/07
After the time-consuming trip through the border area between Morocco and Mauretania, contestants had the first completely Mauretanian stage of the Dakar Rally to complete on Thursday. For the service crews too there was little to see again apart from no end of sand and stones. This barren region is obviously not made for people - over the more than 700 km long liaison stage up to the destination in Zouerat the convoy passed through just one village. Not far from this desert settlement was the starting point for the sixth stage int the competition. It was a fairly fast stage:
Franz Echter needed just four-and-a-half hours for the good 400 km in his fast TGA service truck. Hanns Stacey, the first truck driver to enter the fray, clocked up the fastest time in the heavy category for the second time in the Dakar 2007. His colleague Jacquot followed shortly behind in fourth place. The two MAN drivers from the Dutch Tridec Team hold the same places overall. Stacey currently heads the field with a lead of just under 49 minutes over his fellow Dutchman Gerard de Rooy. Jacquot is in fifth place and Franz Echter in 15th. Jacquot was even able to start the last stage before the rest day as third in the truck competition, as the de Rooys senior and junior (Ginaf/DAF) gave up in Zouerat because of damage to the engines in their vehicles.
This stage demanded quite a lot of the teams because a strong wind caused a medium-sized sandstorm which made navigating a matter of luck even in the first few kilometres.
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01/10/2007
This morning the back-up vehicles for the rally were in for a surprise on the night-time liaison stage: it started to rain - and the desert turned into a mudhole. The vehicles thus arrived at the starting point for the sixth stage (now in Mauretania) with a suitable "camouflage".
Yesterday Hans Stacey took the lead in the truck category, but he couldn't really be pleased about that because his toughest rival to date, the Russian Kamaz driver Chagin, had had to give up after a serious accident.
After successfully completing the last stage Stacey just said:" We've a long way to go yet!"
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01/08/2007
3rd stage - Stony Africa
"The vehicle is excellent, but I haven't quite got into my routine yet", commented Hans Stacey after the third stage of the 29th Dakar Rally. "I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks, and so I let the Kamaz overtake me," said the Dutch driver after some very stony going in Morocco. However, he is still more than satisfied with the team's performance: "We have two vehicles in the top four. There are no problems, there isn't much between them, and Franz Echter has managed to move further up the field today too."
Echter, by contrast, took a rather different view of the details - for him and his crew things could have gone better - but the fast service truck had bad luck with its tyres on the third stage too. Although he got off to a smooth start this time, the MAN testing foreman "got stuck for half an hour behind a slow-moving six-wheeler before a gap opened up". And then, immediately after overtaking, he was forced to take a roadside stop again: as in the first stage Echter's MAN, starting number 516, had a flat.
The three crew members had to repair this first before they could tackle the rest of the stage. The fact that the three of them still managed to improve their position considerably says a lot for the qualities of Echter and his teammates Detlef Ruf and Edwin van Dooren.
Echter, by contrast, took a rather different view of the details - for him and his crew things could have gone better - but the fast service truck had bad luck with its tyres on the third stage too. Although he got off to a smooth start this time, the MAN testing foreman "got stuck for half an hour behind a slow-moving six-wheeler before a gap opened up". And then, immediately after overtaking, he was forced to take a roadside stop again: as in the first stage Echter's MAN, starting number 516, had a flat.
The three crew members had to repair this first before they could tackle the rest of the stage. The fact that the three of them still managed to improve their position considerably says a lot for the qualities of Echter and his teammates Detlef Ruf and Edwin van Dooren.
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01/04/2007
The Dakar Rally is gradually warming up: in the meantime almost all contestants and most of the back-up vehicles have arrived in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. Ffor the MAN team the first item on the day's agenda was the technical inspection of the vehicles. To start with, however, the crew working for the Engineering Delegate Fabien Calvet - who supervises the FIA European Truck Race Championships too in the same capacity - were somewhat overtaxed. The MAN trucks were supposed to report for their inspection at 16.00 hours, but it was well after 22.00 hours when MAN testing foreman Franz Echter finally steered his fast service truck out of the tent. The crew of the TGA six-wheeler were even told to come back the next day and had to turn up very early as well. All the team's vehicles have now been cleared for the rally, so there is nothing to prevent them competing.
