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Stage 3: SAN RAFAEL – SAN JUAN
Road connection: 289 km – Special Stage: 270 km – Road connection: 2 km – Total: 561 km
The Dakar´s third stage changes its landscape and attacks the Andes Mountains with a passage over 3000 m for riders that did not took the same track that cars, and had 62 more kilometers to complete the stage. Rough tracks, stony “ríos”, and most of all, a magnificent spectacle in the Andes Mountains was the menu of the day, completed with a suffocating heat.
The Dakar has just started and there are already many changes and surprises! The race track of cars and bikes was separated in CP3, and Marc Coma took the wrong direction for a while and had to make a u turn… He finished 7th and lost 13 minutes over Despres, who wins the special stage followed by Verhoeven (Sherco) and Gonçalves (Husqvarna). Rodriguez (Yamaha) is 4th in front of Alain Duclos (Aprilia) who missed two waypoints just like Ullevalseter and David Casteu (Yamaha).
Chaleco López had some inconveniences. “We made about 20 km in a river with some water… no track and over the stones, like extreme Trial! I fell and broke the careenage and I thought it wasn´t worth taking risks… I continued smoothly thinking that in two more days we will be in Chile!”
The hecatomb keeps on going: Cody Quinn had a fall and has probably a broken clavicle, Zanotti and the TM burned the mousse yesterday after changing the air tube and then had mechanical problems. After 6 hours under the sun, the young Italian suffered of a sunstroke and was brought to the bivouac by the helicopter and Jakub Przygonski stopped due to an engine problem.
In quads, the brothers Patronelli, Marcos and Alejandro, are running to fight Mafei, the category leader.
