Tired, but happy
After the incident on yesterday's stage, we started today almost at the back of the race, ahead of Nani Roma, who also had problems on yesterday's stage. We're in the middle of the Empty Quarter, there's nothing but sand, so we've started the timed trial on sand, heading towards the dunes. Luckily it has rained recently and the sand is somewhat damp, which makes traction much easier. We immediately started overtaking cars and trucks that were dragging their feet at the end of the road. The dunes, despite being somewhat wet, were difficult, jagged, with steep downhill slopes and steep climbs that made Albert accelerate the truck towards the sky. And I had to stop accelerating at just the right moment so as not to fly off or get stuck on the crest. This is an unpleasant and very tiring sensation because you feel a 10-ton truck accelerate into the sky and you don't know how you're going to land behind it. Will it be cut off, will it be smooth, will it turn right, or left? With each climb, the stomach contracts, the myocardium accelerates and the sphincters close so that, when you reach the top of the dune, if you haven't nosedived, you relax your muscles until you reach the next dune. It was more than 300 km of continuous dunes, with some old sand tracks from oil tankers that, obviously, are indented with sand, making it extremely dangerous because in the small, clean sections, the speed quickly increases and suddenly large tongues of sand invade the track, creating real sand barriers. Today's stage was by far the most difficult stage of this year's Dakar so far. The dunes have been really difficult and the Andorran has had to go all out, accelerating, braking and turning the wheel with just his hands and at a speed that is not inconsiderable. We must recognize that what Albert is capable of is simply enviable and of tremendous merit. The difficulty was such that before reaching the 15-minute neutralization at km 228, both Albert, who is a regular at it, Marc and I, felt the need to eat to relieve the fatigue that is beginning to take its toll after 11 days of racing. Today we had all kinds of dunes, dunes that, in the words of a great friend, were erotic and others not so much, dunes that were as slender as a young girl's body and dunes that were flabby and heavy like a body... But there were many dunes: high, low, cool, ugly, steep, round, easy, difficult, steep, flat, of all types and conditions, and today the 517 emerged victorious in the sand challenge. The last 50 km were very fast, on a rather bumpy sand track, but either because of the desire to finish or because of the crew's lack of brainpower, we drove at 140 km/h. Tomorrow is the last stage of this challenge.
Gas i xampany!!! Ferran Marco
