Stage 11: Antofagasta – El Salvador
Road connection: 144 km
Selective Section: 605 km
Total: 749 km
The eleventh stage of the Dakar was long, almost as yesterday, and joined Antofagasta with San Salvador, a small mining town located at 1612 m, where the Dakar could stay away from the Camanchaca (the heavy fog that comes up between the ocean and the mountains, next to the desert) which often doesn’t not allow helicopters to take off.
This special was another nightmare for the Polaris Xtremeplus that ate dust and stones once again. But both of them are at the bivouac now, Duclos/Delaunay in the 39th position and Willy Alcaraz as 41.
Nicolas Duclos/Sébastien Delaunay N°364: “It was another apocalyptic stage, screams Nicolas while leaving the car, all covered in dust. Besides 4 km of dunes, the rest was all fesh-fesh and stones! We went for about 500 km with Willy and then, at the exit of the dune, we lost him while we were inflating the tires. At the finish line, Sebastian admitted that he lied to me… When we inflated the tires, he said that we had damaged a tire, but in fact it was the shaft drive! What a lie! Just so that I would not worry about it!”
Willy Alcaraz N°350: “I had three punctures! The first one at km 90, then at 150km… Instead of taking off my feet from the accelerator after the first puncture, I kept attacking… I drove 350 km like if I was driving over eggs because the spare wheel was broken. The third puncture was on the fesh-fesh… I fixed it, but it didn’t last for long, so I finished on the rim for the last 5 km.”