Wednesday, July 12,2017
Road connection: 173.93 km – Special stage 1: 484.47 km – Road connection: 191.17 km – Total: 849.54 km
After Kazakhstan’s capital, the race keeps moving deeper in the steppe and arrives to Semey. The small town has a sad story, it was the center of nuclear tests of the soviet army and has received 468 explosions, 125 of them at 150 km in the steppe. Fiodor Dostoievski was sent to Semey for 5 years… and today, the city has one theater and six universities.
For competitors, this special stage began with some difficulties because the first part was in the hills, with uneven fast tracks with the holes made by the tractors that circulate the road are deep. Not easy for the cars, but simpler for trucks with their big tires.
Navigators did not have fun with the parallel roads that would easily take off from the road book. And on top of all that, little direction given by the opening car because the organizer gave competitors a thumb drive with the information, so co-drivers had to figure it out the night before.
After a magnificent stage 4 in the mud and a great 3rd place with the 2WD buggy, Eugenio Amos and Sebastien Delaunay had a hard day and took the 14th position, 45´03 from stage winners Despres/Castera. “In fact, 2WD buggy worked great, and everything is impeccable on mechanics. Today, it was me who was not in the best shape. In fact, I don´t like when I can´t see what is in front of me, because I could make a mistakes. I know I could have been going faster, but as I wasn´t able to see what was in front of us. I probably need more experience, but this is my sixth race. Also, I´ve never spent so much time inside the car and the stages are very long… With this said, I am happy that we only took 45 minutes from the winner and that we are in the 8th overall position!”
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