Hey! ItÂs Mark calling in from Zourat. Unbelievably whacky, crazy day! It started with an all night sand storm in Tan Tan, and of course I decided to spend the night in the tent instead of driving 15 minuets to the hotel, so another great way to start the day! And then we drove 500km, almost, to the start of the race today, so it was a long laisson and in the middle of that we had a torrential massive rain storm so, it was mud and just crazy! Anyway, we got to the start of the stage and the stage was 400 km, I think. This is the stage where you cross ÂThe Wall normally and you go through the war zone in Western Sahara and the fighting and all that stuff and it kind of exciting. The race was very fast the first 80 or 90 km , never lifted, wide open, do not lift.
And then we actually made pretty good time I think we were 5th at the CP, I caught Carlos Suza and we were just kind of following him through the camel grass and it was quite rough, though some dunes. Before the last dune crossing we had another technical issue. It looks like we broke a diff or a driveshaft, I donÂt know. We just lost the Âdiff and it went into 2 wheel drive, I donÂt know, we lost around 8 or 9 minuets at the end of the stage. So (laughs) I just canÂt seem to get it right. I donÂt know if IÂm driving too hard or, I donÂt know but I feel like IÂm driving really smooth and I guess IÂm just unlucky, IÂm not sure what. Anyway, we figured out why yesterday we had all the punctures. We went and looked at the data and we made a mistake in the morning on the tire pressure and that was a big, big mistake. And so I didnÂt feel so bad to find out after that. Normally I never get punctures and then to get 3 was really crazy. So anyway at least I felt better that I wasnÂt doing something strange, and that it was a simple set up problem. And today I donÂt know, I donÂt know what happened, but IÂm sure the guys will get it worked out and weÂll keep fighting. There was a big crash to day, Chicherit crashed and that was a real bummer for him. He was doing well. Other than that, I donÂt have much else to report. So tomorrow is the first big tough day, and weÂll do what we can. Tomorrow there should be some big time gaps and hopefully weÂll be the one on top of the podium tomorrow. See you!
