We just spoke with Dirk von Zitzewitz on the phone:
He sums up the day as follows. At around km300 the road book became very inaccurate. Dirk and Mark tried to follow the road book instructions as precise as possible but that turned out to be parallel to what turned out to be the correct course. Unfortunaly they went a bit to fast and jumped over a dune resulting into a roll-over. It took one hour for Mark and Dirk with no one to help to get the car back on its wheels. Unforetunaly they could not reach the shovel as it was buried in the storage compartment under too much sand. No person around to help. Helplessly all of us fans had to watch it on the Iritrack computer screens from home.
Then once they managed to get going again they rolled again in the dunes but landed back on their wheels right side up.
The crash damaged the radiator and they had to stop multiple time to let the engine cool down. Later they made repairs to the radiator and returned back into their rhythm.
Dirk said: „Nothing is final, last year Jutta managed to finish the Dakar 3rd with a 5hours time setback over the leader.“ Currently Mark and Dirk are 2hours15minutes after the leader. They just can’t afford any more incidents, chances of a podium finish are still there.
In regards to Robby Gordon, Dirk spotted Robby’s hood in the dunes. It looked like a sign, perhaps for the support crew.
Look for an audio update from Mark Miller on his website
