2017 STAGE 4

SAN SALVADOR DE JUJUY- TUPIZA

January 5th 2017

At around 3,500 metres,(11k+ feet) the Dakar will reach “a cruising altitude” of which competitors will have to navigate for six days. There are few that have already seen dunes at this altitude that will require an expert climbing technique. The co-drivers will have no time to relax, with a number of direction changes in the Bolivian section of the special stage.

521km 416km SPECIAL -Bikes, Quads, Cars, Utvs, Trucks

Bikes, Quads start time 6:25am local
Cars, UTVs start time 9:02am local
Trucks start time 10:54am local
start times are 2hr's ahead of ET

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Permalink Reply by Mike Kenyon on January 5, 2017 at 8:17am

https://livestream.com/accounts/10468276/boliviatv

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Permalink Reply by Mike Kenyon on January 5, 2017 at 8:31am

The news has been confirmed: Nasser Al-Attiyah will not start the fourth stage. The damage to his Toyota Hilux is too considerable to be repaired according to his team. As a result, one of the favourites for overall victory exits the Dakar.
from dakar.com

also
The third stage caused quite a lot of damage in the ranks of the competitors. In the bike race, Lajos Horvath, Jasper Riezebos, Antonio Ramos, Hans Smit, Jacopo Cerutti, Aravind Prabhakar and Humphrey Senn Van Basel have had to drop out. In the quad category, it was also a difficult day with José Luis Espinosa, Suany Martínez, Leonardo Martínez and Mariano Bennazar exiting the race. Three cars are also absent this morning, namely the Toyotas driven by Jan-Pascal Besson and Ramón Núñez as well as the Ford of Xavier Pons, who was not able to overcome his troubles on the second stage.

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Permalink Reply by FD REBEL on January 5, 2017 at 8:53am

Sometimes if you slow down you can go faster farther ....

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Permalink Reply by Moshaholic2 on January 5, 2017 at 9:58am

Price crushing it again today pushing back up to the front. Brabec, who was poised do do the same (since he was starting right after price) looks to have lost a lot of time. IMO, likely losing any chance of a podium today.

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Permalink Reply by TOG on January 5, 2017 at 10:08am

wow. Too bad about Nasser.

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Permalink Reply by TOG on January 5, 2017 at 12:34pm

wow. Broken leg for Toby Price???

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Permalink Reply by Robert Ryan on January 5, 2017 at 3:44pm

This is going to be a hard Dakar

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Permalink Reply by Davin Wilson on January 5, 2017 at 12:42pm

Now hearing that Toby Price is out...went down hard and had to be air lifted.

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Permalink Reply by Barb on January 5, 2017 at 2:27pm

Wow, a rough start for this Dakar.

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Permalink Reply by Moshaholic2 on January 5, 2017 at 4:59pm

Indeed.

But, the last few years have had too many gravel open roads. So it's nice they upped the difficulty level this year with more navigation required and more difficult terrain.

If Robby races again next year... He is really going to have to find an experienced navigator. If he can't go himself, he has to send someone to the Morocco Rally and I believe there is now at least one navigation rally in Mexico as well to get some good experience.