La Rioja, Argentina (January 3, 2010) – Today marked the second stage for the
2010 Dakar Rally and was delayed at the start due to weather in the area for an
half an hour. Once the weather cleared up it was time for Team HUMMER to keep
up with the success they had the day before. Robby Gordon was the first HUMMER
off from Cordoba and was ready to run hard in order to win. Despite the terrain
favoring other 4-wheel drive cars than the 2-wheel drive HUMMER, Robby Gordon
was able to keep pace and even lead the stage at one point. Only major issue of
the stage was a flat left front tire which was caused by a big rock on the race
course. “Only problem we had today where we lost a lot of time was a flat tire
– Andy and I haven’t practiced changing a tire in a while. To lose 12 minutes
isn’t too bad at this point and it’s all desert tomorrow so it should be good
for us.” Commented Robby Gordon. Robby Gordon and the Monster Energy / Toyo
Tires HUMMER would end up 11th in the stage and 9th in overall time – 12 minutes
28 seconds back from the leader.

The Chile HUMMER driven by Carlo Degavardo had an better day on Stage 2 than
Stage 1 were he would end up 36th for the stage and become 38th – 1 hour 13
minutes back from the overall leader.

The Vanguard HUMMER had a big incident on race kilometer 5 were the driver made
a mistake over correcting the steering which lead to the HUMMER rolling over
twice, landing on its roof down a cliff. Luckily both driver and navigator were
un hurt in the big crash – not to say the same for the Vanguard HUMMER. With
the Vanguard HUMMER stuck down the cliff with zero help to get pulled out, the
driver and navigator felt helpless as they saw their hopes of having a
competitive Dakar Rally drive pass them. Hours later after one of Team HUMMERs’
support trucks got to the Vanguard HUMMER, they were able to get back on their
way but with so much damage they would end up hours behind. The driver was
forced to limp back to the bivouac in La Rioja were the team would be there
waiting to assess the damage.

Stage 3 is set from La Rioja to Fiambala, a liaison for 259 kilometers and a
special that will be 182 kilometers. A total distance of 441 kilometers in
length. The first car is set to leave the bivouac at 7:07 am local time with
Robby Gordon in the Monster Energy / Toyo Tires HUMMER rolling off in 11th
place.