Miracle of Laia Sanz: reaching the finish line

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Laia Sanz come here Dakar with 12 completed editions of 12 possible (11 by motorcycle and one by car). He has never given up on the toughest race in the world and in its 13th edition he has no plans to do so. Not even remotely. In stage 2, he suffered a real odyssey of problems, arriving at night. “Let’s see if it will be true that 13 is unlucky…”, he said. And this Thursday, the same thing had to be repeated afterwards at kilometer 28 of the 5th stage he suffered a serious accident with several bell rolls on some hard sand because of how wet they are from the rains of the past few days. He arrived with seven hours lost to finish the line.

The car is totaled. In particular, most of the fastening elements of the 4 wheels: suspensions, spindles, trapezoid and left rear shield, among other elements. MD spoke to the pilot and leader of the Astara Team, Oscar Fuertes, which he turned down in the first episode. He is very worried and his main priority is to think that Laia will finish the stage. He said this with resignation. “There is a 20% chance”, he pointed out, emphasizing that the Astara Team will make every effort to achieve this and that in cases like this they have already acted with evasion, having a fourth car in the race acting as a backpacker, which is full of spare parts (sergio Vallejo’s ) and a railroad truck with a mechanic (Joan López). Both vehicles will arrive at Laia to assess the situation, but the solution seems “almost impossible”.

Vallejo later arrived there with his car full of parts. “It can be fixed”. This is what he said first, to the peace of mind of Laia and her co-driver, Maurizio Gerini. But they had to wait for the truck because it was missing parts. It arrived 50 minutes later. And then it started work of a goldsmith at full speed that amazes everyone. Joan López, Sergio Vallejo, his co-driver Mario G. ToméLaia’s co-pilot, also a mechanic, Maurizio Gerini and himself Laia they have to work. Sanz helped as much as he could. He brought tires here and there and even brought them to the truck to inflate them. A job that seemed to take days, was completed in just a few hours 3 hours.

Finally, around 12:30 in Spanish they started (14:30 in Saudi Arabia). It’s worth the whole team’s effort. Even Óscar’s bet to stop his fourth car and truck with Laia while his best driver in qualifying, Carlos Checa (before yesterday’s stage he was 22nd), he was struggling in his car further on. The Catalan had a problem with the radiator before Laia and her co-driver Marc Solà fixed it. He passed in front of Sanz, but he didn’t see how the car was because at that time he was covered by a Tabi that he was overtaking. He confirmed that Laia and Gerini were okay and continued. Luckily for Carlos, Checa didn’t fail and didn’t need help despite that initial problem. As Laia was up and running, the team smiled broadly in the dining room. The worst is over and Óscar hallucinates. He thought it was an impossible mission. But despite this, he chose to try to achieve it.

against the clock

When the miracle of repair is done, Laia plays her own race against time. He had to reach three crossing points and the final goal, always under the time limit. If he passes one of those points outside of that time, it will force him to leave the special and take the road to the bivouac. He can continue to race, but there is a huge penalty that will sink him even further from qualifying. He will spend one of the jokers he has to do this. But for Laia, with the Dakarian spirit of the past, to finish a Dakar you have to finish all the stages. I can’t think of anything else to do.

He was half an hour ahead at the first hour point of 209. He had an hour to spare when he passed one at kilometer 281, and thus, until the whole period is completed, with a closed night in Ha’il. To do that, he had to be careful. A driving error or any accident can leave you out of the time limit. Laia was riding under the maximum pressure, but at the same time, encouraged by the anger that the bad luck she had in her accident must have provoked her, in the land filled with a lot of sand, with constant ups and downs , a constant rattle that made his Carlos Sainz will arrive with neck pain from two compressions, as well as other pilots.

Laia approached the race with very high goals. He is betting on giving way to a two-wheel drive buggy to improve on his 23rd position in 2021 and aim for the Top-15 overall. However, everything went wrong in episode 2. There, Laia suffered a truly bad day and arrived at night after missing more than 7 hours. He fought back tears as he pointed out that he went 8th despite gas problems. He redeemed himself the next day, completed the day, and shone on stage 4 with a magnificent 20th position, his best place in a Dakar car. I am smiling. I’m happy. I want more. But the Dakar is an unpredictable race. One day you get up and the next, it’s about to stop. Laia knows. But Dakar also knows the honor of Sanz and the Astara Team. They didn’t give up and they won.

Source: La Verdad

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