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 | SA-Dakar: A hard knock life for the French Biker David Casteu.
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After changing the engine during the rest day, the French motobiker David Casteu hoped for a better day. Problems started again at km 118. The gear box keeps holding him back. The rest day seemed the perfect plan after two extremely hard stages for David Casteu. In Arica, the team had time to change the engine, hoping to solve all gear box problems, while David and Laurent had a moment to clean their minds before attacking the second part of the Dakar 2011.
Stage seven was shortened after many competitors we not able to arrive to Arica, so the timed section, first planned to be of 631 km, was reduced to only 272. Even with that, problems did not go away and once again, the gear box was blocked, forcing David to stay behind.
After stopping at km 118, David waited for Laurent Lazard, his water carrier, to try to fix it. He was able to take the race track again, but only at fourth speed. Hard to keep up at this rhythm, mostly in a trial zone that only made the finish line to seem far away.
David managed to finish the stage in the 86th place, 03:06:35 from the winner, Francisco López. Then, he made his long road to the bivouac in Antofagasta accompanied by his water carrier.
Once arrived to Antofagasta, the technical team will work all night to repair the problem so David can take the start of stage number 8, a special stage of 508 km and a road connection of 268 between Antofagasta and Copiapo.
Laurent Lazard accomplishes his job of water carrier perfectly and supports his leader in all situations. Today, after helping David repairing the gear box, both Sherco riders run together all day long. The French-Uruguay rider was 80th of the day, 2h 53’ 36” away from the winner and 68th in the overall provisional ranking.
2011/01/10 | 15:33 CET | ARTICLE: MR/SY/URTUBIA
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