Day 6 & Day 7

Another Day of Rough Roads in the Chilean Andes
Car 2 climbs up in overall rankings to 23rd. Car 1 has yet arrive but is en route in good shape.
On January 7, Car 1 piloted by Yoshimasa Sugawara, Yoko Wakabayashi, and Katsumi Hamura had not arrived as of the writing of the day’s report. Arriving at the bivouac soon thereafter in good shape, the truck clocked in at 28th in the Trucks category overall and 2nd in the Under 10-litre Class. Although these results brought Car 1’s accumulated standings to 31st in the Trucks category and 2nd in its Class, there was a possibility that they had missed a number of mandatory way points (GPS points) towards the end, which means that their time may be subject to added penalty time.

January 8 took the contestants from Copiapo to Antofagasta. Chile consists of a narrow extent of land with the Pacific Ocean on its west coast and the Andes Mountains to its east. The race for the day was held in the foothills of the Andes. Contestants first headed northward from Copiapo on a 174km liaison route to El Salvador, the starting point for the 458km SS for the day. The course wound through highlands at elevations ranging between 1,000 and 3,000m where the road surfaces consisted not of desert sand but of hard and rough gravel. Contestants also faced areas with fesh-fesh where they had to contend with massive clouds of fine sand particles, as well as rocky terrain on dry riverbeds. This proved to be another day where perseverance was the dominant theme for all teams.