Day 10: 15 Jan

On Jan 15, contestants face 359 km of racing in dune areas on their way from San Juan de Marcona to Pisco.

Tuesday, Jan 15: Contestants raced a 359 km SS (Special Stage) on their way from San Juan de Marcona to Pisco. This area was one of the main battlegrounds of this year's event where the organizers cleverly avoided any overlaps despite this being the third time racers ventured into the area. The second half of the day met contestants with a particularly difficult dune stage.

HINO TEAM SUGAWARA's Car 2 was the 9th truck out of the gate for the day's SS. The crew completed the high-speed off-piste (roadless off-road segment) without a hitch, arriving at 8th spot at the neutral zone set midway into the stage.

While they continued to deliver a solid race over the dunes in the latter half, they were stuck with all four wheels in the air past the 200 km point following a difficult climb. It took the crew 40 minutes to extricate themselves from this jam and they had fallen to 12th spot by the time they passed the CP (checkpoint). Still, the HINO500 Series truck Car 2 crew made up with fierce driving to finish the SS at 10th position. This brought their overall accumulated ranking to 8th place, wedging their way into the ranks of their larger rivals.

Meanwhile, the HINO500 Series truck Car 1 which raced the Semi-Marathon, they were back at the bivouac in Marcona near midnight Monday, Jan 14, and wasted no time to start off for the Tuesday, Jan 15 competition. After passing the 200 km point at around 6 pm, they are reportedly still on the road at 10:00 pm as of this writing.