All of us here at Motorcycle Nation Podcast send out our ultimate gratitude to those that have given the ultimate sacrifice so that we can all be free. Today. Between your cookouts and web surfing, please take a moment of silence to honor those that served. Have a great weekend.
Stage 5 brought many changes to the bike class as the title for this post tells us. Ok, there are definitely thrills in every stage so the spills and broken bikes are the news in this one. Perhaps the biggest news, and very disappointing to French fans, is that David Casteu is not only out of contention for the win but out of the rally for good. Casteu, who was leading all bikes in the overall standings, had a crash that resulted in a severe leg injury. Medics whisked him away ending his bid for the win. It was said to be a bad spill. So, that leaves us with broken bikes. The rider that led all bikes out of Capiapo, Mark Coma, experienced a breakdown that brought him across the line 39′35″ behind stage winner Lopez Contardo. This puts Coma in 8th position in the overall standings.
American rider Jonah Street finds himself in 7th position 1h12′46′ off the leaders pace while Boinnard sits in 58th position 7h04′51″ behind first position. Annie Seel continues to lead the ladies completing stage 5 in 61st position placing her 47th in the overall standings.
Stage 6 will take the riders from Antofagasta to Iquique which has a 418 km timed special. The riders will have two opportunities to fuel along the way and the terrain should lend to very fast speeds and some great times. We will see what happens tomorrow!
I am back at work this morning after taking an extra vacation day to start off the year. For those of you that were expecting to see Dakar daily updates I apologize to you. It seems that Comcast decided that I did not need a fast internet over the weekend and thus the server timed out everytime I tried to access a site. So, we have net access here at work and my lunch hour will be spent trying to catch up on Dakar and Comcast says my problems will be fixed this evening. So, stay tuned for Dakar updates from the last couple of days this evening!
