Dakar - 2013 | Stage 8, Day 8 - [Salta-Tucuman]

The 8th stage of the Dakar started, the day's route was different as seen so far. Bikes and Quads had the same longest itinerary, while Cars and Trucks had their different own. But the rain gods decided to play spoil sport, and bringing the first section of the special to a grinding halt. Hence cancelled, including the trucks complete stage.

With all the itinerary shuffled due to bad weather, the start of the special for motorcycles, quads and cars has been pushed back to Punta de Balastro, which was after a 300 km link section. The motorcycle race kicked off at noon local time.

Being fastest on yesterday's Stage, American Kurt Caselli was the first one to start on the bikes, who was as well as for the day's rally. Chilean Sebastien Palma was the first to start, with his y'day's stage win. Husky rider Joan Barreda Bort finishes fastest, Team HRC rider Johnny Campbell gives his team his first success. Slovakian KTM  rider Ivan Jakes tastes his first victory, by finishing 3rd quickest. The result board went wild after a serial mistake by leading riders.

In Overall ranking, Frenchman Yamaha rider, David Casteu still leads, while his compatriot Cyril Despres is down by 9m26s, and Portugese KTM rider Ruben Faria, is 11m16s down the leader in third.

On Quad, South African Sarel Von Biljon claimed stage win, Marcos Patronelli finished 2nd with 1m49s down leader, and Chilean Sebastien Palma 2m36 to the stage winner. In Overall, Patronelli still leads by a comfortable cushion of 1h23m55s.

It starts with a 152 kms of road section to get to the start line for cars/buggies. The stage 470 kms was much like Bike/Quads, except that it is a little shorter by 29 kms. It went all okay for the first 5 cars, then the river bed started flooding real bad and the stage was stopped for the later cars when the cars ahead started facing potential threat.

However, Overall leader and y'day's stage winner Peterhansel lead the competition, by opening the stage for Cars first. But it was the other French man Guerlain Chicherit who took today's stage honors, Argentinian Orlando Terranova finishes second in his BMW X3, while Robby Gordon consistently finishing in 3rd by just over 5min to stage leader. Nasser was leading the stage initially, until he too got distracted with the bikers trail, who went offcourse.

Same like cars for the first road transport section to the start line, but a lot of shorter distance of just 155 kms of special stage, over rock lined soil surface and then a straight transport to the service park / parc ferme to end the day & for a long day break tomorrow. But, they directed to Tucuman after stage cancellation.

Yes, tomorrow is a break day for the longest running event, mid way! Se you guys on Monday, which is going to be an action filled week of motorsports. First round of WRC season's, 5-day event Rallye MonteCarlo is kick started from Tuesday!