On January 8, the third stage of Dakar 2024 was held from Al Duwadimi to Al Salamiya in central Saudi Arabia. And the HINO 600 Series truck piloted by Teruhito Sugawara, Hirokazu Somemiya, and Yuji Mochizuki of HINO TEAM SUGAWARA finished 120th in the 4-wheeled category and 16th in the trucks category.
As a result, it rose to 82nd place in the overall ranking and 10th place in the truck category.
The HINO600, which had trouble with its sub transmission on January 7, replaced the transfer at the bivouac in Al Duwadimi, has recovered, and started the day’s stage in the best possible condition.
The starting point of the SS was 123 km west-southwest from the bivouac, at the bottom of a wadi (dry river bed) with sandy soil and many stones.
Soon the course turned into a sandy dirt road surrounded by rocks, where they could speed up, and there were several sand dunes.
In particular, the sand dunes at the 250km point were soft and continued for 40km, but they made good use of the low range of the sub-transmission and ran smoothly.
Although there were long high-speed sections, the dust from the cars ahead was so heavy as on the previous day, and the navigation was difficult in many places, so the course was highly challenging.
The third and fourth stages were set up as a “semi-marathon”, with no maintenance allowed at the bivouac after the goal of the SS (competition segment), and only two hours of work was allowed at a service park set up near the finish line.
Then the team traveled a 172-km liaison to the bivouac at Al Salamiya, and the vehicle was parked at the Parc-Fermes (vehicle storage area).
After completing their work at the service park, the assistance team began moving to Al-Hofuf, the next bivouac, along the 530km assistance route.
On January 9, the team will race from Al Salamiya to Al-Hofuf.
A 299 km competition is scheduled to take place around Riyadh.
Teruhito Sugawara
When I lowered the tire pressure before the sand dune, the right rear wheel went flat.
The winch that hung the spare tire was also broken, and it took 18 minutes to replace it.
After that, also the dust was so bad that we could not increase our pace as much as we wanted, but the sub transmission we replaced was in good shape and we could run very well.
Hirokazu Somemiya
Particularly in the latter half of the day, there were difficult navigation sections with complex changes in the cups (directions).
At places like the bottom of wadi, it was hard to clear the visibility because of the dust stagnation. But overall, it was a pretty good day.
Yuji Mochizuki
We were able to drive comfortably by effectively using the low/high sub-transmission, such as selecting the low range on the sand dunes.
However, I think there is a slight slipping sensation in the 4th gear of the automatic transmission.
We will manage to drive the truck tomorrow and have the parts replaced when we get to Al-Hofuf.
The navigation work was not busy because the waypoints were widely
