Bland and Schröder still biting the bullet at Dakar

Ballito Dakar navigator Ryan Bland and his German driving partner, Daniel Schröder, continue to gun their way across the dunes and treacherous rocky roadways in the 2022 rally.

Now in the second week of the 12-stage, 8 000km epic race in Saudi Arabia, the duo continue to make their presence felt as they entered stage 9 on Tuesday.

They have been making good headway in their VK50 Nissan Navara 5.0L V8, despite hitting a snag in the 700km stage 7 from Riyadh to Al Dawadimi.

In sandy terrain at Riyadh on the border with neighbouring Al-Qassim province, they were in 34th position in their category when the car’s front right drive snapped, causing them to lose their four-wheel drive capability and bringing them to a dead halt as they sunk deep into the sand.

“Today [Monday] was a helluva day. We started out really well and were upbeat as we went out flying, but then heard a noise at the front of the car. The drivetrain was very noisy but we were not sure what it was.

“We got to neutralisation about 187km in and there was no drive shaft on the front right. It was just missing,” said Bland.

They lost 75 minutes being forced to make repairs, dropping them to 69th, finishing the day in 7 hours, 17 minutes and 33 seconds.

In stage 8, racing 830km from Al Dawadimi to Wadi Ad Dawasir, Bland and Schröder made good time, clawing their way back to 32nd position in a time of 4 hours, 28 minutes and 27 seconds.

“After the previous day’s mishap, we had a pretty good run. It was very sandy in the beginning but we managed to catch quite a few guys in the dune section,” said Schröder.

Tuesday’s stage 9 entailed a 400km loop around Wadi Ad Dawasir.

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Despite being designed to offer a slight bit of relief after stages 7 and 8, stage 9 proved somewhat difficult for our riders as they looped Wadi Ad-Dawasir toward the province of Aseer and its canyons through the Wajid Plateau.

This stage gives a proper taste of sand, with some dunes.

A great start was had but when they reached the neutralisation zone they noticed a problem with the front right shaft again.

They carried on until they were allowed to work on the car, tackling a set of dunes in 2-wheel drive.

This however forced them again to work on the car and fix the shaft, losing 30 minutes.

The duo managed to make good headway reclaiming some ground however, it meant they would start stage 10 on Wednesday in a position of 56 after finishing stage 9 with a time of 3 hours, 41 minutes and 5 seconds.

Stage 10 on Wednesday saw racers leave Wadi ad-Dawasir to take on a 759km race.

Bland and Schröder finished this stage in 55th position at a time of 3 hours, 56 minutes and 59 seconds.

They have the remaining stage 11 to 12 left on their plates.

The race route sees racers head south toward Najran Province for the first start of the 375km special, which weaves its way around the plateaus of Wajid and Hejaz.

A fast course, two thirds of it are sandy followed by a north-west turn which leads to Bisha.

Come the end of stage 10, most racers would have reached the combined total distance covered in the race to date of around 6 500kms.

Find the live timings at www.dakar.com.

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