Meeke carries on despite his fiery nightmare in the Saudi desert
KRIS Meeke is only a couple of days into his first Dakar Rally but already he says he could write a book.
It has been an extraordinary experience for the World Championship rally winner from Dungannon, who is tackling his first desert marathon with the French PH Sport team.
The Saudi Arabia-based event started encouragingly in the prologue, which determined the starting order, when Meeke set fastest time in the lightweight T3 category in his Zephyr buggy and proceeded to build a five-minute lead by the halfway point on the opening 380-mile section from Jeddah to Bisha.
But the constant pounding over the rough tracks caused a spare wheel to rub against the hot exhaust, setting fire to the tyre which set the electrics alight. When they burned out, the buggy stopped, leaving Meeke and Dutch co-driver Wouter Rosegaar stranded in the desert, waiting for a rescue truck to tow them to the bivouac in Bisha. They waited hours, spending the time with local tribesmen who introduced them to their baby camels and lambs.
Rescue eventually arrived, but even then the nightmare wasn’t over. Meeke tweeted: “If anyone ever fancies being towed by a 10ton truck on a five-metre rope for 120kms through the roughest terrain on earth, in the dark... It’s one hell of a ride!”
The PH Sport engineers were able to re-build the Zephyr overnight and Meeke re-joined the rally yesterday morning for the Bisha to Wadi Ad-dawasir second stage, albeit with a huge 12 hour penalty which has dropped him right out of contention.
Facing sand dunes for the first time, he made it safely through, just 15 seconds behind the stage winner, 18-year-old American Seth Quintero, who moved into second place behind stage one winner Cristina Gutierrez. The Spaniard leads by some 17 minutes in the T3 class.
The battle for the overall lead features three of the most decorated Dakar drivers of all time, with Nasser al-attiyah taking the stage win in his Toyota Hilux but Stefan Peterhansel assumed the overall lead by six minutes from his X-raid Mini team-mate Carlos Sainz, the stage one winner. Al-attiyah moved up to third ahead of the French driver Matthieu Serradori.
Sebastien Loeb suffered a series of punctures on stage one but the nine-time WRC champion was fast through the dunes yesterday to climb to seventh in his Prodrive-built BRX Hunter.