Meeke refuses to let Dakar setbacks crush his spirit
KRIS Meeke says his competitive spirit “has taken a true battering” but he refuses to give up on his quest to complete his first Dakar Rally.
The former World Championship rally winner from Dungannon has faced a catalogue of problems from the start more than a week ago, beginning with a fire which destroyed the electrics of his PH Sport Zephyr buggy, the legacy of which saw him and co-driver Wouter Rosegaar stranded in the desert three times.
They won the fourth stage but their troubles have cost them more than 80 hours in penalties, killing any hopes of a strong result. But Meeke has battled on, saying he is “loving the experience” even if it is “trying to crush my soul”.
His later dramas came on the giant two-part stage which took the crews from Ha’il to Sakaka and from Sakaka to Neom, a combined distance of just short of 900 miles.
Meeke was fastest by nearly two minutes in the lightweight T3 prototype class over the first part of the stage but then the Zephyr suffered two broken driveshafts — a problem incurred by two other cars in his Abu Dhabi Racing team — leaving him to limp to the finish with only two-wheel-drive.
It cost him some 90 minutes to the class leader, American Seth Quintero. Worse still, there were no service teams allowed at Sakaka, only the crews themselves could work on their cars overnight before the next part of the stage.
There were no spare parts either, leaving Meeke to re-start yesterday still with only twowheel-drive, patched up spare tyres and no jack which had disappeared somewhere in the desert.
Somehow he made it through to the bivouac in Neom last night, dropping less than 50 minutes to Quintero who saw his T3 lead expand to four hours after his Red Bull USA team-mate Cristina Gutierrez was forced to retire her Can Am from second place with gearbox failure.
Nasser Al-attiyah won the stage outright, his fifth of the rally in his Toyota Hilux, but remained more than four minutes behind the X-raid Mini of leader Stefane Peterhansel who was third behind team-mate Carlos Sainz.