07/01/06 - Atar > Nouakchott - 508 km - 568 km

Firdaus Kabirov was the first at the finish line of the 8 th “Lisbon-Dakar 2006” leg. 5 min 25 sec later came Hans Stacey. Vladimir Tchaguine followed him in 51 min 56 sec.

The first half marathon outcome of sport cavalcade which was on the road to Mauritania capital Nouakchott had mostly Russian character. The leader upon overall results in truck category remained Vladimir Tchaguine’s crew (№ 508). Firdaus Kabirov (№ 500) remained 30 min 32 sec behind Tchaguine. And the trio headed by the Hollander Hans Stacey lagging for 44 min 54 sec took the third place.

KAMAZ № 514 of Sergey Reshetnikov had to reach finish before dawn. Though he lost the winner 2 h 24 min he broke “the maximum time” limits defined for negotiating the whole leg, and the crew got by without penalty time. Upon overall results the debutants were the 16 th.

By the end of the first half of the route competition among trucks reminded Russian roulette – nobody had courage to predict results of one of the stages in advance. Already second day in succession Tchaguine’s crew wasted time in the sands. This time it happened on the 230 th km: rally leading KAMAZ could not contend with sandy trap at once and almost during an hour the members shoveled away the sandy blockade.

Sunday, 08 January 2006