Stage victory for KTM's Viladoms
By TMX Archives on 13th Jan 09
Line victory in Stage 10 of the 2009 Dakar went to KTM factory rider Jordi Viladoms with factory teammate Alain Duclos coming home second. Marc Coma made it a perfect KTM day to maintain his commanding overall lead as the rally re-enters Argentina. While Marc Coma maintains his overall lead on the Frenchman Fretigne(second at 1h24'50) and Cyril Despres (third at 1h31'11), the bigchange at the top of the leader board is that Despres now trailsFretigne by just over six minutes. The day was certainly eventful forthe KTM riders.
Jordi Viladoms (Repsol KTM) 1st and 4th overall (at 1h56'40)
A very strange, amazing day! I arrived at the first refuelling inmore or less the position I expected. So I was very surprised, not tosay a little concerned, to see that at the second refuelling Marc(Coma) wasn't there. Much to my relief, he arrived two minutes later,with Cyril (Despres) and Chaleco (Lopez). On leaving the refuelling CPAlain (Duclos) and I waited for our respective riders and then all fourof us rode through the camel grass together - a lot of fun. Then, notfar from the end, we couldn't find the waypoint. We headed off up thishuge dune, more like a mountain, to get to it and in the process allsplit up. I started to get worried again and then two dunes later I sawan orange bike in the distance and fortunately it was Marc - a bigrelief.
Alain Duclos (Kaestle KTM) 2nd (at 1'06) overall (at 12H44'17")
A fantastic stage! Until the second refuelling I rode in ‘economymode' to protect the tyre and then hooked up with Cyril, Marc, Jordiand Chaleco. Towards the finish Cyril set up off up this dune that wasmore like a mountain and we chased after him. It all became a bitchaotic. Jordi and I tried to stay with our riders. I saw a big crowdin the distance and thought it must be the finish line - if it had beenI might have won the special!
Cyril Despres (Red Bull KTM) 6th (at 8'50) 3rd overall (at 1h31'11)
It was such a crazy day it is difficult to explain exactly whathappened - even I am not sure, and I was there! Understandably Marcstayed very close to me all day. The problem was that when I went wronghe still stayed with me. If he'd disappeared from my ‘rear view mirror'I would have realised my mistake a lot sooner. When we finally got tothe refuelling Marc, Chaleco and I all had a good laugh about it. Thenright at the end we went our separate ways and I was amazed to findmyself all alone at the finish line. I kept asking people ‘are you surenobody else has been through'.
Marc Coma (Repsol KTM) 7th (at 12'17) 1st overall
We left the bivouac at about 6 this morning, but because of the fogand the fact that the helicopters couldn't fly, we didn't start till10. Then this evening we didn't get back to 17.30 - it was a very longday - and quite a stressful one! Everything was going fine until we gotlost after the refuelling CP and lost about 20 minutes Then nearly atthe end we struggled to find a waypoint and had to ride through somepretty soft sand. If yesterday resembled Morocco today was a bit likeMauritania.
Cancellation of Stage 11
Regrettably, what promised to be a spectacular Stage 11 that wasbilled as the most majestic of the entire rally was cancelled onTuesday evening due to predicted bad weather. Riders will now just goto Fiambala across the border in Argentina in liaison and restart fromthere the next day.
Provisional results after tenth stage
1. Jordi Viladoms, Spain, KTM
2. Alain Duclos, France, KTM
3. Helder Rodrigues, Portugal, KTM
4. David Casteu, France, KTM
5. Cyril Despres, France, KTM
6. Marc Coma, Spain, KTM
7. Henk Knuiman, Netherlands, KTM
8. Pal Anders Ullevalseter, Norway, KTM
9. Frans Verhoeven, Netherlands, KTM
10. Teus Visser, Netherlands, KTM
Provisional overall standings after tenth stage
1. Marc Coma, Spain, KTM
2. David Fretigne, France, Yamaha
3. Cyril Despres, France, KTM
4. Jordi Viladoms, Spain, KTM
5. Helder Rodrigues, Portugal, KTM
6. David Casteu, France, KTM
7. Pal Anders Ullevalseter, Norway, KTM
8. Francisco Lopez, Chile, KTM
9. Frans Verhofen, Netherlands, KTM
10. Henk Knuiman, Netherlands, KTM
44. Alain Duclos, France, KTM
Check out www.dakar.com for full results