Aravind KP completes Stage 7 with 47th overall: Dakar Rally
San Juan de Marcona, 15 Jan 2019: Visitors to San Juan de Marcona are usually looking for the best plan to discover the Nazca Lines. Stage 7 of the Dakar was completely different, with an assortment of difficulties to fray the nerves of all types of competitors. To add to this, the lone Indian survivor Aravind KP, had navigational issues. But he managed to overcome all the hurdles and accelerated his progress to the top-50 with a brilliant run as the fast men were in their element in the fast off-road sectors of the first 100 kilometres, only to suffer in the fesh-fesh and on the rough tracks on a plateau halfway through the stage.
For the next 50 kilometres, the focus of Aravind, the Sherco TVS Rally Facotory team rider, switched to the dune surfers, with the Duna Grande and Duna Argentina sectors, later to transition to faster stretches near the end of the stage… all while dodging the navigational pitfalls in the vicinity of San Juan. He did a tremendous job to stay on course even as his teammates, the Metge brothers had a top-15 finish.
Aravind, once again was in his elements and he put in a steady effort to end the day 46th. The Indian is now in 47th in the main standings after the 387 km of Stage 7. He was 46th in the Stage Classification.
