Date: January 18th

Stage: Stage 11

Stage Distance: 420 km

Stage Ranking: 6th in the QUAD category

General Ranking: 5th in the QUAD category

Race summary:  The organizers of the Dakar Rally have warned in advance that the penultimate day of the rally will be very difficult and will mix the cards for many participants. The results only showed that this was the absolute truth – many vehicles that returned to the finish line were missing one or another body part or even wheels, and some did not reach the finish line with their equipment at all. Unfortunately, Antanas Kanopkinas was among them.

“A brutally hard day – long and full of stones. In short, it just didn’t work out. The stone caused damage not only to the tire, but also to the rim and brake caliper. These three ingredients did so much that we simply could not continue the competition. I had to wipe away a tear and fly to the finish by helicopter,” said the rider of the CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team and said with a smile on his face that the surroundings are really very beautiful from a bird’s eye view.

Now the team hopes to receive the quad bike by morning, which the organizers have to evacuate from the hard-to-reach part of the track. If this happens before the scheduled start tomorrow morning, then the athlete will have only 328 kilometers to the finish arch. Of these, 175 will consist a special stage, and the organizers say that the final stage of this Dakar Rally will be much easier, but the loop stage that stretches around the port city of Yanbu should not be relaxed either. Dakar is only finished after crossing the finish arch.