Dakar 2018: Hunt and Poskitt in the mix on stage two

British riders Max Hunt and Lyndon Poskitt made it through the tough second stage of the 2018 Dakar with both riders dusting themselves down from crashes to finish in 56^th and 60^th place respectively. 

The 267km timed special stage was a tough one with difficult navigation and made even harder by the fact that the cars and not the bikes opened the stage. This meant the bikes spent large portions of the day in close proximity to the cars which meant for an interesting day for both riders….

Poskitt said: “It was absolute carnage! There were parts of the stage that looked a junk yard. There were cars upside down, on their side, stuck at the top of dunes I’ve never seen so many stuck.

I missed a couple of way points, which I had to go back for, which cost me a few minutes. On one of them the locals were telling me to go left but I didn’t think it was right. It turned out it was so I had to ride back past them. I felt a bit of a dickhead but I gave them a wave and they gave me a cheer – so all good! 

The bike is working well, but its not super stable at the rear. It was set-up like last years race, but there wasn’t really any sands so I’m going to take a bit of rear pre-load off tonight. That was how I crashed, the rear fishtailed and didn’t come back and through me over the top.”

Hunt experienced an equally interesting ride through the dunes. He said: “I saw one of the Red Bull cars upside down right at the start and then I came to this massive sand bowl which looked like a car graveyard. 

“I went over the top of a dune too fast and went over the bars, but as my bike slid down I could see sand going up the exhaust. When I tried to turn it over I could hear something was wrong, so I managed to turn it upside down and empty the sand out and it started up fine. I only lost about five minutes. It was hard though as loads of riders came past which is hard when you’ve already spent ages passing them.

“With every KM I feel I’m learning to ride the sand better. I think the dunes are harder to read than they are in Morocco and I’ve had a few big moments but somehow not crashed – which is good!

“On the fast stuff I’m happier. Because I come from a Superbike background I have no problem keeping the thing tapped out at over 100mph. I fly past the other guys, but then they catch me back up in the technical stuff.” 

Brits

56^th  Max Hunt                        GBR                 Husqvarna       +47m42s
60^th Lyndon Poskitt                  GBR                 KTM                 +53m38s

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