Transanatolia Tappa4: A real contact with nature …

© DR

In an altitude of 1500m, in the middle of mountains and valleys, with a dirty road that yesterday afternoon put a huge strain on all the service trucks, even more than those of the rally. The fantastic bivouac of Se Yaylasi – found from Transanatolia Sport Organization for the finish line of the 4. stage of Transanatolia Rally 2019 – is a amazing heaven, and to respect the quiet and the silence of nature, obviously, no contact with the outside world was possible for over 14 hours, from 2 o’clock p.m. to this morning.

No phone, no line, even less connection. So much so that the race management was set up in another place and in order to work on rankings and starting order of today had to wait the late night.

Standings yesterday are not changed in the motorbike category despite some important fall yesterday, for example for Francesco Tarricone (Beta) victim of a front jump and then forced to race with another rider since he had literally destroyed his instrumentation. And also the fall of Nicola Quinto, in trouble also with his Beta. The fastest was once again Maurizio Gerini (Husqvarna) who imposed a strong pace to the race that nobody can match. Marco Borsi (Husqvarna), always second in the overall at the start of the fifth stage owns up: « I tried to attack Gerini yesterday and in the first special stage I was almost successful. But when we got to the second special stage, over the mountains and much heavier for arms and legs, my sixty years started to be too heavy for me. His pace was impossible for me. »

Livio Metelli (Husqvarna) started from the eighth position yesterday morning for a bad fall in the third stage, tried, him too, to beat Gerini but it was impossible and he was able just to take a new position in the overall standing. At the end of the fourth stage the overall standings always sees Maurizio Gerini in the lead, with Marco Borsi second at 42’30, Nicola Quinto third to more than 20 minutes from Borsi and Livio Metelli, fourth with 32′ of gap from the third.

Richard Kaye (KTM) is fifth in front of Francesco Tarricone and Said Yusuf ÇAKIR (Ktm) seventh with Ejder ERİŞTİ (KTM) eight and Lorenzo Piolini (KTM), ninth.

Tough day for the SidebySide with two punctures for Tsanko Tsankov and Zornitsa Todorova (Can Am) while Yves Tartarin e Cedric Duple (Steenbok) suffered for a petrol problem on their Steenbok: in the overall standing the Bulgarian lead with 2h.20′ on the French. « Now I want to race just to the finish line and still test my SSV. If it’ll be possible I would like win some other special stages » said Yves Tartarin, at the first partecipation to Transanatolia Rally.

No rest and no peace for the car category: Suzuki Vitara of Mert Becce and Sertaç Tatar still lead but for all the 4. stage Mitsubishi L200 of Batuhan Korkut and Ilayda Hanci Korkut try to overcome them in the overall standing. At the end of the 4. day Becce is still first with a gap of 4’06 on Korkut: Toyota Prado of Burak Ahmet Cepni and Huseyin Afsar come up the third position and the Mitsubishi Pajero Benan Engin and Uğur Tepe slipped into the fifth position.

Today fifht stage started from the bivouac of Se Yaylasi at 8,15 a.m. direction Nemrut Mountain, one of the most beautiful and historical place of Turkey. The day will count 348 kms. After the first stage of 92 kms which runs by high mountain roads, it’ll follow two more similar special tests – 37 and 32 kms – that will bring all the rally caravan in an important historical region : Kingdom of Kommagene ! The camp will be on the Nemrut mountain, near the burial mound of King Antiochos I at 2300 meters. Here, the rituals were performed against the rising and setting of the sun.

Elisabetta Caracciolo,

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