Toyo-Equipped Robby Gordon Wins Dakar Stage 4 by Just 1 Second

Robby Gordon has won stage four of the 2010 Dakar with a time of one hour, forty minutes and twenty one seconds, just a second ahead of the factory BMW of Peterhansel. Racing on Toyo Open Country MT-Rs tyres, fis first stage victory of the 2010 race brings to three the number of Dakar stages the US racer has now won outright. As predicted before the race commenced, the privately entered Team Hummer have “humbled the mighty factory teams with their giant killing performance,” according to the company.

In winning this stage, Gordon’s Hummer had to overcome the twin issues of a restrictor which effectively robs his car of the power to compete on equal terms and the increased weight necessary for his cars fuel load. In yesterday’s stage, these issues caused the Hummer to get bogged down with insufficient power to pull itself out of the dunes losing valuable race time. It took a determined and focused effort by Gordon assisted by navigator Andy Grider to drive around these issues and race for today’s win.

Stage four, from Fiambala in Argentina to Copiapo in Chile was shortened by 40 kilometres because of the horrendous attrition of stage three where dozens of cars limped home to the bivouac late into the night either heavily damaged or having to be towed by their assistance vehicles. Given that stage four would take the race into the Atacama desert, the driest place on earth where no life can exist, the organisers decided to reschedule a later start and shortened the race distance.