Harpal Singh Bedi / New Delhi
Oriol Mena and C S Santosh continued their good run as Hero MotoSports Team Rally continued its steady performance at the Desafio Inca Rally in Stage 2 of the Rally in Peru.
Mena and Santosh finished the stage 2 safely to get some more laps and valuable experience under their belt. Both kept it safe and steady to finish the stage in the 10th and 17th positions respectively.
Joaquim Rodrigues too started well and settled into a nice rhythm before a minor fall towards the end of the first lap of stage 2. He suffered a twist in his back and minor damage to the bike, but managed to bring the bike to the end of the lap 1.
The team management decided to not take any risks, and decided to opt out of lap 2 for JRod. In fact few other top riders also opted out of the lap 2 of stage 1 as well, in order to conserve themselves for the Dakar. JRod stands at 21st place in the stage 2 rankings.
Our Heroes played it safe through Stage 2 of @DesafioInca.
JROD suffered a twist in his back but managed to bring the bike to end of lap 1 while opting out of lap 2. Oriol Mena and CS Santosh continued their good run to finish the stage. #RaceTheLimits #DesafioInca pic.twitter.com/V7hZRhZkmO
— Hero MotoSports (@hero_motosports) September 15, 2018
Second stage was again predominantly dunes and fesh-fesh combined with some tough navigation on the offer throughout the 2 laps making up the 350 kms of the stage.
After the race, Santosh opined “A lot of distance was covered in sand today. I think the stage was much faster and not as difficult with the navigation as yesterday but still got lots to learn. I’m having a much better feeling today as we go into the final stage on Sunday.”
Oriol Mena was happy with his show “Today was a really good stage for me. I made good navigation without any mistakes in both the laps so I am quite happy with my learning. Next stop is Dakar so it is important to learn as much as possible about the difficult Peruvian terrains. Looking forward to the final stage to close another rally for the team.”