DANIEL SANDERS ONE DAY AWAY FROM SONORA RALLY VICTORY.
BATTLING THROUGH A TOUGH PENULTIMATE DAY OF RACING CHUCKY CARRIES A NEAR SIX-MINUTE LEAD INTO TOMORROW’S FINAL STAGE.
First rider into the stage once again, and come the end of another long day in the saddle, still the provisional overall leader of the 2023 Sonora Rally! Knowing that starting out front wasn’t going to be easy today, while Sanders wasn’t able to claim a third consecutive stage win – he finished a solid fourth and just over one minute down on the day’s winner Toby Price – he did exactly what he needed to do to keep himself well in contention for the event win with just one day of competition remaining.
It was tough out there today. With more broken tracks and some of Wednesday’s route raced in reverse, leading out was by no means easy. But Chucky did an excellent job once again, making almost zero mistakes and clocking up over five minutes in bonuses to secure his highly commendable top-four stage result.
Now, one step away from winning the 2023 Sonora Rally, the final day of competition in Mexico will see Chucky take on a 139-kilometer special stage, the shortest of the event.
Daniel Sanders:“Yeah, that was a pretty wild day. Obviously, I was the first rider out this morning, and I noticed that the road book had a kind of different style, there were a few notes that were a little strange for me. I kept cruising, found a mistake in the road book, the wrong cap. I went straight, managed to validate the waypoint before the fueling. Then there was a lot of tricky navigation for me out front. We rode over a fair number of tracks from previous days, but in reverse, as well as some new stuff. I made a big mistake at the end and lost three minutes or so, only about 10 kilometers from the finish. It’s a shorter day tomorrow, the final day of the event, so as I won’t be leading out in the morning, I hope I can have a good day.”
Results Sonora Rally 2023 – stage 4 (provisional)
1. Toby Price (KTM) 2:33:21
2. Tosha Schareina (Honda) 2:33:44
3. Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna) 2:34:13
4. Daniel Sanders (GASGAS) 2:35:01
Provisional Standings – Sonora Rally 2023 (after stage 4)
1. Daniel Sanders (GASGAS) 9:47:08
2. Tosha Schareina (Honda) 9:52:50
3. Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna) 10:01:31
Text/Bild: GasGas