Skyler Howes: “Really not a good start for me”

Dakar 2024 | Prologue | ALULA > ALULA
January 5 ^th 2024 - 12:13 [GMT + 3]

It has been a bad day for the American who, as on the Rallye du Maroc, fell on the prologue. Fortunately, this time Skyler has not had to drop out. He posted the 44th best time, 5’10’’ behind his team-mate Schareina, the slowest of the Rally GP riders. It is likely that Howes will have to open the way tomorrow, which is not an enviable task on a stage announced as long and difficult.

“It was really not a good start for me. They keep doing these strange things like on the prologues. You’re supposed to go through stakes but we’re off-piste, so we’re going off-track and then, more or less, you have to figure out where they want you to go. There was one moment where I came back and saw the stakes we were supposed to go through, so I cut back to go through them but hit some camel grass and had a big crash. Then my roadbook stopped working so I had no roadbook and there was one note that was tricky, you had to go through a canyon, and because I had no roadbook I was more or less following the tracks that were going all over the place. I lost more time there and got a little bit lost. I’m super unhappy with the start of this, but we have fourteen more days so anything can happen. Tomorrow’s going to be a really long day because my time was really not so good, so I’m almost positive that I’ll be opening the stage tomorrow, which is not ideal, but I’ll do my best. Now we’ll get back to the bivouac to repair the motorcycle”.