Kevin Benavides defends the overall leadership well at the second stage

It was a good day. The second special was the same as yesterday’s. Not much going on there; just a bit rougher terrain and more fesh-fesh on the corners. The first special was difficult. These guys are really fast and these roads are really scary and really slippery. We are taking no chances. We are just cruising out here and enjoying the scenery. Two days left, and just trying to get to the finish so that we can go home and prepare for the Dakar.

quoteIt was an entertaining stage two and I felt good. I'm picking up pace as the race goes on and I am happy about that. I got lost a bit and that penalized me by about four minutes, but still, I think I was doing well. I am improving on these hard roads and improving my riding skills.

It was a very good stage for me. I started out very focused. I was doing very well over the first 100 kilometres, opening the track but opening a gap from the rest. Two kilometres before the finish of the first part I had a small fall, scratching my arm a little. I slowed down a bit for the rest of the stage, but I did well. I think finishing second today is a great job. We will try to keep progressing and try to finish as best we can.

This second stage has not been an easy one. I started ahead and it was tough: around kilometre 50 I had some problems with the GPS, which triggered an alarm signal and it wouldn’t work when I got to the waypoints. There was a moment of confusion until another rider caught me up and we were able to ride together until the end of the special. The slopes here are very technical, complicated and very slippery. Luckily we are still on the bikes and now it’s time to think about the next stage.