Skyler Howes had a particularly tough Thursday (and stage) in this edition of the Dakar Rally, admitting to having made some serious mistakes that ended up costing him time. The eagerness to make up time led him to questionable decisions, which may have resulted in errors that ultimately hindered his performance.
In the fifth stage of the competition, covering 428 kilometers of special, the Honda rider spoke about some of the mistakes he made, fully aware that these decisions were far from ideal: ‘It was frustrating for me, I started so far back that I started relying on the tracks in front of me for navigation, which is not really a smart thing to do. But when you’re in the back like that and because we lost a lot of time yesterday [wednesday], I was pushing super hard to catch back up some time’.
A later error cost him a few more minutes: ‘Around 150 kilometres I got to an area where all the tracks kind of disappeared and I was behind the road book enough that I went down the wrong canyon and had to circle back. I probably lost about six minutes just in that one little spot’.
Howes eventually reached the finish line and ended the stage in sixth: ‘I did pretty good after the refuelling, I knew the navigation was going to be tricky again and there were a few areas that I had to kind of wander a little bit to find the good way, but I didn’t have to turn around or anything’.
In the overall standings, Howes is currently in fifth place, trailing Daniel Sanders, who leads, by 27 minutes and 59 seconds.