4/22/08

Robby finishes with a strong 9th place in the 2nd leg of the 3rd stage.

He drove his Hummer H3 finishing with a time of 25 minutes 45 seconds. Carlos Sainz won the stage finishing a minute and 15 seconds faster than Gordon. We did not have to do any travel last night; today’s stage was the same as yesterday’s stage but backwards. He is still 6th in the overall classification with a time of 3 hours 35 minutes and 20 seconds. Robby is 2 minutes and 27 seconds behind the 3rd place Car of Luc Alphand and 5minutes and 33 seconds behind the leader. Tomorrow’s stage should favor the 2-wheel drive Hummer. These technical roads suit the 4 wheel drive cars better, they have a lower center of gravity and they don’t drift as much as the 2wd Hummer. We go back to Debrecen where Robby finished 2nd only 41 seconds behind the stage winner. The Man trucks raced through there after the cars did in stage one and the roads will be rutted up. This type of terrain will favor the Hummers due to their suspension travel and larger tires.

BJ Baldwin had a great run finishing 11th with a time of 25 minutes and 41 seconds. He jumped up in the overall standings to 21st with a time of 4 hours 16 seconds and 59 minutes. If it had been for that wrong road he took earlier he would have been in the top 15 for sure. I will update this Blog entry with pictures and quotes as I receive them. The cars didn’t come back to camp because all the support vehicles have left back to Hungary. The media crew has to stay here until the DirecTV piece is finished. I am estimating 9 o’clock my time. We then have to drive to Debrecen; I’m expecting a 6-hour drive back…