Erik Van Loon and Gert-Jan van der Valk battled for the Morocco Desert Challenge’s Stage #2 win for SSVs, but penalties made that duel more lopsided than it actually was.

Van der Valk had narrowly beat Van Loon by just a minute and five seconds. Unfortunately for the latter, he received five minutes of penalties that gave him a final time of 5:34:36, dropping him to third in class behind Geoff Minnitt. Even Minnitt got two minutes added to his time.

Van Loon was still satisfied with how he fared on Sunday, rebounding from running out of fuel in Stage #1. He still would have finished runner-up to van der Valk without the penalties, though the close margin makes him wonder if race regulations for T3 and T4 cars made the difference. Van der Valk drives an Arcane T3, which is built specifically for racing, while Van Loon’s Can-Am Maverick R is a production UTV.

“We came back well after yesterday,” Van Loon said. “Driving went great and we paid close attention to the car today. It was a difficult stage and we had to search around a few times, but otherwise it went well.

“We passed a lot of cars at the start, but they overtook us at the end. We race in the T4 class and are allowed to go 125 km/h but the T3s are allowed to go 135 km/h, so they passed us at the end even though we were simply faster. That’s frustrating. We could have been a bit faster.”

Excluding the six who did not finish or missed the stage, 14 SSV drivers in total received time penalties on Sunday. Stage #1 class winner Mitchel van den Brink was among them, finishing fifth after losing four-wheel drive at the start then having to drive at 90 km/h because of high engine temperatures.

His father Martin van den Brink wasn’t safe either in the Truck category. He drove through a puddle and water got into his IVECO Torpedo’s engine, triggering the emergency stop and costing him an hour. Truck rival Egbert Wingens stopped to provide help, earning him a three-minute time credit. Van den Brink would finish second in class, 22:21 behind Gert Huzink (also the victim of a one-minute penalty) with Wingens third.

Saturday’s car winner Michiel Becx retired from the stage, which Lionel Baud took advantage of to finish second and become the new overall leader. He finished 1:41 back of stage winner Simon Vitse.

Stage #2 winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Total Time
Bike	107	Nicolas Horeaux	Nomade Racing	6:01:29
SSV	210	Gert-Jan van der Valk	Arcane Racing	5:28:51
Car	303	Simon Vitse	MD Rallye Sport	5:09:45
Truck	502	Gert Huzink	Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid Dakar Team	5:24:03

Leaders after Stage #2

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Total Time
Bike	101	Amaury Baratin	Horizon Moto 95	7:20:15
SSV	201	Mitchel van den Brink	Eurol Rally Sport	6:37:27
Car	306	Lionel Baud	X-raid Mini JCW Team	6:13:29
Truck	502	Gert Huzink	Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid Dakar Team	6:27:55

Featured image credit: MMphoto