The home stretch of a rally (or any race, really) can be deceiving. You’d think being the last day of action would make it a fairly smooth trip after fighting for so long, but this is also when your vehicle—having been pushed to its absolute limits—is as likely to fall apart as yourself.

Edward Ruszczyc can unfortunately attest to this. It’s been a challenging Morocco Desert Challenge lowlighted by him rolling his Taurus in Stage 5, which led to a frantic scramble by his team to get it fixed in time for the next day. While their efforts succeeded, the race didn’t get any easier. He lost the left front axle shaft in Stage 6 and was left in rear-wheel drive, which forced him to retire again.

Ruszczyc completed Stage 7 relatively fine, but his MDC ultimately ended in disappointment on Saturday when the connecting rod broke and punctured a hole in his engine block.

Frank Elsermans was also a DNF. He was signed up to compete alongside Red-Lineds and Hiluxes in the T1 4×4 class with a Citroën 2CV, an effort that was cheered on by those like Barbora Holická who raced a 2CV at the Dakar Classic. Alas, he and John Groen were among the two Cars entries not to complete Stage 8’s special. The same could be said for two other SSVs besides Ruszczyc—Nicușor Duica and Jack Wicklow—and bike riders Maxence Costard, Christoph Martin Köhlmeier, and Fred Mastop.

Among those who did get to the finish in Saïdia, Mitchel van den Brink was once again the fastest as he edged out Rients Hofstra by just 13 seconds.

“It started off well as we went through the fields with some technical sections. After that, it was mostly full throttle and we couldn’t do much of anything,” van den Brink commented. “That was a bit monotonous.”

Adam Szelerski concurred on Saturday’s route, explaining “there were a lot of sandy sections. Just sand, sand, sand, sand the whole way. You had to navigate constantly. No breaks at all, and you really had to watch the navigation. Lot of roads, flat terrain, couldn’t see anything. You’d arrive at a point that wasn’t even there. It’s supposed to be an intersection, but it was just open space somewhere right, somewhere left, mostly just azimuths the whole time. You really had to stay sharp.”

Even if it was a headache, it was a fast one for Szerlerski and his driver Magdalena Zając as they finished second among 4×4 behind Vincent Vroninks.

Stage winners

Bikes

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
Bike	1	124	Dennis Verswijver	Desert Vikings	1:50:20
Veterans Cup	4	104	David McBride	Vendetta Racing	1:53:03
Ladies Cup	24	119	Beatriz Diez	Club Aventura Touareg	2:41:45

Cars

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1+	1	301	Mitchel van den Brink	Eurol Rally Sport / MP Rallysport	1:24:34
T1 4×4	10	310	Vincent Vroninks	Desert Lions Rally Team	1:36:59
T1 4×2	5	303	Agostino Rizzardi	Countrysideways	1:31:49
T2	17	323	Ernst Amort	RZR Racing	2:07:40

SSVs

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T3	2	203	Gert Huzink	QFF Racing	1:37:00
T4	1	201	Geoff Minnitt	Dirt & Dust Adventures / South Racing	1:35:29
Open	22	232	Josep Rojas	Procurve	1:57:34
Open Light	36	246	Roland Perret	Perret Family	2:41:40

Trucks

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T5	1	501	Kay Huzink	Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid / Team de Rooy	1:33:14
T5 Over 15	8	508	Steve Ingels	RR Belgica	2:19:48
T5 Over 20	7	507	Fons Jans	Hamer Rally Team	1:58:10

Overall winners

Bikes

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
Bike	1	105	Julien Dalbec	Rallye 583	24:24:22
Veterans Cup	2	104	David McBride	Vendetta Racing	24:49:05
Ladies Cup	20	119	Beatriz Diez	Club Aventura Touareg	36:56:31

Cars

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1+	1	306	Ronald van Loon	Oase Motorsport	23:11:16
T1 4×4	4	309	Magdalena Zając	Proxcars TME Rally Team	26:38:03
T1 4×2	2	303	Agostino Rizzardi	Countrysideways	23:23:41
T2	12	323	Ernst Amort	RZR Racing	32:53:23

SSVs

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T3	4	208	Michiel Becx	Shiver Offroad	25:57:15
T4	1	205	Janus van Kasteren	Shiver Offroad	24:14:13
Open	9	232	Josep Rojas	Procurve	27:50:59
Open Light	31	246	Roland Perret	Perret Family	85:40:09

Trucks

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T5	1	501	Kay Huzink	Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid / Team de Rooy	24:07:56
T5 Over 15	8	508	Steve Ingels	RR Belgica	46:28:38
T5 Over 20	6	507	Fons Jans	Hamer Rally Team	32:40:39

Featured image credit: Dirt & Dust Adventures