2022 Stage 2: KLIM Dakar Rally Daily, Episode 31

It's Stage 2 of the 2022 Dakar Rally and the racing shakeups continue as racers work their way through a challenging navigation trend that's defining this year's edition.

We chat with Sam Sunderland about navigation and course challenges and Skyler Howes calls in with a race report from the past two days.

Joan Barreda takes the stage win (his 28th!) and Sam Sunderland is the race's newest leader, the second leader from the GasGas brand, with a strong performance in today's stage which was supposed to be day one of a marathon. It turns out the marathon bivouac was flooded after days of rain, so organizers moved the pits to a new location and scrapped the marathon.

The race is on otherwise and what a race it's turning out to be.

Big time gains were grabbed by KTM's Kevin Benavides and Toby Price today in the general standings. Also on the move was Joaquim Rodriquez on the Hero machine and Andrew Short took some time back on the Monster Energy Yamaha. In fact, all the Monster Energy Yamaha machines of VanBeveren (2nd), Short (16th), and Branch (12th overall) are knocking on the top 15 in general classification.

One of the strongest day-by-day performance so far in this young race is from Husqvarna Factory Racing's Skyler Howes as he once again maintained an incredibly consistent pace finishing in the top five today, avoiding errors and looking solid.

American Ricky Brabec made up some time from a tough day yesterday, but not as much as his fellow competitors.

This race is just getting started with 10 more days of gnarly racing to come!

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Dakar Rally Daily is produced and edited by Jesse Ziegler, and hosted by Quinn Cody and Jesse Ziegler.