The route for the 4th day was Al Qahma- Al Qahma. The HINO 600 Series of HINO TEAM SUGAWARA, equipped with a hybrid system for competition, crossed the finish line at 22nd place overall in the Truck category, moving up one spot from their cumulative ranking until this day.

This day’s SS was originally scheduled to take the route from Al-Altawiya to Al Qahma. However, due to bad weather, the bivouac at Al-Altawiyah was flooded, and the bivouac on the 3rd was changed to Al Qahma. On the 4th, the second half of the original SS was used for a loop course to the finish line at Al Qahma.

Specifically, from the bivouac in Al Qahma, a 214.33 km liaison (moving section) took them to the 113 km point of the original SS, where they started the competition. The road surface was the same as the previous day, a sandy high-speed piste (unpaved road) over sand dunes. The high and large dune area starting at the 168 km point was the most difficult part of the day.

The HINO 600 Series team of Teruhito Sugawara, Hirokazu Somemiya, and Yuji Mochizuki attacked this SS carefully. Since the floating-mounted capacitor case moves during driving and affects the behavior of the vehicle, they took on the challenge of going over the dunes while paying close attention to it, and safely crossed the finish line in 22nd place, up from 25th place at the start. Other than that, the rest of the SS was trouble-free. This result also moved them up to 22nd place in the cumulative standings.

On the 5th, they will compete in the longest SS of the event, 465 km, and after the SS, they will arrive in the capital city of Riyadh.

Teruhito Sugawara
There was no trouble today, but the capacitor case that is loaded through the suspension moves while driving. Because of its weight, when its movement matches the amplitude of the road surface and vibration, it creates a large inertial force that bounces up the rear of the vehicle. I had a hard time keeping the car running fast enough to prevent this from happening.

Yuji Mochizuki
The sand was heavy due to the rain, but it was not a problem for the engine because the time to apply the load was not so continuous. The hybrid system error came out after the SS, so it did not affect the competition.

Hirokazu Somemiya
The LCD screen for the navigator is a system that displays all the information such as trip and direction as well as the road book. The road book is given to you just before the start of the race, which is good because everyone has the same conditions. You can’t write on it with markers, so it’s like you have to deal with it on the spot.