The weather is playing tricks on the organizers and participants of this year’s Eco Africa Race. A pile of snow has fallen in the Atlas Mountains, where the route of the first stage was headed.
The organizers had no choice but to cancel this first stage of the competition, as well as the previous starting ceremony and Prologue, for safety reasons, and to send all participants, including the sole crew of the Taurus T3 Max buggy, the Slovak Norwit Racing Team, Martin Benek and Marek Sýkora, along the connecting route to the bivouac in the city of Bousaid. Thanks to the adverse weather, everyone was faced with a very demanding journey of more than eight hundred kilometers.
“I have to say that this year is very interesting. Yesterday the start ceremony and Prologue were cancelled, today the first stage …. Today we were supposed to have just under ninety measured kilometers, but looking at the weather we don’t regret it at all. As soon as we left Tangier, we were accompanied by heavy rain and thick fog. And there was a lot of snow on the road. As a person from Poprad, I am used to snow, but not in Morocco. I don’t usually complain, but today the eight hundred kilometers were not comfortable at all, especially if we realize that the buggy is a completely open car. But together with Marek we made it without any problems, we are in the bivouac and waiting for the arrival of our accompanying car and mechanics. Then sleep and go to the second stage tomorrow,” described the “wonderful” day Slovak rider Martin Benko.
With the competitors now beyond the Atlas Mountains, to lower altitudes and warmer temperatures, the aforementioned second stage of the Eco Africa Race 2026 should no longer pose a problem for the organizers. Its total length is planned to be only four hundred and twenty-five kilometers, but more than three hundred and eighty of them will be measured, so participants and fans alike have something to look forward to.