RG finished well down the standings in stage two as he dumped the Hummer in a ditch and lost tons of time till he was pulled out by a fellow competitor...now sits in 18th position, 18 minutes and 8 seconds out of first---good news is that the European stages are like the "time trials" in the Tour de France...the winners of those stages are rarely seen at the end of the race...the Dakar is won or lost in the long African stages...and those begin tomorrow as they are ferrying all the trucks across the Meditteranean tonight...

Nissan is doing quite well with 4 trucks in the top 15 with the highest being #10 in a Nissan pickup...