It was a long night for service crews, and an early morning for competitors in the 2014 Australasian Safari, with some crews even deciding to make the trip from Exmouth to Yanrey station (WA) the night before to avoid the 3am wake-up.

The 184 kilometre first stage took competitors into Pilbara desert country, with red dunes and blasts along outback tracks. The second stage was a familiar sight to competitors, being a repeat of the 209 kilometre Winning stage from the leg previous.

Auto
The ‘green machine’ of Steve Riley and John Doble still powers on, taking two stage wins and moving back into first place for outright auto.

“We found some more tyres and didn’t have any flats today. Our guys worked on it until 4:30am this morning because we had a lot of issues to fix last night,” said Riley.

“In the first stage we passed Dave McShane and Bill Hayes when they had a navigation error. Johnny Doble always finds the way.

“We were nine minutes quicker in the second stage than we were yesterday. We were doing a bit of a durability testing. That ute flies, it was pedal to the metal all the way.

“Now it’s time where you have got to put strategy into play. I’m just not sure what that strategy is yet.”

Dave McShane and Bill Hayes are holding up well, and are in second place, after the gruelling five days so far. The Nissan Patrol of Greg Scanlon and Liam Nunns rounds out the top three in the Auto category, only fifteen minutes behind McShane / Hayes.

Moto
The day presented a mixed bag for moto competitors, with some technical navigation in the first section catching a few out.

Rod Faggotter is leading the moto category, with Quinn Cody less than half an hour behind and strong Dakar Challenge chance Ian Blythe a little less than an hour behind.

“Some guys got tripped up early on with the navigation. I was lucky to take an extra second to check the roadbook. There weren’t even any zero car tracks so had to rely on purely navigation,” said Quinn Cody.

“In the second stage, the terrain had been beaten by the cars and because we did it the day previous, I knew what to expect and was able to go faster.”

“I did not like that 2:15am start to get to the bivouac at 6am by the way.”

Quad
It was only John Iuliano who had a drama free day in the quad category. Leaders Heath Young and John Maragozidis both had incidences which put them out of the rhythm.

At the end of the day Young was leading by a little over ten minutes over John Maragozidis. While John Iuliano had a good day, with stage times within ten minutes of the two leaders, he still has to make up a couple of hours to catch John Maragozidis.

SxS
It’s an all Polaris top three with Robert Williams and Michael Hawkins now having a comfortable lead over the pack, with just over two hours separating them from second placed Simon Clifford.

Dylan Minear and Steve Syson from War Motorsports hold third place.

Safari Challenge
The inaugural Safari Challenge is proving to be a ‘real’ challenge for the production standard vehicles. Matt Brogan and Julia Barkley in the Jeep Wrangler have a comfortable lead in the challenge as they move into Leg 6.

The event moves to tropical Carnarvon tomorrow, where competitors will be racing along the white sandy beaches bordering the coastline, and Ningaloo reef.

VIDEO: Leg 5 highlights