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Rally Dakar: Two ex-champions exit race

Xinhua, January 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

Two former champions of the Dakar Rally bowed out of this year's race following Wednesday's grueling stage 10, organizers announced.

Spanish auto racer Joan Nani Roma (Mini), winner of the 2004 and 2014 rallies, in the motorbike and car divisions, respectively, and Chile's Ignacio Casale (Yamaha), the reigning champion in quads, abandoned this year's rally, each for a different reason.

Nani's Mini suffered a spectacular road accident on the tract between the cities of Calama (Chile) and Salta (Argentina), flipping over three times before coming to a rest. The driver and his copilot, France's Michel Perin, were stunned but unharmed.

"We hit a hole," the driver's team posted on Twitter later. "The Mini ... flipped over three times over a hole that wasn't marked on the road-book."

"Both Michel and I are alright, though we had a good fright from an unmarked peril," the racer said, adding "The 2015 Dakar Rally has been the strangest of my life."

After the crash, Nani still hoped to get back in the race, but the Mini was out of commission.

Casale, meanwhile, was holding in second place, 4 minutes behind the leader, Poland's Rafal Sonik (Yamaha), but was forced out by a mechanical problem with his quad, organizers said. Endi