Our friends at WestX1000 are south of the border to cover the Sonora Rally. Stay tuned for daily updates. 
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Day 4, SS3: Not All Dunes Are Created Equal
Sand still played a big role in Special Stage Three, but it was less an ocean and more a lake, in most places. Smooth, calm, inviting. It gave racers an opportunity to switch the scene, pin the throttle or push the pedal and test new skills. Sonora?s Caborca district opened its arms, and country gates, to the event so participants could witness, firsthand, the diversity of the landscapes. But it wasn?t all fun and games. A particularly ferocious sun beamed down by early morning. A blinding khaki sheet of dust and silt divided the competitors everywhere but the dunes. And those dunes left them wishing for the good old days in the first and second specials. You don?t know what you?ve got until it?s gone, as they say. A phrase which probably meant more to a lot of the riders on Wednesday than those of us choosing to do something a bit tamer with their week. When you?ve been muscling through big rolling dunes ? some longing for the end ? it?s reasonable to find relief in hearing there will be a change of scenery. Winding sandy two track, tight twisty tunnels of desert flora, a dry lakebed and a bottomless, loose, quarter mile sandbox. Let?s do it! For so much of the stage, the feeling was joy, but all that evaporated as the competitors struggled the keep their bikes cool in the disfigured dunes section ...