Summing Rally Baja 300 Bohemia Up
During the first weekend in September, the Svoboda Tatra Team competed in the rally Baja 300 Bohemia held in the former military grounds in Milovice lying in the Nymburk environs. The team had been looking forward to the event pretty much, as the one of such a type was last organized in the Czech Republic in 2009. They were offered opportunity to showcase themselves to Czech fans there, and to test their technical equipment, what is more at minimal costs. Competing teams that had arrived in Milovice really were good: the Suptitz, Germany, the top Dakar teams Buggyra or KM Racing, which had registered at the contest at the last moment. Tracks led across two areas close to the former airport grounds, where also a bivouac was situated.
The Baja 300 Bohemia began in the afternoon on Friday, 4th September 2015, with a ceremonial opening in front of the Milovice Hall. What followed then was Prologue, five kilometres in length, arranged to entertain spectators, and to give drivers opportunity to get familiar with the track, rather than to start the competition alone. A usual roadbook was used like in more prestigious competitions, however, now in a relatively small area, which would cause a bit of trouble: there was a change in direction every fifty kilometres, therefore co-drivers would find it difficult to navigate as they would be short of time to turn pages due to a fast pace. No wonder there was hardly any crew that would not get lost in the Prologue... Nevertheless, organisers promised to adapt the navigation system for next year to be more suitable for a small area. "Our ambition wasn't to win because of those top Dakar teams, yet we hoped for the podium finish," was Václav Svoboda's comment on the start of race, and added, "There had been a real chance, since the beginning of the contest had not seemed bad for us, we took the second place in Prologue on Friday. We set off on an about 200-km long section consisting of four stages on Saturday at a brisk pace, and we did make keep up with the top. The Milovice tank training track's mask slipped in Stage 2 showing rugged, uneven terrain, I'm afraid, so our Tatra wouldn't avoid trouble it's been long suffering from, that's not properly working shock absorbers."
On Saturday evening, the team were thinking about what to do next. Finally, they decided for a sort of risk, to dismount one shock absorber from each semi axle to reduce dampening by a half so the suspension would be more dynamic and copy the terrain better. "The solution proved to be effective, and the Tatra's performance during a short testing in the evening was excellent. We only worried about the dumpers durability, since they had not been designed for such loading," depicted the situation Zdeněk Novák, who had suffered a slight head injury during the stage on Saturday because of the hard suspension.
The team's mood on that Sunday morning grew upbeat; they were aiming for the third podium finish in overall classification. The suspension allowed them to drive fairly fast. Later on, the worries about the durability, unfortunately, would not prove groundless. One of them had not withstood strain and broke. Virtually, that ended all battles... Even though the crew removed it, the journey to the finish line suggested a sort of trip. "It proved definitely that solution for dumping is now the key factor for next successful rallies. We solved the engine successfully last year; well, I do believe we'll battle this problem too. We've already started to deal with it, and must solve it before entering next race," said the team's boss, Václav Svoboda, after the rally in Milovice.
The overall winner of the rally Baja 300 Bohemia is Martin Kolomý putting in an excellent performance, and also winning the truck category. The second place went to Martin Macík, and Tom Heuer in Tatra Jamal took the third one.
