Kolomý Wins 3rd Stage of Dakar Rally!
Third stage of Dakar Rally 2016 will be writ large in the statistics of not only Martin Kolomý and Kilian brothers but also the TATRA BUGGYRA RACING team, the winner of the Constructors´ Cup in the European Race Truck Championship of the past season.
“Fantastic result this is! Martin has achieved his first stage victory and we all compliment him on this. He does have a combative spirit,“ rejoiced the team manager Jan Kalivoda in the Jujuy bivouac. Martin Kolomý thus joins in the modern history of Dakar Rally on the American Continent the names of Josef Macháček and Aleš Loprais as the third Czech pilot standing on the top of the imaginary podium for stage winners. Martin Kolomý could not enjoy the euphoria of the victory for too long, though. When the team arrived at the bivouac another rainstorm began to pour down on them and the mechanics had to start servicing the racing specials of Tatra before the next day.
“This was a real hell of water and I must say I had not seen such a heavy downpour before. In addition tomorrow we will have to transfer to Bolivia while the boys will race in the mountains around Jujuy. We all wonder whether the stage will take place at all, for everything is under water here,“ was Kalivoda´s description of the current situation. Martin Kolomý took the lead at the very beginning of the third stage and held his advantage built after start till the end of the stage. “When I finished the stage I did not believe that I would be the winner. I am extremely happy but keep a realistic view. We are at the beginning of the competition and things may still change dramatically in the course of it. On the other hand I am very glad we proved to each other that our opponents can be beaten and we are up to being in the front,“ said Martin with satisfaction.
In the overall classification the crew of Martin Kolomý ranks seventh due to a ten minute penalisation for exceeded speed limit. “This is an issue tormenting many crews here. It requires the ideal setting of the speed limiter. Today Jarda also received a two minute penalty,” sighed Martin. Jaroslav Valtr also performed excellently in the third stage. Starting from the rear he and his Phoenix already ranked fourth at the first meantime measuring point. Thus he showed that without technical issues his crew can compare to the quickest. He finally ranked thirteenth after a big loss due to one of the accidents on the road. “Today my Phoenix honoured its name and flew ahead. We overtook one truck after another and the Tatra worked infallibly. We only encountered a little pullback when arriving at a place where a truck was trapped and could not be bypassed. I would like to express my great thanks and praise to Jirka Stross, who jumped out of the cab to show me where to go. This is also one of the faces of Dakar,“ was Valtr´s comment on the day.
Stable performance was maintained by Tomáš Ouředníček, who ranked forty ninth. “Last night we noticed a large stain of oil on the rear differential. We replaced a couple of suspect parts but today´s start showed that the problem was somewhere else. Therefore we had to be very careful, but it is hard to race with caution,” said Ouředníček about his racing Hummer.
Argentina is troubled with heavy rainstorms and the Jujuy bivouac looks like one big pool of water. This is obviously what even the organizers are not completely prepared for and although they said at the evening briefing that everything was all right the worries about the coming marathon stage are in place.
More on web site: www.buggyra.com.
