TATRA BUGGYRA RACING Team Ready after Rest Day!

The famous competition called Dakar Rally has progressed to its second half after the rest day on Sunday. While the pilots could gain strength and take a little rest after the demanding full days of driving the mechanics had to use the rest day for intense work on the racing technology. Not only the TATRA BUGGYRA RACING team but also the other participating teams had the beginning of the rest day complicated. Floods arrested the accompanying vehicles in Salta 300 kilometres from the Sunday bivouac. "We only managed to group the whole team together around eleven in the morning. And our success was only thanks to the unique Tatra chassis which was able to make the way through the turbulent waters before the other teams," was the proud comment of the team manager Jan Kalivoda. The Czech team uses the new Phoenix not only as a racing special but also as a service truck.

Since arrival the excellently coordinated team of Czech mechanics plunged into work on all three racing specials. The biggest care was needed after stage seven by Fat Boy. "We failed yesterday and the repair on the road cost us over two hours of loss after the lead. The crew are disappointed but I am not giving up. We are only in the middle and there is still a long way ahead of us," was the optimistic statement of Martin Kolomý, whose Tatra Fat Boy was prepared by the mechanics in time for the pilot of Bruntál to be able to head for further hundreds of kilometres of the rally on Monday.

Last year the TATRA BUGGYRA RACING team for the first time organised a unique online chat on auto.cz portal with Czech participants across categories. The successful chat was again repeated this year and yielded over 200 interesting questions in the course of the hour of satellite connection of the team. The main themes of the chat included Martin Kolomý´s sausages and the number of windshields brought to Dakar by Martin Prokop.

Martin Kolomý and Jaroslav Valtr with their seventeenth and fifteenth overall rank, respectively, lose mere 45 minutes after the eighth ranking Van Den Heuvel driving a Scania racing special. For that reason it was also important to negotiate a wild card for Kolomý. "Despite all the logistic complications with the commissioners, who were trapped in Bolivia for an unscheduled day longer, we managed to get the wild card and I will be able to start the eighth stage from eleventh position. However, as the start of this stage is together with cars the time calculations say that this will mean position 50," said Martin Kolomý with a vision of better times.

Another team member looking forward to the second half of the competition is Josef Kalina. "Now the real Dakar will start at last, as we have moved to the sand section with stages demanding from the navigation point of view," said the triple winner of Dakar Rally. In addition Kalina exchanged souvenirs with his long-term friend and fellow competitor at Dakar and now the oldest participant of this year´s rally, the Japanese Sugawara: "This was a very pleasant visit, we have known each other for many years. I promised to him I would be racing as long as he does. I wonder whether I will be able to keep the promise."

A successful week is also over for Tomáš Ouředníček and his Hummer in the car category, where he ranks thirty ninth in the overall ranking after stage seven. "The first half of the rally was like on a swing. We were through a couple of hard moments when we even had to decide whether to continue in the race or not, but the support and messages from our friends and fans really helped us. We would like to send our great thanks to all of them!" was Tomáš Ouředníček´s message to his friends and fans.

On Monday the participants to the Dakar Rally will set off for Belem from Salta. The total length of the stage is 765 kilometres with the special section 373 kilometres long. Like in stage seven the timed section will include a neutralisation zone.

More on web site: www.buggyra.com.