An Unfortunate Accident Puts a Stop to the Libya Rally For Us
22.4.2015
Bad luck that’s hard to believe made our team wrap up the Libya Rally in Morocco prematurely. In the ill-fated stage four the oil tank got punched in a place that made even the experienced constructor Mario Kress shake his head in disbelief.
„The odds that the oil tank gets punched in this place are approximately one to ten thousand. All those who have seen it couldn’t believe it. Anyway, that’s how racing is sometimes and the rally is just unpredictable. Although it really is an incredibly bad luck and it’s a shame we had to stop earlier than we had wanted to, we’ll probably benefit from something like this in a way. So we’re not leaving Morocco feeling disappointed. On the contrary, it was our goal to test new components, which worked out,“ commented our team’s boss Mario Kress, who developed a racing special for the Dutch pilot Martin van den Brink of the Mammoet Rallysport team and himself became the crew mechanic for the very race.
The stages of the Libya Rally were as different as the day and night for us – a successful stage was soon to switch into an unlucky one. The racing team started out in a great style, winning the opening stage under the leadership of Martin van den Brink. In stage two our team had to tackle a technical issue, which resulted in a huge time loss. In stage three we managed to catch up on those ahead of us somewhat and our machine finished second in the end. In fourth episode, which was held on a circuit track both starting and ending in Mhamid and its special was the shortest one of this year’s race with 210 kilometres, the problem with a punched oiled tank came and with it our premature end in the race.
While the technology returns from Morocco as planned, some of the team members got on the plane right away and came back to Czech. “There’s no time to waste time. There’s a great deal of work ahead of us. I’m quite happy with our Morocco performance though. We didn’t start in the rally to make a good result in the first place, but we have managed what we have set out have for ourselves. The Libya Rally had the aspects typical of the Dakar, so the data we have obtained are very valuable for further development and work,“ smiled the happy Mario Kress.
