Martin wins stage seven of Silk Way Rally following rest day

17.7.2016

The truck from North Bohemia celebrates another win at the Silk Way Rally, currently the longest and toughest rally of the world. After a day of rest the stage victory was swept by the Dutch pilot Martin van den Brink, who has moved to the top of the overall ranking.

            “We used the day off on Friday to conduct general service and prepared the technology for the last week. Saturday stage was not an extremely long one but all the more difficult. The guys had to tackle a rocky and technically very demanding track, but except for minor trouble they both did a great job. The team spirits are very high now and we believe it will stay that way until the end of the next week. We’re all trying our best to make that happen,“ commented MKR Technology‘s chief constructor Mario Kress.

            Crews at the Silk Way Rally, a summer alternative to the famous Dakar that often surpasses the latter in terms of length and level of difficulty, have enjoyed the first, and last, day off. On Saturday the organizers did not want to push them too far yet. The special stage comprised only eighty kilometers of the total five hundred and eighty kilometers. It was Mammoet Rally Sport‘s Martin van den Brink on the newly constructed Renault Sherpa carrying the Roudnice mechanic Daniel Kozlovský to whom the rocky track suited best. The crew whisked through it in an hour and ten minutes. The Russian Anton Shibalov lost by only seven seconds to the winner. As Mario Kress already suggested, problems befell the second pilot taming a truck from North Bohemia Pascal de Baar, who got stuck in a road pit. Eventually, he was classified on eleventh spot. “Fortunately, he managed to get out of it in about fifteen minutes. Nikolaev, who was holding the lead until then, was captured in the same pit for an hour, which only confirms the inscrutable nature of the whole race,“ stated Kress.

            Stage win and Nikolaev’s misfortunes helped van den Brink seize the top position. His team mate de Baar is on eighth place and loses one hour on the lead. Twelfth position belongs to the Czech Tomáš Vrátný of Bonver Dakar Project and fifteenth to his colleague Arthur Ardavichus. The North Boheamia based MKR Technology has delivered racing driving units to both.

            Leg seven has concluded the Kazakhstan section of Silk Way and led the crews to China. With its nine hundred and five kilometers the eighth stage from Bortala to Urumqui is the absolutely longest one in this year’s rally. However, the special section takes up only two hundred and sixty of them. “We’re about to enter tough sand dunes soon, which is going to put our technology to a thorough test with respect to the temperature of the engine, a problem we have been dealing with here. We have to continue fighting. There are seven racing stages to go and I’m certain we have what it takes to stand up on the podium as we’ve been hoping,” added MKR Technology boss Mario Kress.