After enduring a challenging day yesterday, Aliyyah Koloc bounced back impressively. The Buggyra ZM Racing rider delivered a strong performance in today’s third stage of the Dakar Rally, securing the 40th spot in the elite Ultimate car category.
| Despite the significant time lost during the car repair, she is currently 52nd overall. In the Tatra Buggyra ZM Racing team, Pascal de Baar, driving the Tatra Buggyra EVO3 , finishing fifth, while Jaroslav Valtr in the Tatra Phoenix came in seventh. They are now fourth and fifth in the overall standings, respectively.Today, Aliyyah Koloc tackled an extremely challenging course filled with tricky obstacles. She encountered numerous rocks, narrow sections between trees, and challenging dunes, amidst pervasive dust. Fortunately, she managed to avoid any punctures.For Koloc and her navigator, Sébastien Delaunay, ensuring that their RedLined Revo T1+ remained free of technical issues and did not require repairs on the track was critical. However, staying in the cockpit posed a significant challenge.
Pascal de Baar is enjoying his start with Tatra. He emerged from the cockpit smiling, despite encountering valve problems at the start. At the dunes, he faced an issue with the right tyre not deflating properly. After resolving this issue, his truck soared through the dunes. Jaroslav Valtr, despite not having an ideal starting position, began the stage strongly. However, near the end of the dune field, he experienced a significant crash that damaged his truck’s steering. It became choppy, and he had to drive very cautiously. Daniel Stiblík in the second Tatra Phoenix performed well up to the 249th-kilometer checkpoint. But then, problems arose, and the crew is still on the track. Aliyyah Koloc (#239, RedLined Revo T1+): “The third stage was very difficult. There were many rocks, narrow sections between trees, and tricky dunes. To overcome them, we had to navigate carefully. We did hit a few branches, but fortunately, we avoided punctures and didn’t face any major problems. It was dusty everywhere.“ Sébastien Delaunay (#239, co-pilot in RedLined Revo T1+): “Imagine being in a mixer for five hours, with rocks and dust added in – that’s more or less what we experienced today. It’s a nightmare.” Pascal de Baar (#605, Tatra Buggyra EVO3): „We started off with some valve issues, but we fixed them quickly. Then we had a problem with the right tyre not deflating properly. 3.5 bar is too much for dunes, so we had to manually reduce the pressure to 1.5 bar. Than we soared through the dunes. The Tatra is a monster. As a precaution, we changed a tyre that looked like it might blow at any moment. But we kept our spirits high and fought till the finish.“ Jaroslav Valtr (#604, Tatra Phoenix): „We navigated through the dunes smoothly until less than two kilometers from the end of the dune field, where we hit a sharp spike, causing a crash and damaging the steering. It became choppy, and we had to drive very cautiously. We also had to change two tyres in the dunes. It was an unlucky stage. We ran out of spare tyres, so we had to be extra careful. But with about 40 kilometers to go, I decided to just push through. Fortunately, we made it to the finish. |
