Ultimate Dakar racing team
Battle for the podium
On the last day of Riverside Baja, fourth round of the Central European Zone Trophy and second round of the Hungarian championship Tomas Ourednicek and Pavel Vaculik were involved in the biggest battle of their racing career. The crew of Ultimate Dakar finally finished the race in 4th position.
At the beginning of the final day of Riverside Baja, fourth round of the Central European Zone Trophy and second round of the Hungarian championship everything seemed to be settled: the gaps were just too big to make it possible to attack. But the second special brought a radical change: due to technical problems on Antal Fekete’s Toyota the gap between the crew of Ultimate Dakar and the lowest step of the podium suddenly fell to a mere 25 seconds by the end of the third special of the day.
In the second loop of three short specials Tomas Ourednicek and Pavel Vaculik fought to the seconds with the Hungarian crew, decreasing the difference to 18 seconds. In the last two specials the battle continued in the same way: in the penultimate track Ultimate Dakar’s crew was 2 seconds faster than their rivals, but in the final one the Hungarians took 2 seconds back so in the end the difference remained the same 18 seconds.
“We finished fourth only 18 seconds from the podium. It was impossible to catch it because the specials were too short. But we are here, and after a very unlucky start we finished the race in a quite good position, so we are happy,” Tomas Ourednicek said.
Next race for the crew of Ultimate Dakar will be Gyulai Várfürdő Cup, in Gyula, Hungary on 6-8 June.