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 | Balkan Offroad: 899 km specials - Hungarian Sólyom Team start in Bulgaria.
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The Hungarian "Sólyom Team" prepares for its next cross-country rally event, the "Balkan Offroad Marathon", with great expectations. The eight day rally that starts on 3 September will be hosted by the Bulgarian town of Kardzhali but the competitors will also visit Greece for one day.
After their 5th place in the Greek "Evia Rally" the crew of Sólyom Team, Olivér Sólyom and Mátyás Galbács are on 9th place in the Albanian-Greek-Bulgarian Cross-country Rally Championship and they want to climb up in the classification after the Balkan Offroad Marathon. For this, the service team has to develop or reconstruct the most possible things in the best possible way on the racing car.
The reconstruction works on the racing car based on the experience gained at the Evia Rally Raid are close to be finished. The mechanics most of all redesigned the cooling system of the Hawkia rallycar completely to avoid overheating of the engine, their second task was to mount a new engine and modify it according to the needs. Some other minor changes have also been made: the front bumper, the armour plate, the ventilation of the cockpit, the system of onboard devices and the power transmission system have been modified.
Olivér Sólyom: "After Greece the great Bulgarian challenge, Balkan Offroad Marathon is approaching. This will be the longest rally of our season with its 899 kilometres of specials of 1140 kilometres of total length. Quite a few things had to be modified on the car but I am calm as everything has been or will be finished on time. We plan two tests, one this weekend and one just before leaving for Bulgaria. Between the running-in of the new engine will be completed to avoid any problems with that. I expect a very exciting and demanding rally. Watching the photos and videos I think we have to pull up our socks!"
Two weeks before the Balkan Offroad Marathon the team tested the Hawkia rallycar. The driver, Olivér Sólyom only had some minor complaints, so after the test the team celebrated in a way that ‘hurray-meter’ would have exploded if they would have one. The HAWKIA worked perfectly that means that the team prepares for the September rally in Bulgaria in perfect calm.
Mátyás Galbács: "The performance of the engine in this way is surprisingly different, but we expected something like this. The mechanics did a great job."
Olivér Sólyom: "I really can’t say anything more that we have to do some adjustment on the steering wheel and the belts and stop the leakage of the break oil. Everything else is in order. The engine is a bit tight yet but it became really wild compared to the previous. It’s absolutely controllable, I like the ‘little blondie’ more and more! In one week we’ll test it once more to be sure that everything is OK."
2011/08/26 | 09:22 CET | ARTICLE: MR/SY/SOLYOM
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