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 | Hungarian Baja: Battle between the FIA-WC leaders Schlesser and Al Mutaiwai.
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Combined scoreleader, Jean-Louis Schlesser and his runner up with a four point deficit, X-Raid Mini driver Khalifa Al-Mutaiwei is to clash on the "Hungarian Baja". Almost everything is ready for the best cross-country drivers to rumble the engines between august 24 and 26 on the brand new tracks situated near the city of Gyor.
Only some days left until the Hungarian Baja kicks off, where cross-country's top contenders will arrive for the second time to decide who to be victorious. An incredible crew of car drivers will appear on the races between august 23 and 26, though it is likely to happen that some racer could grab a huge lead in the combined scoreboard.
The present number one is Jean-Louis Schlesser with 102 points, and in his footsteps Khalifa Al-Mutaiwei is closing in on him with 98 points. What is more, they both invited former champions to their navigator seats.
Schlesser conquered Dakar in 1999 and 2000 with an individually built car and now he aims for glory with the upgraded OSCar that helped Maris Saukans to win the 2005 Hungarian Baja. The French contender knows what it takes to be a World Champion, because he has been on the top of the Cross-Country world twice (1998-2002).
This season, Schlesser has to buckle his belts even more, because Baja Espana Aragon's second place attainer, Al-Mutaiwei is eager to be World Champion again after 2004. Therefore, he will be strongly motivated on the Hungarian competition. Also, to be sure about giving the best performance he asked for a gentlemen who really knows the Hungarian tracks to navigate his Dakar winning X-Raid Mini.
"Al-Mutaiwei's passenger seat will be taken by Andy Schulz, who happened to win last year's Hungarian Baja with Leonid Novitskiy driving. If he repeats that success, Schulz will be the first to win two in a row in the 9-year history of the Hungarian race. I cannot predict who the winner will be, but I can tell you that the others have bigger experience than the top two on the scoreboard" said Zoltán Garamvölgyi, legal owner of the Hungarian event.
Although triumphing seems out of reach, the Spanish duo, Javier Herrador and David Nadal could catch a decent position with their American improvement, the Pro-truck; which novelty by the way was never seen in Hungary before!
"Javier's first question was if there is going to be a river to cross during the selective section, because the Pro-truck does not have a front wind shield. After he got to know that this danger is out of the picture, moreover there won't be much dust on the tracks, unlike on their homeland race, they cheered up" told Garamvölgyi, who seems to regretting more and more his missing out on the race since he is the main organizer.
2012/08/21 | 13:07 CET | ARTICLE: MR/HS/HB
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