Tough Start To The Season

Its been a long 6 months since the last round of the Turkish National Rally Championship. We ended the season on a high winning the Class 6 and finishing the season 7th overall with our front wheel drive Ford Fiesta R2. The first race of the season is traditionally located on the coastal city of Izmir. The tarmac rally consisted of 4 different stages with one of them about 25km. Ege Rally is notorious for its dirty tarmac and unforgiving surface. Its a rally where strategic driving overcomes raw speed.

As a team we ended the 2011 season with a great result, the winners of Teams Cup. This year we are very much prepared, more motivated, and have a busy schedule to repeat our success from last year and also try to clinch the Eastern European Rally Cup. But the race did not start the way we planned. Early on Murat suffered an unlucky retirement, then Yagiz had powersteering problems. We were first in two wheel drive category, first in class 6 and 7th overall when our left rear tire blew and we lost about 4 minutes in the process. On the closing stages we had no other choice than to settle for our 15th overall position.

Its been a tough weekend where we learned a lot, but we need to put it behind us now. We are now heading into the second round which is again on tarmac however this time the roads are much more flowing and clean! We hope to repeat the success we had there last year when we finished fifth overall with wins in class 6 and two wheel drive category.

Wish us luck!

Orhan