Sólyom Team finished the 2012 season in the Hungarian Championship 11th overall and 7th. As the team spent most of the year modifying the team’s racing car HAWKIA so they were able to start in only two rallies, Olivér Sólyom is more than satisfied with the result.
In January all we knew was that Sólyom Team was into a strange, ambiguous season. In 2011, Olivér Sólyom and Mátyás Galbács raced mostly abroad, in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania, and due to the friendships and contacts developed in Southern Europe Sólyom Team became the European promoter of 24 Hours Rally Raid Greece. But parallel with the new tasks HAWKIA must have been completely revised to be able to fight in his category.
Olivér Sólyom: “Our sponsors understood that this year we need a lot of time to be able to achieve success in the future more easily. I foresaw that the modifications would require a lot of fine tuning so we planned the 2012 season together with our sponsors to be able to go to Greece to te 24 hours race where we want to achieve a good result on the 24-25th November. At the last round of the Hungarian Championship at the Adrenalin Cup in Nagykálló it became clear that our old gearbox can’t take this load so the development of a brand new gearbox and transfer case became necessary. It is also clear that the engine gets too little air, so we had to revise this part of the car for the better air intake and develop a ram-air flow system. We have only these two major problems and some minor yet to solve and everything will be fine in the Greek mountains.”
On the 900 km distance of the 24 Hours Rally Raid Greece it will turn out how the modifications of the car work.
Olivér Sólyom: “This is a fantastic race that I wouldn’t like to miss. It is a wonderful experience to start from the downtown of Athens and race for 24 hours to return to the downtown of Athens to climb the finish ramp. Not to mention that 900 kilometres in the mountains, half of which you have to cover at night, in the dark. I expect a hard but fair competition and if the powers above will be with us we can close the season with a good result. But until then the workshop and a serious test is waiting for us.”
Mátyás Galbács: “For me there are too many changes but I know that the development is necessary and I hope they will work out well. At Adrenalin Cup the improvement of the car was noticeable, our racing became much more intense and brave. If we keep this tendency in Athens and HAWKIA endures, we have a good chance for a great result. Looking at the current entry list, we won’t have it easy!”
