Sólyom Team returned home from the third round of the Hungarian Cross-Country Rally Championship with mixed feelings: Sólyom Team’s weekend started well but later it was shadowed by a small accident, still they scored valuable points in their category.
Friday’s 6.5 km prologue didn’t hold big excitement, ‘five corners, six straights’ type tracks are normally not too favourable for HAWKING. After the real race, an old dream of co-driver Mátyás Galbács came true: at the promotional prologue his wife occupied his place.
Irén Galbácsné Elekes: “Now I was able to feel what Matyi feels during the rallies. The car seems to be very safe and, of course, it’s very fast. This was a fantastic experience!
Saturday started at a cautious pace that increased special by special – up until the lost one, when a ditch throwed them heavily. Lacking any exterior signs, it turned out only in Sunday’s first special that the front dampers didn’t like the incident at all, damping practically stopped in the front. The result: some twenty minutes lost.
Thanks to the miracle-like work of the assistance crew, the condition of the dampers improved from zero to about eighty percent, so on the last two specials the crew Sólyom – Galbács finally had a nice drive and this was reflected in their times.
Olivér Sólyom: “Overall we are through a good weekend. The impact in the ditch on Saturday was a bad feeling, my spine cracked, but fortunately we were able to go on. Just after the start of the first special of Sunday all four front dampers died and from then on I feelt as I would be swaying on a boat. Our assistance crew was brilliant, they brought the dampers back to life for the last two specials. Finally our assistance crew is like I always wanted it to be, at the race weekends I have nothing else to do just driving the car.”
Mátyás Galbács: “The roadbook was quite inaccurate that caused more and more problems as our pace increased. We are still learning the car, we devoted this year to that and I think we are on the good path. It was a great experience to race in front of my crowd, thanks to everyone who cheered us!”
Olivér Sólyom and Mátyás Galbács finished 15th overall and 3rd in their category. The TH crew of Sólyom Team, István Gyabronka and Gábor Radics took the victory in their category.
Next race for the team will be Adrienn-Gombi Cup in Domony on 12 July, 2014.
