Before the Dakar dust settles, the second round of the World Rally Raid Championship starts in Abu Dhabi. Although it was not possible to start in the Dakar Rally this year, the CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team is already looking forward to its first start in the World Championship on Sunday.
Arriving in the United Arab Emirates midweek, the team members had more than one puzzle to solve, but with less than a day to go, the team says they are ready to storm the dunes.
"As soon as we arrived, we felt the cultural differences: when handling some matters, we had to negotiate again and again and refine the details. Sometimes it seemed that all plans were falling apart and new ones had to be made. However, for example, the cooperation with the local CFMOTO representative went without any obstacles. The sellers of CFMOTO motorcycles located in Dubai helped us solve logistical issues and also organized a wonderful event in the desert," said Antanas Kanopkinas about the preparations for the start.
The athlete also said that he received compliments from the organizers for the extremely neatly submitted documents, and during the technical commission, the representatives of the organizers were surprised to see such large and powerful ATVs. The team's CFMOTO CFORCE 1000 are the only all-wheel drive models in their class, and also boast more power and weight than the others.
Technical problems during tests
Adomas Gančierius was happy that he had the opportunity to test his new quad bike in the dunes before the start: "I'm starting this race with a completely new quad bike, so it was very important to test whether everything works properly. The tests were not in vain - I quickly noticed that the engine was heating up much more than it should, but the mechanics also quickly found the cause of the problem and solved it."
The athlete says that when driving in the dunes in such heat, the engine experiences very high loads, so if he went to the track without proper cooling, most likely, the race would have ended very quickly.
"Although the quad now works perfectly, we also have another innovation - for the first time we will drive with an electronic road book. This is not only an innovation for us - all participants will have to use it. We hope that they will work without errors and interruptions", said A. Gančierius about the innovations of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.
The athletes have a week of racing ahead of them - after passing the prologue on Sunday, the participants of the race will have to navigate the sands of the United Arab Emirates until Friday. This race can also be called the little Dakar, because the tracks of this rally were just a few hundred kilometers away.