Athletes after the finish: "Organizers said it must have been a tough day"

On Friday, the athletes competing in Poland had to overcome almost 180 kilometers on a training ground with an extremely confusing network of roads. It was supposed to be probably the toughest day of the race, with a long course distance and also a small gap to rest after yesterday's night stage. The pilots of CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team reached today's finish without any major problems, and they solved the challenges as quickly as possible.

"Everything went great today. I started 30 seconds after Antanas and we drove like that for about 40 kilometers, but riding in the dust was very difficult. So I put some distance between us and tried to keep up the pace. Later he got stuck in sticky sand, I helped dig him out and continued to drive first, no dust, so it was a real relief. The organizers promised that today was supposed to be a very difficult day, but I enjoyed it, didn't make any mistakes", said Gaetan Martinez after the finish and laughed that the quad almost turned into a submarine a couple of times when he had to overcome a deep puddle. "There was a photographer standing nearby and I drove through the middle of the puddle not wanting to splash him. The quad slowed down and almost got stuck - the puddle was deeper than I imagined. The second time I drove past, the photographer was still standing in the same place, but I didn't take any chances and drove next to him."

Antanas Kanopkinas said after the finish that he made some navigational errors today, but he was not the only one: "I'm glad to be at the finish line, even though I made a lot of navigational errors. I was lost for at least 15 minutes. But from what I've seen, others seem to have even more problems. The mood is good, nothing bad happened, and the navigational errors are the part that still needs to be improved and learned. In other words, we need to ride as much as possible."

On Saturday, the athletes will start in the 80-kilometer special stage, and when they will make it the finish arch of the entire rally will be there. This is one of the shortest stages of this rally, but as everyone knows, the finish of the rally can only be enjoyed after crossing the finish arch. Athletes are feeling good, mechanics are doing daily technical checks and preparing for tomorrow.