Dakar: Szalay stage ten report

This year's best partial result with race car is that of Szalay

After a hard day's night stage 10 was an excellent one for the the duo of Szalay Dakar Team, Balazs Szalay and Laszlo Bunkoczi. The duo with the Opel Frontera gained the best result among Hungarian car racers, ranked 23rd at the fast winding and technique-demanding stage, making them 35th overall.

For the biker of the team, Akos Varga, it wasn't a stiff day, since due to the death of Andy Caldecott on Monday bikers did not compete but rolled to the finish.

Balazs Szalay, Laszlo Bunkoczi (Opel Frontera, 23rd):
I wouldn't say we freshened up after the longest stage of the Dakar, we woke up in the morning after a bit of sleep, but weren't in a 100% good condition. Luckily today we had no technological problems at all, not to mention that this track perfectly suit me and the Opel, too, and that explains our good result.

Perhaps we had to overtake quite a few times -- counted twelve trucks with Laci -- to move forward in our own pace, but from then on we did not have to swallow the dust at least and could drive relatively fast. At some parts the track was tricky, fooled us as well, once. On the narrow tracks we moved way too close to a tree and bumped the back of the Frontera, but damage is not so serious.

The team's race truck (MAN) with Zsolt Darazsi, Norbert Szalai and Gyorgy Rack moved ahead at a good speed all day, compared to the rest of the unit, completed the stage as 16th and made it to the 17th overall.

-szalay-