Big Shock! Racing Team starts a new racing season in Spain. This weekend, July 23 – 24, the crew of Macik, Tomasek, and Svanda will take part in the Baja Aragon long-distance rally. Other races will follow. The planned “Obsessed with Dakar” events will certainly keep the fans entertained as well. At the same time, the development of new racing trucks continues in the team workshops in Sedlčany. Everything is focused on the 2022 Dakar.
Training ride through Spain, Poland and Morocco
The Big Shock! Racing Team plans to participate in all the regular races that used to take place in pre-covid times. On Friday, July 23, the truck called Charles will start its first stage this year at the Baja Aragon. “We are looking forward to having a proper racing season this year, after covid made it impossible last year. In Spain, temperatures are now around 37 degrees, which is the perfect Saudi Arabian conditions for practising and training the crew. I have heard that the competition will be quite strong as well. Everything seems to be going well,” the driver, Martin Macik, said. The team also plans to compete in the long-distance Baja Poland and Rally du Maroc races during the season. “We treat all rallies as practice for the 2022 Dakar. Actually, Rallye du Maroc is organized by the same people. I always have the chance to try out new developments in navigation, which will then be a part of Dakar, too,” Frantisek Tomasek said and David Svanda added: “Morocco takes place in October, two months before the Dakar. It takes 6 days, so we can properly test all truck modifications. But at the same time, the car will not be able to get completely destroyed in less than a week. We’ll then fix what won’t work at Dakar.”
The truck has new improvements, but the crew remains
The crew in Charles’s cabin remains identical to the one from 2021 Dakar, where the driver Martin Macik, navigator Frantisek Tomasek and mechanic David Svanda won an excellent 4th place. The Iveco team special with an automatic gearbox, which the mechanics are currently preparing for its third Dakar start, has again undergone some technological improvements. “Charles performed well above expectations at Dakar, but we still brought some suggestions from Saudi Arabia for further improvements. The first was the connector. We have developed a new, harder part that should withstand even dune pressures. At the same time, we made some changes to the chassis of the truck, because the speed at Dakar is increasing and the bottom needs a new adjustment. This also required other springs or shock absorber modifications. The changes are already finished and partially tested. We will first try them out at a proper racing pace at the Baja Aragon,“ the team boss Martin Macik, Sr. described and mentioned other technical improvements, such as storage space for spare parts or modifications inside the cabin. All innovations will also be automatically included in the construction of new race trucks built in the future.
Big things are happening in team workshops
The Big Shock! Racing Team has already announced that they would like to take part in one of the next Dakars as a bigger team, with another truck. The mechanics in the Sedlčany workshops have been working hard on it for several months. “We have until October. Until then, a lot of things can happen. We are now preparing and assembling everything. At the next Dakar, we will probably provide technical support to other crews as well. It seems that even foreign teams value the work of Czech mechanics,“ the team boss, Martin Macik, Sr., added. Over the winter, he had to increase the number of the team’s service engineers.
Those, who are “Obsessed with Dakar”, will finally meet in person
The complete Big Shock! Racing Team will also meet their fans during the holidays. Coronavirus-related safety measures have moved the popular Dakar Obsession talk show from the winter halls into the fresh air of summer racetracks. This change of scenery gives the event new possibilities. On July 31, fans of fast cars and extreme experiences will gather at the Přerov Gorge, and on August 21, another meeting will take place in the Sedlčany valley. Dakar fans will get to hear unique stories from direct participants of the legendary long-distance they will get a chance to join them in the cabin for a ride, watch this year’s documentary or explore the complete fleet of the team’s Dakar vehicles.
Detaily na: https://www.posedlidakarem.cz/vstupenky/
