Thursday, 2 June 2016
Administrative and technical checks at Budoni
Prologue: 1 km
The sky over Sardinia was overcast as the 62 motorcyclists and quads and the 2 SSVs went through the administrative controls in the festival hall of Budoni, a small town not far from Olbia. But the sky gradually cleared and the sun emerged to warm the company before the prologue, a mini 1 km special that would determine the starting order for the first Special today in a loop around Budoni. The first 15 riders could choose their starting spot. This is a boon as in Sardinia opening the track is a tricky affair in view of the highly complex navigation.
Xavier de Soultrait (Yamaha) won the prologue ahead of Cominotto (Husqvarna) and Juan Pedrero (Sherco), who found the going very slippery. Kevin Benavides (Honda) of Argentina, fresh from his win in Merzouga, came 4th ahead of Adrien Van Beveren (Yamaha) and Olivier Pain, riding on a Beta for the first time as a member of Team Dirt, who found it a bit short: “I don’t know the bike yet, I discovered it yesterday, but I’ve got a good feeling and I managed to get with the pace. For tomorrow I’ve chosen 9th place.” Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) finished 8th followed by Dutrie on a quad and Alessandro Botturi (Yamaha), who is back: “I thought I’d be faster on this prologue, but no…”.
In quad, it will be a tough battle between the two heavy hitters of the FIM Cross Country Rallies World Championship, Rafal Sonik and Ignacio Casale.
At the briefing, Antonello Chiara, the organiser, said that the fact that there were not quite so many riders this year was a due to the number of people injured in the various championships. “This edition will perhaps be a bit less difficult than in previous years”, he observed. “They will have to be fast but keep up their concentration as there will still be a lot of navigating to do over very technical terrain.”
Judith Tomaselli