ABU DHABI DESERT CHALLENGE - finish
Saturday, 09 April 2011 12:10
The Last day – Leg 5 – turned out to be the hardest of all and the easiest for the team. The hot desert wind changed it’s direction and a vicious dust storm made it almost impossible for the racers to see anything around filing the photographers cameras with handfuls of sands. Boris Gadasin intending to finish this stage with as much caution as he could handle was driving carefully and doing everything not to damage the car. He came 5th at all of PCs until some kilometers before the finish he got a bit stuck and lost a few minutes, finally finishing this stage seventh.
In the bikes, Coma led for the majority of the off-road rally. The Spanish KTM Factory Team rider and reigning Dakar Rally champion steered his powerful KTM 450 across the finish line to complete a resounding fifth Abu Dhabi victory.
In the evening the organizers held a magnificent gala dinner featuring all the heroes and organizers of the event. The speeches were spoken, the prizes were given. We managed to speak tet-a-tet with Mohammed Ben Sulayem, Vice-President Of The FIA And President Of The ATCUAE, thanking him for the wonderful race and he told us that next year he is planning to make this hard event slightly lighter and cut the special stages in two.
We would like to express our thanks to the organizers for this event. Everyone agrees that Abu Dhabi sands are the hardest to conquer and though the team didn't have much luck in the competition this was an invaluable experience for us.
What's left now are the customs formalifties for the cars and we will be on our long way back home.