NEWS

3 June 2009, Salzburgring

This time the driver of the team participated in ADVANCE TRENING M3 driving which was organised by BMW. We used their best cars BMW M3. The circle is over 4200 m long, but if you try to drive following instructions, you can use all the electronics and experience you have, as you are struggling in every single turn to follow the instructor. The instructors are professional test drivers of the BMW. In situations like these one realizes how advances the equipment is, because the moment you start slipping, you are grateful for DSC, ABS... and the appropriate rate of skidding and accelerating. Situations like these teach you how to react at city or motorway speed, how to bypass other cars or stop in front of the unexpected obstacle in the traffic. I recommend this training to everyone who is interested in racing.

5 May 2009, Budapest

The organiser published the route for 2010. We were of course lobbying the whole time and managed to convince Andrew again for the rally to pass through Slovenia again. The first stage will be from Budapest, across Slovenia, and will traditionally end in Brescia. Given the fact that we have also decided to take an accompanying team with us who will be there to help us out through any obstacles, you will be well informed about the whole rally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Nq6gAGYJM

23 April 2009, Ljubljana

The new issue (number 9) of Avto Magazin is out and there is a comprehensive Racing test ouf our car in it – Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution. Many thanks and congratulations to the team of Avto Magazin, to Aljoša Mrak for an excellent article and Aleš Pavletič for great photos. It was worth waiting for the new issue and read what others make of our car. The article is on page 60.

And for all those who did not have a chance to read a printed version, you can read it on our page (with the approval of Avto Magazin).

ARTICLE in Avto Magazin

19 April 2009, Logatec

Today we attended the "blessing" of the motors and racing vehicles which was organised by MK Notranjska. We first drove with motorcyclists around Vrhnika and then, despite the rain, we drove to Logatec. The blessing was led by Mr Robert Friskovec in front of the Notranjka bar. With the little help of his superior, he managed to stop the rain and wished us all good and safe ride, wherever we may go. We found the whole thing interesting and we hope it works in the future!

31 March 2009, Vrhnika

Today we let the Avtomagazin team test our car. Aljosa Mrak had a few circles on the "tank testing ground" and he found out the purpose and the capability the car has. Then the real test began with a lot of offroad rides and excellent Avtomagazin's photographer took some really good action photos. There will be an article about our car in the next issue of Avtomagazin.

3 March 2009, Vrhnika

Due to all the interest we have decided to make a 5 min long film about our adventure. With the help of our photos and videos we will take you on the 9940 km long adventure from snow to 38 degrees in Mali. Have a look at the video below and see the rally the way we saw it from our Micka.

16 February 2009, Vrhnika

Much to our surprise we received a call this morning that the truck with the racing cars was seen somewhere around Podlipa. Oh, not again. Someone has once again misunderstood that our address was in Podlipa. So, we started looking for the missing truck driver. We were keen to know if the driver had a navigation or just a plain map. After 3 hours he appeared again in Vrhnika and unloaded our car at the petrol station. The car is in good shape, all the equipment is there, so everything is ok. One look at the inside of the car takes us back to Africa and the conditions we lived in. It is not possible that the car is filthy and full of dust and desert sand. Who has been driving this car...?

7 February 2009, Vrhnika

After completing the rally successfully, Robert and Tea Slavec organised a presentation of their adventure in a Tursic pub in Vrhnika. During one hour presentation they lead the audience through the rally in which 220 teams from 39 countries participated. They were both pleased that their friends and other people, who are interested in this sort of sport, attended. Miran Stanovnik, a famous Slovenian motorcyclist also came. He is familiar with tough African routes as he has participated in the legendary Dakar rally many times. One of the guests was also marathon swimmer, martin Strel, who knows well what it means to be persistent and Primož Lemež, an expert in motorsport in Slovenia.

3 February 2009, Vrhnika

Robert and Tea returned from Bamako. The return hime was very long as it took them 25 hours and nearly got stuck on the way during the last leg from Rome to Trieste, because of the unreliable AlItalia. And what do they most wish for on their return? A lot of sleep and a nice, home made soup. What about the car? They loaded it on a truck and it should be on the way from Africa to Slovenia.

16 January 2009, Budapest

After 500 km we arrived to the Square of the Heroes in Budapest. We waited for 2 hours to have the technical check of the car and equipment and got the green light. We left the car in »park ferme« overnight. Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy in Budapest invited us for a drink at the Embassy’s club and Travel channel organised a small reception for rally participants on the same evening.

28 December 2008, Log pri Brezovici

Few hours before he was due to leave for Dakar 2009, we met with Miran Stanovnik. We had tea and we chatted about our and his plans for the future. As the most experienced Slovenian off road contestant, Miran is familiar with our car and is aware of its capabilities. He praised us for our efforts and desire to test ourselves with this competition in Africa.

Miran, we wish you a lot of luck and good ride in Argentina and Chile.

27 December 2008, Nova gorica

We have been invited by IK sport to the 1st Auto show in Nova gorica. Despite the strong wind (burja) there were a lot of moto sport supports and spectators. Our car, as the only of this kind in Slovenia, was in the centre of the attention and we received a lot of positive feedback. To show it off we did three circles on the testing ground and many people were surprised its capacity and power. Local TV station VITEL even did an interview with us and introduced our car to the viewers.

24 December 2008, Vrhnika

Lots of happiness, health and advantures in 2009!

21 December 2008, Notranjska

The period of extensive car and navigation system testing began. We do up to 250 km daily on macadam and rough roads which enables us to test shock absorbers, car poisition, tyres and fule consumption in normal and extreme circumstances. It is a good thing the fuel is "cheap" now, because we realized that fule consumption in toughest circumstances is 35 l per 100 km. That means we can drive for 200 km or few kilometres more with a full tank .

13 December 2008, Vrhnika

Our car now looks like a proper race car as it is covered with logos of our main sponsor Hypo Leasing d.o.o. and other sponsors such as: Zavarovalnica Triglav, kreata d.o.o., DPD d.o.o. etc. All navigation and communication equipment has been installed in the car and also a new sport exhaust. . The car is now really what we have wanted it to be for our adventure.

6 December 2008, Logatec

Our team took part in the 2nd blood donor activity and the adrenalin day on the racing court Blagomix which was organised by auto club Modri dirkač and company IN šport with co-operation of RK Slovenija. Our team is always supportive of such initiatives and after a day spent racing all participants gave 50 l of blood as part of the blood donor activity. All blood donors were able to take a seat in the driver's seat at the racing court Blagomix and in that way experience what it is like to be one of the contestants in the race. A display of off road vehicles was on display at the same time in the vicinity of the racing court. That was our first chance to show off our car and what it can do.

30 November 2008, Vrhnika

The car is completely put together and ready to be tested. We made 100 km this afternoon on macadam roads in vicinity of Pokoji[;e and Cerknica. The car works well, the position and control are superb and the power exceeds all expectations. We also did a few off road circles on IOC Zapolje route. The surface of the circuit and configuration of the terrain are excellent for the hard test drive which we also did without any difficulties.

16 November 2008, Vrhnika

We started filing the papers for our visas for Mauritania and Mali and we need to take care of other formalities this month and there are quite a few:last, third vaccintaion against all dangerous disease, booking and payment of transpport back home, booking of the hotel at the start and the end of the race etc.... We have started to put together the car. Many more parts, than we originally anticipated, have been built in. We are hoping the car will be ready in the beginning of December.

18 October 2008, Vrhnika

We received the start number for our team today, which is number 91. Our car is currently with the body shop and completely dismantled. I hope we will put it together again soon. It is amazing how compact the car is, it takes half an hour to unscrew one screw.

20 September 2008, Vrhnika

First alterations have been made to the car. We have bought a roll cage from OMP which is going to be built in by Klemen from Sp. Idrija who is an expert in this field. We have also bought the sport equipment and received the parts from Japan for the engine. Such luck, since we have been searching for them all over the world via internet.

18 August 2008, Vrhnika

Bureaucracy really is something in Slovenia. It is quite unbelievable what sort of procedures one has to follow to be able to import and register a car in Slovenia. But, we finally made it today and we put the Slovenian licence plates on our car.

13 June 2008, London

We made it! After long time search for an appropriate vehicle we have finally found the right off -road vehicle for the race. And we found it in London. We have bought a legendary Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution, the same type of vehicle that has won the last 11 races of Dakar. So, now we have the vehicle with the best pedigree, specification and you can have a look at it under The Vehicle section of our site. We needed to test it straight away so we drove back from the UK to Vrhnika after we bought it. The route was 1691 km long and we only made a few stops to buy some petrol. The vehicle is excellent and flawless, just what a race car should be!

12 May 2008, Vrhnika

The driver of the team made it back home safe and sound, despite the heat in Sahara. He gained a lot of experience, useful advice and ideas of how to drive in the sand and tracks. The experience is unique and importart for the forthcoming preparations for the rally. A praise is due for the whole Sahara Raid 2008 team, especially for the best driver and guide - Mišo. He really knows the stuff. You can view all the photos under Gallery section and some excellent offroad rides in the sand and tracks in Sahara. There were a Rallye de Tunisie 2008 and Marathon Rallye Grand Erg  going on at the same time and we managed to see both.I have to say that Toyota rules in the sand!

26 April 2008, Vrhnika

The driver of the team is going to prepare for the rally on Sahara Raid 2008 in Tunisia, where he is going to meet many desert and sand admirers and offroad drivers. Some of them have competed in Dakar rally in the past. Preparations in Tunisia will be an excellent opportunity to gain useful experience, knowledge and advice, but also for testing the equipment for the desert and the race.

Photos and films from Tunisia to follow soon...

10 April 2008, Vrhnika

We are now finally online with our website: www.bamako-rally.com. We hope the viewers will like it and we promise to keep it up to date. As this is only the beginning of introducing our project to the public, we intend to have more interesting info and upgrades on this site soon. First thing coming in mid May will be lots of photos and videos from the desert which you will be able to find under Gallery link.
Many thanks for patience and creativity to our web designers and administrator from DSG-Studio. 

20 March 2008, Budapest

The organiser published the Budapest Bamako 2009 route, which will be conducted in Europe and in Sahara, in Africa. Its length will be more than 7600 km. The routes will be incredibly long in Europe and will be called the Super Marathon. But, there will also be the classic Dakar routes, like Atar, Tidjikja and Kiffa in Mauritania, which will bring out the fighting spirit in participants. Among all registered participants, there are more and more professional teams.

  10 March 2008, Budapest

Given the success of the Budapest Bamako 2008 rally, the Hungarian government decided to support the organiser and help with the preparations.
There are over 560 teams from around the world, which expressed an interest in the rally. More than 180 teams have already registered. So, get ready, it’s going to be even more interesting than we initially thought. For the first time in its history, there will be two rally categories: tourist and racing one. The start and the finish will be the same for everyone, but the racing route will be much tougher and without any rest.

  25 February 2008, Budapest

Incredible success of our team. The news we need to share with everyone in Slovenia: the organiser liked our proposals and agreed that the rally will go through Slovenia.
So, automoto sport fanatics, get ready on 17 January 2009, after 12 am, when more than 200 teams of Budapest Bamako rally pass through Slovenia. This will be the first and the only race of its kind in Slovenia. Our teams and the organisers are also preparing a small surprise for all participants…something like a special off-road perhaps….

  1 February 2008, Vrhnika

I followed this year’s rally and my wife and me decided to take part in the race as the first Slovenian team. We are on the 13th (I’m not superstitious) place and are currently well into all the preparations for the race which is less than a year away. We have already established a contact with the organiser and the main man behind the rally, Mr Andrew G. Szabo. We also thought it would be great to bring this event to Slovenia.

27 January 2008, Bamako

The participants who made it to Bamako are exhausted. The whole adventure through Sahara was incredible. Many of them stopped on their way and gave away the presents to the children in villages.
Once the teams settled in the hotel, it was time for a proper and long awaited shower. As many of you probably don’t know is that the one thing that one really misses during such adventure is not a phone, internet or email, but water. A lot of water.
The winner of the race and they won it for the third consecutive is the ULRICH team from Slovakia. Incredible achievement. Congratulations to the team.
And one other interesting piece of information: two hitchhikers made it from Budapest to Bamako at the same time as the participants. Unbelievable!

11 January 2008, Budapest

There are over 150 teams from all around the globe gathered at the start and the rally begins at 7.30 am. Thousands of spectators cheered the participants. Travel Channel team and the organisers chose two heroes who got an unusual vehicle for the race, Polish Fiat 127, or Bolha, as we call it in Slovenia. There were other unusual vehicles as well, such as the bus, the ice cream van and even a tricycle. But there were apparently also many “real” adventurers with proper vehicles who could make it all the way to Bamako. And there were a few teams who cancelled at the last moment because of the rumours they heard about Dakar.

5 January 2008, Budapest

Budapest-Bamako rally organisers informedc all participants and the general public that the start of the rally will be on 11 January 2008.

4 January 2008, Lisbon

To everyone’s surprise, the organisers of Dakar rally have cancelled the rally in 2008. Most participants can’t believe this is happening as they’ve already used their financial means and now this…. The reason for the cancellation are terrorist threats, which the organisers learned of from the French government. The end of the Dakar rally. Two Slovenes, Miran Stanovnik and Tomaž Merhar, were also due to take part.

10 December 2007, Vrhnika

First Slovenian racing team sent the application for the Budapest Bamako 2009. Well, it’s not really difficult, all it takes is filling out the application, read the rules, sign it and fax it to the organiser. Then you read more thoroughly the rules, learn it’s not a comfortable Sunday trip, but a real race, full of danger. But… we made the first step and now there is a lot of planning and preparations ahead.