Former South African Champions Karl-Heinz and Quintin Sullwald in the Elegant Fuel BAT recorded another solid second place finish on the recent Toyota 1000 Desert Race in Botswana. It was the Sullwalds 4th consecutive visit to the podium this year and keeps them in the hunt for the overall National Championship.
The race started perfectly for the Elegant Fuel crew after qualifying second on the Donaldson Prologue that determines starting positions on Friday. “For us this is an ideal starting position, we have quite a few SP’s in front of us and hopefully they will open up the track a bit. It’s still a long way to the finish and we just have to make it to the end of day 1 in one piece.” remarked Quintin.
Saturday saw crews faced with a daunting 490km racing section and the Sullwalds moved into the Special vehicle lead at the 130km mark and were happy to be setting the pace at the front of the field. About 30km later disaster struck when a rim on the Elegant Fuel BAT shattered. The crew struggled to get the broken rim off the car losing about 8min in the process and dropping back in the hard charging field.“The rim had welded itself onto the brake calliper and we struggled to get it off the car, we lost a lot of time and track position but we were determined not to give up.” stated Karl-Heinz.
After pushing really hard over the remainder of Saturday the Elegant Fuel crew finished day 1 in second position just over 4min off the lead. It was a lot to ask to reel back such a large amount of time on one day but the Sullwalds showed their class on Sunday. They never gave up chasing down their rivals, and finished the 412km section with the fastest time of the day and just under 2min in arrears of the eventual winners. “We raced really hard all weekend and the BAT Spec 4 once again showed its pace and reliability.” One small mistake cost us the race, but congratulations to Shameer and Siegfried on their win and hat-trick. A big thank you to our technical crew who put in a huge amount of work to get the car ready for each day. After such a tough and demanding event we can be rightly proud of our team’s achievement” concluded Karl-Heinz.
The Elegant Fuel BAT is further supported by Sullwald Racing, Rockstar Energy Drink, Leatt-Brace and Bravery Clothing. Follow Sullwald Racing on Facebook for race results, reports and behind the scenes pictures and videos.
– Credit: Sullwald Racing.