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The Latvians last accompanied their own team to Dakar on the eve of 2012. Then, from Venspils to the metropolitan areas of Daugavpils and from Bauska to the villages of Ainaži, all the brothers hoped that the OSCar designed by Andris Dambis , more precisely the electric version of OSCar eO, would help to obtain a historic victory by starting in the classification of alternative fuels. Unfortunately, this project was unsuccessful and the war in Latvia subsided. But there was a platoon of mechanics left with hardened gold hands in the toughest race in the world.
On the first day of Christmas, two days before the flight to Saudi Arabia, it became clear that two mechanics from Agrorodeo Racing: Darius Biesevičius and Edvardas Lucevičius – are infected with the COVID-19 virus. In other words, the team has lost the foundation of technical support, without which, in theory, no endurance race can be successful. Dakar in particular, where non-standard solutions are often needed in the field. That is why mechanics-creators who have a solid background of engineering knowledge and are capable of getting out of the most desperate situations travel to this marathon. The savior of the team suddenly became Kristaps Ulmis, so the # iGo2Dakar project decided to learn more about him, the young Latvian prodigy.
“Kristaps is one of those people. He’s still a young kid, but he’s been mechanizing motorsport for over 20 years, during which time he climbed to perhaps the highest professional heights. He worked for Andris Dambis, the team. who developed the OSCar SUVs, and worked on three Dakar and several other endurance races in Africa. For the past four years Kristaps has worked in the WRX (World Rally Cross Championship) factory teams: in 2017 he oversaw the Rhine car Nitiss, in 2018 became Andreas Bakerud’s second mechanic, and as of 2019 he was Mattias Ekstrom’s EKS RX team lead mechanic. T. y. Basically worked in a factory team. It’s really cool: in Latvia, a An engineer of this level can be counted on the fingers of one hand. He was approached by people who bought the most exotic cars of the day to day, when the team began to show whims “, the former director of communication e EKS RX. Viesturs Kundzins.
The Latvian portal Go4speed, which presents all the most important motorsport news, has found out about the complex. Vaidoto lesions The solution to the situation was proposed to him by his friend Artūras Priednieks from Race Transport Solutions. He contacted Kristaps on the night of December 25, discussed the terms of the cooperation in a couple of hours, and the next morning the rescuer from Agrorodeo Racing was already in Vilnius and took the COVID-19 test.
“I have experienced many things in my life, but about 24 hours before boarding a plane, getting an offer to go to the Dakar Rally is really, to put it mildly,” Ulmis himself admitted to Go4speed.
He also said that after the first three Dakar trips on the African continent, he had managed to taste the flavors of probably every possible race in the desert, from grueling fatigue, sleep deficits, overnight tents under less pressure, to euphoria afterwards. to solve difficult problems.
“When Dakar moved to South America and last year to Saudi Arabia, I had started to think about wanting to dive into that adventure again. So this Christmas offer is a real dream come true,” opens K. Ulmis.
When asked how difficult it is to “switch” to an entirely different motorsports discipline, Kristaps hoped that while the Mini SUV is new to him, in a sense all combat vehicles are similar. In addition, the Agrorodeo Racing elders were quick to provide him with information on specific care to be taken during daily off-road inspections. This will take advantage of all the time before departure, so there should be no big surprises.
By the way, from 2004, when the first OSCar debuted, to 2012, a total of 14 combat SUVs were built in Dakar, which have earned a reputation for extremely reliable equipment. The third generation OSCar cars managed to reach the finish line of all the endurance races in which they started. Benediktas Vanagas and Saulium Jurgelėnas began their modeling career with this model. The 25th place achieved by Aurelijus Petraitis and Antanas Juknevičius with OSCar in 2009 was for a long time the best result achieved by athletes from the Baltic countries.
About # iGo2Dakar: 2017 The project has started, the mission of which is to cover as widely as possible the most popular motorsport event in Lithuania, the Dakar Rally, and touch on all the interesting topics for fans. Filming, photographing and writing not only what the runners want to say, but also behind the scenes and technical subtleties of the sport, to show the wonderful scenery of Saudi Arabia and the sincere people of this country.
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