Delay of the new car prevented him from taking part in the race, but he was the one awarding this year’s winners.
The third round of the National Off-Road Championships in Bulgaria finished in Samokov. Bulgaria’s most successful representative for the Dakar Rally, Orlin Alexiev, was unable to start due to a delay in the delivery of his new machine and failed to make the planned tests. However, he awarded the winners in the Rally category and told fans and competitors about his future plans.
The final races and the awarding ceremony at the Rido Motor Park were watched by more than 5000 spectators in the fine Sunday weather. The start of the race was given by the Mayor of the Municipality of Samokov Vladimir Georgiev. 53 cars from Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Romania, and Greece stood in the city centre for the ceremony. Organizers from the local club “Motor Sport Samokov” prepared over 500 racing kilometers for the three days.
The race is part of the sports calendar of the Automobile Federation of Bulgaria and is supported by the Municipality of Samokov.
In the heaviest prototypes, Daniel Gospodinov and Ivan Penchev overcame the strong competition from Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Greece, and in the fastest rally category debutants, Metodi Paunov / Vladi Radenkov were unreachable with their perfect navigation and high average speed. In the standard cars, Emil Dimitrov / Andon Andonov from Petrich were a pleasant surprise with their victory, and in the hard standard cars, father and son Tsvetan and Kaloyan Naidenov with the Jär Cherokee were again unreachable in this race with their perfect navigation and high average speed.
For the first time in this race the automatic system for satellite tracking with results processing website developed by the Varna company EasyTrасking, was successfully presented, and on the last day the system was attacked by hackers, but the delay was only 15 minutes.
In the hard stages of the first day, 5 crews failed to finish, but after fixing the faults they were able to participate in the second day of the race.
The last round is in the vicinity of Rousse from 26 to 28 November, this is when the champions and the winners of the rally will be revealed.
