Paulo Goncalves and Jeremias Israel are set to take on the challenge of the the Atacama Rally.
Team HRC has announced that it is ready for the challenge of the Atacama Rally, round five of the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship, which begins the first of its five competitive stages tomorrow, September 1, and concludes on Saturday, September 5, in the South American country of Chile. The event kicks off today with a short prologue. Prior to this, technical and administrative checks have to be overcome.
The factory Honda team will field Portuguese rider Paulo Goncalves and Chilean favorite Jeremias Israel. Goncalves is currently fifth in the FIM Cross Country Rallies World Championship with 39 points, although the sudden retirement of Marc Coma has the former series champion hoping that he can still salvage a run at the title beginning with a win in Chile, the penultimate round of the series.
“It will be an important race as we have to keep clocking up kilometers and try to make up some points in the World Championship, knowing that after this one, there is just one left to go,” Goncalves said. “I’ll try to finish as high as possible on the Honda CRF450 Rally and continue to test out the bike”.
Israel is competing in only his second World Championship round this season, having been stalled by an injury at the Qatar round last April.
“I’m really pleased to be about to start the Atacama Rally,” Israel said. “I think that it will be an interesting race with plenty of opportunities. Paulo has the possibility of becoming World Champion so the aim is to help him to achieve it. Personally, I can’t wait to get back into the swing of things, feel the sensations aboard the bike, the navigation and the kilometers of the last two races to try and get to the Dakar as strong as possible.”
The Atacama Rally route will cover about 2000 kilometers, with most of the stages being run near Copiapo, the capital of the Atacama region. As usual, excellent navigation skills and strong riding performances in the desert, dunes, two-track and mountain routes will be required for victory.
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