Interporto of Pordenone, 10/11 March 2023
The Spring Baja on the "creek that is not there"
The countdown begins for a new season of the CCR and SSV Championship.
Pordenone, 1 February 2023_ In exactly one week, enrollments will open for the 13th Italian Baja di Primavera – Artugna Race and the curtain will rise on the Italian Cross Country and SSV 2023 Championship. For the third consecutive year, the first Italian challenge will be staged on dirt roads of the Pordenone foothills, between the municipalities of Aviano, Budoia, Polcenigo and Fontanafredda, intersecting "the torrent that does not exist, the creek with two names" (source Municipality of Budoia): "In the upper part it is perennial and is called Cunath , while in the lower part its bed is often dry and is called Artugna”. A watercourse that has been a fundamental resource for the surrounding places, allowing for the cultivation of gardens and fields, for operating the mills, and for quenching the thirst of the people who lived in houses built with stones from the river bed.
Now the Artugna is the symbol of the Baja di Primavera organized by the Fuoristrada Club 4x4 Pordenone, an ideal competition to open the season without strong mechanical stress on the evolving vehicles. A compact track of dirt roads, between the fields of the foothills, a very guided and technical route as they say in rallying jargon, with several repetitions of a single timed sector.
The teams and riders are still very "secretive" before releasing reservations about the new season, but there are already some splendid certainties. Certain protagonists will be Alfio Bordonaro, from Catania (Sicily) who in 2022 won his first Cross Country Rally championship at the wheel of a highly decorated Suzuki New Grand Vitara, and Amerigo Ventura, from Torino (Piemonte) who dominates among the Side by Side Vehicles drivers with a Quaddy Yamaha pulled to the hilt.
Carlo Ragogna Press Office Italian Baja
