Starting line from Spilimbergo today (at 4pm) for the Super Special Stage along the Meduna riverbed (at 5pm) from Zoppola to Cordenons. Tomorrow and on Sunday the battle will be waged on the beds of the Tagliamento river and Cosa torrent, with the spectacular Rauscedo Jump and the Valvadrom
The great favorite of the Italian Baja 2015 won’t be the Qatar Sheik Hamad Bid Eid Al-Thani, but the simply “citizen” Nasser Al-Attiyah with his Mini All4 Racing. He won his second Dakar in January, recalling now even the attention of Sven Quandt, who came here from Monaco to see him in action again and whose family is the Bmw most representative shareholder.The show offered today by the World Cup for Cross Country Rallies will start at 4pm from Spilimbergo. Bikes will line up first, followed by quads, cars and the two trucks, the Unimog Mercedes Benz 400 of Giuseppe Fortuna and Giulio Verzelletti. The parade will reach the Wine Cellar in Rauscedo for the regrouping and the passage control; they will start then to face the Super Special Stage along the Meduna riverbed (11,59 km) behind the Bingo house in Zoppola, until the arrival line in the Colonia area in Cordenons.
Among bikers (start at 5pm) the great battle will be waged between the local heroes Alessandro Ruoso (Yamaha) and Vanni Cominotto (Husqvarna), who still suffers because of a serious fall at the recent Sardinia Motorally. Both of them will anyway have to fight with Alex Zanotti (Tm), Adrien Marè (Ktm), the brothers Oriol and Gilbert Escalé (Honda), Marc Guasch (Yamaha). Among challengers, also Rita Vieira (Honda), female champion of the Bajas World Cup. Nicola Dutto (Ktm) proudly comes back, stronger than every obstacle.
Protagonist of the Quad European Championship will be Pedro Bianchi Prata (Honda), who will be supposed to hardly fight with Simone Toro (Yamaha) and Graziano Scandola (Polaris). Good chances in the Bike Italian Championship for Mattia Riva and Ivano Zaccheo (Ktm), while quads’ highlander Franco Picco will have to face the ambitions of Ivan Argnani and Aldo Lami (all of them riding a Can Am).
Cars will start at 6pm. The number 1 will be represented by the Toyota Overdrive driven by Vladimir Vasilyev, World Cup leader and winner of the 2013 edition of the Italian Baja, followed by Al-Attiyah and the Overdrive Team companions Reinaldo Varela and Marek Dabrowski, as usual the hardest challengers driving the same vehicle. Less pressure on the “Zar” Boris Gadasin, whose aim anyway is to reach the podium with his G-Force Proto. Foreigns will be then the greatest protagonists, but a high respect will be risen by the return of Miki Biasion. The driver from Bassano will face a test race with his Tubolar Vm of Tecnosport and ranks won’t represent any problem for him, although he won’t stop speeding up until the arrival line. The race will move on Saturday and Sunday on the Tagliamento river and the Cosa torrent, offering the spectacular Rauscedo Jump and the innovative Valvadrom.
Press office Italian Baja
Carlo Ragogna
