10.07.2012

Because of the back injury, on Tuesday, Latvia’s „RE Autoclub” team’s finnish pilot Toni Gardemeister was forced to withdraw from prestigious rally „Silk Way”. On Monday Gardemeister with latvian helmsman Agris Pētersons were able to reach third best result and in overall they were on sixth position. On Tuesday few rivals were overtaken, but „RE Autoclub’s” crew on the way to higher position was stopped by Gardemeister’s injury.

On Saturday, 7th of July participants of traditional rally „Silk Way” took off from Moscow’s Red Square to drive almost 4000km and on 13th of July finish their race in Gelendzhik, city close to Sochi. But because of the flooding in area of Krasnodar, decision was made to make distance shorter and finish the race one day earlier in Maikop. The Award ceremony will be just formal, it will be tribute to people who lost their lives.
On Tuesday athlete’s objective was to drive third stage distance from Volgograd to Elist. Overall it was 677km long, but special stage was 488km long.

"On track’s first 50km our pilot Toni Gardemeister overtook three other cars, looking forward to reach very high results,” comments Roberts Elbakjans, director of „RE Autoclub”. „Due of the driven tracks on steppe roads, Toni drove on one of the pits. In the result of impact Toni Gardemeister injured his back, this injury was serious enough to decide not to continue the race on „Silk Way”. Fans of Latvian motorsport will still have to wait for little bit, to see high results fixed on rally’s final report.”

Team „RE Autoclub” are still participating in „Silk Way” rally, ensuring the start of Russian athlete’s Aleksandr Terentiev’s crew