Atacama Rally ready to rumble - preview
By Press Release on 13th Aug 18
The Atacama Rally, third round of the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship, kicks off today (Monday, August 13) with the curtain-raiser a short prologue stage that will determine the competitors starting order for the first full stage.
A buoyant Monster Energy Honda Team is all set and poised to take up the action.
The squad made up of Kevin Benavides (Argentina), Paulo Goncalves (Portugal), Ricky Brabec (USA), Joan Barreda (Spain) and local rider Jose Ignacio Cornejo, will dispute the short 2.5-kilometre prologue in Tierra Amarilla, near Copiapo, where the opening ceremony will also take place.
The result of the prologue will be decisive in establishing the starting positions for the first full Atacama Rally stage.
The top finishers will be able to choose their positions the fastest rider being the one who gets to choose last for the starting order of the stage held on Tuesday, August 14.
The full stage will run from Copiapo-Copiapo, covering 358.87 kilometres, including a total of 266.30 kilometres of timed special.
Kevin Benavides: The championship has restarted and I am very happy and motivated for this second part of the season. We now have two hectic months with four races: Atacama, Ruta, Inca and Morocco, but we are focused on fighting for the world championship and performing each race well, step by step. I will try to do my best, but also try and feel good with the bike and enjoy ourselves as a team, which is doing a great job and has prepared very hard to face these latest dates in the calendar.
Ricky Brabec: Here we are in Chile with the second half of the season about to start up. There are some pretty big dunes here and Im excited to start racing. Weve been a long time at home with a lot of time on holidays but we just did some testing in California which was awesome. The team is out here shaking down the bikes. Everything is good so far, so hopefully we will have a good week. Lets hope the riders stay strong and healthy.
Jose Ignacio Cornejo: We are a day away from starting the Atacama and I am very motivated with the home race. We have prepared the bikes and everything is all set to start tomorrow. We have trained a lot over the recent months since the last competition and I feel really good. The objective is to do better than in the last edition and to do my best day by day and ride an intelligent race.
Joan Barreda: For me it is an important race, my second race of the year, after a good start in Merzouga. I have recovered well and I feel in good shape, with very good pace. At the same time, we will have to be careful, as the aim is to accumulate kilometres in these upcoming races that we are competing in: Atacama, Inca and Morocco. We will try to use a good strategy, we know it will be a complicated race with very close times, but we will look to set the pace and play our cards correctly.
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