The third season for Giedrius Notkus with the Škoda Fabia R5 was no bed of roses. But neither dust nor breakdowns or accidents could stop the man form Panevėžys from his goal to achieve victories on the events of the Lithuanian Rally Championship. The last chance this year is the 2023 “Samsonas Rally Utena”.
This year brought more than one serious test for Giedrius Notkus. Although everything started very well in the winter, when the he won the first round of the Lithuanian Rally Sprint Championship “7bet Winter Rally Aukštaitija”, later Giedrius and luck parted. In the main battle with Martynas Samsonas on the first events of LARČ dust issue occurred, which prevented Giedrius from keeping the speed of the competitor. In Lazdijai the situation has improved, but in Rokiškis the broken radiator and its consequences, as well as the Elektrėnai rally accident, have caused many gray hairs. The situation in the overall standings reflects all this perfectly – Giedrius fell out of the top three in both the overall standings and the class. But this sport attracts strong personalities who do not give up no matter how hard situations are, and if there is help from friends, colleagues and fans – even such a difficult season can be saved and after the misfortunes that happened, you can get back on your feet. This happened after the Rokiškis Rally, when the “Viada-MultiFX” team had to replace the engine of the Škoda Fabia R5, and after the accident in Elektrėnai Giedrius was again not alone, and the badly damaged car was quickly restored to its original condition.
“As you know, a few weeks ago we had an accident at the Elektrėnai Rally, in which our car was badly damaged – both the front, the rear and the suspension. After the accident, I had gloomy thoughts and told myself that I would not be going anywhere this year. However, when we returned home and started disassemble the car, we saw that it was still possible to fix it. With the help of a team of friends, the car was restored – a big thank you to them for that. The body was already repaired in a week and painted in a few days and is now in the assembly phase. We are trying to be in Samsonas Rally Utena. We have a week, we have already started the car and we are still waiting for the missing parts. Next week we will finish it, test it, and if everything goes well, we just have to start in Utena, which I am really looking forward to.”
Giedrius Notkus
Although the man from Panevėžys is out of the podium in the class and in the overall standings, the points gap is not huge, and the coefficient of 1.5 points awarded for the last event offers even more opportunities to recover the lost positions. However, Giedrius Notkus is cautious in this matter and has only one goal – to redeem himself after the failures in the last competitions:
“This season was not good for us – there were all kinds of circumstances due to which we did not even get a result in two competitions. Although we are now fourth both in class and overall – but I do not really count the points. The goal now is simply to fix the car, start the rally and finish it – that would be the biggest success for us at the moment.”
Giedrius Notkus
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