Tubus Racing

TEAM ISUZU DIESEL MISSION NEWS

UAE DESERT CHALLENGE (October 25th-31st, 2008)

FIA World Cup for Cross-Country rallies, final round

Sunday, October 26th 2008

AUSTRALIA’S GARLAND AND ISUZU’S DIESEL MISSION HOLD

FIFTH AFTER DESERT CHALLENGE SUPER SPECIAL STAGE

• Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah holds outright lead

• Sweden’s Par Wallentheim steers his Isuzu to 10th place

MINA SEYAHI (UAE): Team Isuzu Diesel Mission driver Bruce Garland and co-driver

Harry Suzuki made a very promising start and held fifth position after the short twokilometre

super special stage that got the competitive action in the 2008 UAE Desert

Challenge underway at Jebel Ali, near Dubai, on Sunday afternoon.

The Australian has entered the final round of the FIA World Cup for Country Rallies in

an Isuzu D-Max, which he used to take fourth place in the Australian Safari Rally as a

shakedown for the Arabian challenge. Another car is also being readied in Australia, as

Garland makes his final preparations for the 2009 Dakar Rally in South America with the

Isuzu team.

“I started racing with Isuzu for the first time in the Australian Safari Rally in 2003,” said

Garland. “At that time I was driving an Isuzu Bighorn or Trooper on many events with

quite a lot of success. I am very pleased with the cars, but I was driving gasoline

engined-vehicles. I was aware that Isuzu were experts with diesel technology, so I

became interested to race an Isuzu diesel car.

“I started discussing the idea with my friends at Isuzu and found that they wanted to

change the perception of the ‘diesel’. They wanted the public to realise that diesel cars

nowadays have enough speed to compete in tough races like the Desert Challenge and

the Dakar and that was the beginning of the Isuzu Diesel Mission.”

Garland knows that the UAE Desert Challenge is one of the toughest rallies in the world

and he will be hard-pushed to match early rally leader Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah over the

next five days’ competition in the remote Rub Al-Khali or Empty Quarter of the Arabian

Desert.

“We have taken everything we learned at the Australian Safari to upgrade our car. The

diesel engines are tuned and we have fitted Hollander sequential gearboxes that have

been especially made for the D-Max. We have a Motec dash that monitors the cooling

system and the general status of the car and we have installed two large fans at the

rear to try and reduce the heat from the desert. The shock absorbers and brakes have

been modified, the body has been reinforced and we have fitted sand ramps so we can

get out of the sand quickly if we get stuck. The sand in the UAE can become very soft

when it is hot, so this is important.”

Garland and Suzuki are confident that they can achieve a good result nonetheless. “We

are very confident, because we have done some testing in the desert in Australia,”

admitted Suzuki. The D-Max is really good in the sand, because of its high torque. We

should put on a good show this week.”

Sweden’s Par ‘Pelle’ Wallentheim and Dan-Olov Ohlsson are also taking part in a

second Isuzu D-Max as part of Team Isuzu Diesel Mission. They held 10th position after

the timed super special stage at Jebel Ali.

Seventy-five bikes, three trucks and 37 cars took part in the short opening stage in late

afternoon temperatures that were still well above 30 degrees Centigrade and

threatening to be even higher in the Empty Quarter for the remainder of the week.

Tomorrow (Monday) is the official start of the UAE Desert Challenge and marks the first

desert action for the international entry. Teams will take a road liaison section from the

Dubai emirate to the official start outside the luxurious Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi.

A second liaison will then guide crews to the start of the opening 281km desert section

between Al-Dafrah and the overnight halt at Moreeb hill, near Liwa, deep inside the Abu

Dhabi emirate. The event finishes in Dubai on Friday, October 31st.