Buggyra Winner of Tender
Although the season 2014 has only just begun, the BUGGYRA management have recorded the first great success represented by victory in a tender organised by the TATRA TRUCKS a.s. joint-stock company. What this means in practice is that in the period from April 2014 to March 2015 BUGGYRA will be the only team enjoying factory support of the well-known truck manufacturer.
Binding Victory
The tender was organised in the TATRA Technical Museum on 25 March 2014. The individual teams applying for support by TATRA TRUCKS a.s. presented their results and ideas of mutual cooperation in the first part of the tender. Then the winner was selected on the basis of eight criteria by decision of an 18-member jury consisting of shareholders, management and members of the commerce and marketing department of the company. The members of the jury eventually decided in favour of Buggyra. "Of course we are very pleased and feel great satisfaction. We have succeeded in a tender of a world make, winner of six Dakar Rally events. I think there is nothing to add to this," was the first reaction on the tender result of the team manager Jan Kalivoda. In his opinion the main reasons of the decision in favour of Buggyra included, in addition to the ability to provide wide media coverage, mainly technological flexibility and long-term vision. "Before this, i.e. the first year of our common Dakar we agreed with the people of Tatra that we would like to win in a not very remote future and that we would subordinate all our efforts to that goal. A profound analysis of all data and testing in Senica have shown that although our way does not bring immediate results, but is the best from the medium- to long-term perspective.“
In addition to financial support Buggyra as the only factory supported team can make use of the whole background of the Kopřivnice plant, including the testing polygon. Apart from that the Roudnice team bets on the power and fame of the make. And also on qualified opposition. "Although Buggyra has won five champion titles and three Constructors´ Cups in the course of the fourteen years of its truck racing history, which none of the private teams has managed to achieve so far, we have no problem discussing things. And this applies twice for the Dakar Rally where Tatra possesses extensive experience,“ says Jan Kalivoda adding that in this case the established cooperating binds. "We are aware that as the only factory-supported team we will be monitored in detail. As we have seen this year, Dakar is kind of religion for part of motor sport fans and for the media, with great expectations connected with it due to the past success. This is a great challenge for us.“
As just a couple of hours passed since the official announcement of the result of the tender in which Buggyra was the winner, for obvious reasons the team manager did not want to indulge in more details of further steps of the already Tatra factory-supported Buggyra team. "The FAT BOY project lives its own life. We stick to the trend we already outlined in Argentina. The result of today ´s tender in the form of factory support is only a pleasant bonus to it. After return from Dakar we established an expert group focused exclusively on the Dakar 2015 project and this decision is motivation for further work. We will obviously keep the public informed about all the essential in this context.“
