The opening event with the Taurus T3 Max buggy, the Greek Hellas Rally Raid 2025, went well for Slovak Martin Benko. He reached the finish line and gained a lot of new experience.
Martin Benko declared before the start of the competition that he was not interested in the result, but mainly needed to gain a lot of experience. After all, riding a motorbike, which Martin has competed with so far, and riding a buggy are two diametrically different things. And this is exactly the direction Martin directed his participation in the Hellas Rally Raid. However, he did not yet know that in addition to the competition, he would also experience things he had not counted on.
We informed you about the broken jack and the subsequent creative solution to the situation in the previous report. After this incident, which he and Marek Sýkor basically solved easily, another incident occurred the very next day. In this case, however, the damage caused could not be repaired immediately on site. While completing the marathon stage, one of the competitors made a wrong turn and, while returning to the original track, he backed straight into Martin, who was just passing by. The damage to the buggy was not extensive, but it could not be repaired on the spot, so Martin had to ask his mechanics to tow him to the service area. As a result, he had to withdraw from the stage, for which he was penalized. Since the buggy could not be repaired immediately, he did not start the next stage either. Martin Benko was supposed to start in the penultimate stage, but that was canceled due to heavy storms. In the end, Martin reached the finish line after completing the short final Sunday stage.
“It wasn’t easy, but we all expected that. I’m happy that I completed the Hellas Rally Raid, I gained a lot of new experience, we have a lot of new engine data that will help us set up the Taurus, I also tried out different chassis settings and as a result we moved one step forward again. As I said last time, I didn’t even look at the times, it was about getting to the finish line, which I finally managed to do. It’s a shame about the crash, but it really couldn’t have been prevented, the driver in question made a mistake, who got lost and backed right into the side of our car. I would like to thank my team partners for their support and Marek Sýkor for his valuable advice, I learned a lot from him,” said Martin Benko at the finish line of the competition.
Martin Benko will once again introduce himself to fans of long-distance competitions as part of the Hungarian Baja in August 2025.