Zoom Pal Anders Ullevalseter.

The first edition of the Central Europe Rally came to an end. Dakarsport Team Honda Europe is very satisfied with the results.

Jurgen van den Goorbergh (P21 overall): “I found a great new hobby! I really enjoyed this rally. For today we had made some new adjustments to the suspension, which made it easier to push harder with less effort (P12 in the final stage). My goal was to finish close to the top 20 and I succeeded. Today and the second stage in the sand a few days ago were really perfect.

I'm going home with a positive feeling, now we will see if we can schedule one or two small rallies in our preparation for Dakar 2009. The most important thing I learned this week is that in a rally you have to take care of your own, do your own thing, and that's something I handled quit well. The cooperation and atmosphere in the team was great, each night we went through every little detail, and the mechanics did a perfect job.”

Mirjam Pol (P63 overall) “It was a great rally. The technical specials around Baie Mare in Rumania made a big impression on me. To ride these on the Dakar bike wasn't always easy. Now it's back to work for me. I hope to have a (standard) Honda CRF 450 shortly, which I will use to ride some Belgian enduros and I want to go to Bilstain (also Belgium) on a regular base to work on my technique.”

Vadim Pritulyk (P64 overall) was clear in his statement: “Now it's time for wodka!”

Christopher Jarmuz was 46th in the last special and ended 36th overall.

Team manager Henk Hellegers: “The bikes were 100%. It was a good week for us. Still quit a hard rally when you look at the number of bikes that didn't finish. We did what we came for, our bikes proved to be very reliable. It was a pity about Zse Rodrigeus, but going out with a crash is all in the game. All the personal targets were met by our riders, so we are happy with the final results.”

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