Eryk Goczał and his family-owned EnergyLandia Rally Group are making ready to make the bounce from manufacturing SSVs to Gentle Prototypes for the 2024 Dakar Rally. Since Friday, they’ve been testing a pair of Taurus T3 Max automobiles from MCE-5 Growth.
Goczał turned the youngest Dakar Rally total champion when he claimed the T4 class for manufacturing SSVs on début in January on the age of eighteen, successful 4 phases and holding off father Marek Goczał together with reigning and newly topped World Rally-Raid T4 Champion Rokas Baciuška. Whereas Marek completed runner-up within the 2022 W2RC and Eryk assumed the factors lead with the Dakar win, the household elected to take a seat out the remainder of the 2023 calendar for the youthful Goczał to give attention to college and compete within the Drift Masters European Championship. He’s presently thirteenth within the DMEC driver standings whereas Poland sits third within the DMEC’s Nations Cup.
In March, Goczał introduced he would transfer as much as T3 for the 2024 Rally.
“That is the automotive I’ve been in France to assist to construct so I do know it from the start,” stated Goczał. “I imagine that I may current the way forward for Dakar, the way forward for racing. I lastly have a sequential gearbox. I’m very happy to have two days of testing and to lastly check this factor as my coaching automotive.”
The Taurus T3 Max has received the final two W2RC rounds with Mitch Guthrie on the Sonora Rally and Desafío Ruta 40, enabling him to take the factors lead in a class dominated by Can-Am Mavericks. MCE-5, by way of Wevers Sport, fielded three Tauruses on the DR 40 for Guthrie, Nicolás Cavigliasso, and Gabriel Rodríguez. For the season-ending Rallye du Maroc in October, MCE-5 has additionally added BBR Motorsport to the roster.
In contrast to their manufacturing counterparts in T4, Gentle Prototypes are side-by-side automobiles purpose-built for racing. Nasser Al-Attiyah, a five-time Dakar Rally winner on the verge of claiming his second straight W2RC, had excessive reward for T3 automobiles after testing a Taurus in July, calling it a “very nice machine” and arguing youthful drivers ought to use the category to hone their rally raid expertise earlier than contemplating the top-level T1 division.
The 2024 Dakar Rally begins on 5 January. Apart from Eryk and Marek, the previous’s uncle Michal additionally races for EnergyLandia Rally Group.
