24 Turkish Crews Head to Kardjali

Offroad Fest 4x4 Kardjali is being held for the fifth time this year, from 16-18 March 2018 in Bulgaria. A total of 89 crews from different countries have registered for the biggest off-road event in the Balkans. The event, which will feature the toughest course for the Trophy category, has six different categories: RR – Rally Off-road, ExP – Hard Trophy / Prototype, ExM – Hard Trophy / Modified, SH – Standard Trophy / Heavy, SL – Standard Trophy / Light, TT – Tourist Trophy.

The event, open to both standard and modified vehicles, features different and exciting stages for each category. On the rocky, climbing and descending course prepared for the Hard Trophy category, totalling 82 km, competitors will battle for three days.

Competitors in the Rally Off-road and Standard Trophy categories will cover a total of 194 km over the three days. After the long stages on Friday and Saturday, special spectator stages prepared for each category will be run on Sunday.

Interest in the event has been considerable this year, after 13 Turkish teams took part in 2016 and nine in 2017. The race attracts great interest from Turkey every year, and 24 Turkish crews have registered this time.

The event, which is extremely demanding and requires excellent navigation skills as well as off-road ability, produced a superb contest in 2017. In the three-day event, where friendship between countries and nations came to the fore, the Deniz Dağlı-Semih Noyan pairing, driving a Suzuki Vitara, took the runner-up trophy in the Cross Country category.

The Mehmet Becce - Hüseyin Afşar crew, driving a Suzuki Jimny, flew our flag on the podium by taking the third-place trophy in the toughest category, Trophy Expert Modified. Also in a Suzuki Jimny, the Ali Kartal - Serdar Uludağ crew finished fourth in the Trophy Expert category, while the Tolga Yılmaz - Ejder Erişti crew, driving a Jeep Cherokee, completed the event in fifth place.

With 24 teams competing in this tough event again this year, we are once again expecting trophies. Compared with previous years, the participants have more experience and the vehicles taking part have greater potential.

One of the most eye-catching vehicles is "Panda", the car of Fuat Bilgin, who competed for AYDOFF TRIAL TEAM in the 2017 Turkish Trial Championship and finished the season second. Panda is powered by a Corvette LSX 7100 cc engine and also has a supercharger, which takes its power to around 1000 hp. One of the features that makes Panda most special is its ATLAS 4 off-road transfer case and DANA 80 differential. Besides Panda, many other competitors have modified their vehicles and prepared for the event this year. There will be many vehicles that we will see in Bulgaria for the first time.

We wish success to all our competitors taking part in the event.