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22 November 2008: Dubai International Rally 2008
This weekend’s Dubai Rally will mark the end of the first participation of MIMARI Racing driver Roger Feghali in the MERC even though he missed the first 4 events of the season.
“Our main objective this year was to gain experience on gravel and desert roads and prepare for next season”, Roger said. About Dubai Rally, this is what Roger had to say: “The importance of Dubai Rally lies in the nature of the stages. It is qualified as a desert rally similar to 4 events in next year’s calendar. I have been only once in Dubai (10 years ago) and drove a 2 wheel drive Seat Ibiza back then. It is a very demanding rally with mostly difficult stages full of ditches and cuts around the corners. We had our testing today and fine tuned the set up of the car. Honestly we have no expectations at all until we start the first stage tomorrow. Unfortunately in our first participation in the MERC we didn’t finish any of the rallies so far even though we were leading all of them, call it bad luck, but for us we didn’t achieve much so far. We proved to be very fast on gravel as well as on tarmac but we are still looking forward to finishing a rally and we hope we will be able to do it here on Saturday.”
MIMARI Racing team will be represented in Dubai Rally by its owner Ammar Hijazi (car number 20), Faris Hijazi (car number 16) and Roger Feghali (car number 9). Nick Georgiou, MOTORTUNE driver will start with car number 5.
Live results and updates will be available on Roger’s website (http://www.rogerfeghali.com) and on Roger’s official facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roger-Feghali-The-Official-Page/39467698622?ref=s) only.
09 November 2008: Troodos Rally – Summary
“I guess Cyprus doesn’t like me after all”, that’s what Roger had to say when he reached the service zone. After a series of misfortune events, Mimary Racing driver left Cyprus without scoring any point in the MERC making it the third time that he participates without a single positive outcome.
Roger Feghali and co driver Giovanni Bernacchini started their rally on a high tempo chasing the championship leader and the rally favorite Nasser Al Attiyah but unfortunately caught up with car number 4 (Savvas Savva) on the first stage and prevented them from scoring their first stage win finishing only 2.2 seconds behind the Qatari team. Stage 2, and after hitting a ditch which wrenched the wheel from his hand, Roger had a twisted wrist and suffered from severe pain throughout the stage and the rest of the rally. Our Lebanese driver won stage 3 and 4 (by over a minute) and took the lead from Al Attiyah. Nasser stormed to SS5 and snatched 14.8 seconds from Roger and SS6 witnessed a collision damaging the ball joint of his Evolution IX which forced Roger to retire and start under Superally the next day.
Under the new regulations, and if a driver decides to continue under Superally after retiring in the last stage of the day, the organizers must add 10 minutes to his time which placed Roger in 11th place overall at the start of the second day but his battle to maintain a position in the top 10 was over due to a failure in his turbo hose in SS7 finishing 11th and gave up on him and forced him to retire.
Roger left Cyprus going back to Lebanon tonight putting the Cypriot nightmare behind him and preparing for the Dubai Rally the last event of the championship. This is what he had to say: “This is motorsport, and as they say to finish first you must first finish. It is true that Troodos rally is a real test for man and machine and we have suffered from both this year. I hope that my hand will get better soon to start our preparations for Dubai Rally and we shall take it from there for the 2009 season”.
Motortune driver Nick Georgiou and co driver Joseph Matar had their own battle with Nicos Thomas for the Pirelli Star Driver title during the rally and finished in 9th place after a consistent and tactical strategy pulling away with minimum damage and enough points to keep their chances of winning the battle.
06 November 2008: Troodos Rally 2008 (MERC) 7-9 November
The second new challenge for Roger this year will be the Troodos Rally in Cyprus, round 6 of the Middle East Rally Championship, the toughest rally on the calendar with punishing stages and a real test for man and machine.
Mimari Racing driver Roger Feghali arrived at the beginning of the week in preparation for the event with his Motortune crew and their Mitsubishi Evolution IX. Roger’s car will carry the number 5 at the start and Motortune driver Nick Georgiou will be competing on his Mistubishi Evolution IX as well holding number 7.
During our conversation with Roger, this is what he had to say: “We came prepared same as all rallies, knowing that during previous versions of the rallies, many leaders and competitors had to withdraw due to the tough conditions they faced in the Troodos rally we really cannot expect anything until the start or shall I say until the end of the rally? Today we had our first official practice on the stages, and I have to admit that it’s the first time I drive on such rough, twisty and tricky stages. We will be facing another challenge in Cyprus which is the local Cypriot competitors, besides the usual “suspects” in the Middle East Championship (Nasser, Nick, Misfir and Nizar). Even though the organizers have added new stages this year, they are still the favorites with their knowledge of the nature of the ground. Tomorrow we will be having our second official practice and hopefully some testing to fine tune the settings and make sure we don’t miss any technical detail in our cars.”
There will be a ceremonial start on Friday 7th, and the rally will kick start Saturday morning and end on Sunday night.
Join us on Roger’s official website (http://www.rogerfeghali.com), Roger’s official Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/
Roger-Feghali-The-Official-Page/39467698622) and Roger’s official Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=626411
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We will be updating you through the Official page and not on the group page messages. You will be receiving the news on your notification section on Facebook (upper right side).
Good luck to Roger and Nick!!!
18 October 2008: Jordan Rally - Summary
Unfortunately Roger finished the rally earlier than he thought he will. The final day of the Jordan rally 2008 started with SS10 Suwayama and saw Roger finishing second behind Al Attiyah with some minor problems but managed to reach SS11 and failed to cross the finish line due to a fuel pump failure. "The problems startd in SS10 and we didnt know exactly what was wrong. We had all new parts on the car including the fuel pump, but i guess luck wasnt by our side today. We must put today's incident behind us and focus on the upcoming races", Roger said.
The next event will be Troodos Rally in Cyprus (06-07/11/2008).
17 October 2008: Jordan Rally 2008 – Day 1 Summary
“Believe it or not it is my first gravel rally”, that was the first thing Roger said after stepping out of his car. “It was an amazing day overall, the car felt just great with the suspension and the total gravel package that we have. The stages are nice and fun to drive. We attacked from SS1 and maintained our rhythm throughout the day driving just to the limit. As for tomorrow, we will work on maintaining our position and finish the rally safely without taking any risk. I guess it’s a good result so far. We can’t complain, no???”
Roger won 8 out of 9 Special Stages today and managed to end the day with 1'47.7 seconds away from Nasser Al Attiyah in second place and Motortune driver Nick Georgiou in third with 5'05.0 seconds difference. Unfortunately Ammar Hijazi, Mimari Racing driver, retired in SS2 and Faris Hijazi finished his day in 9th position placing both Mimari Racing in the top 10 as well as the Motortune drivers. Raafat Al Mohtar the last of the Motortune team finished his first Jordan rally in 17th position.
Tomorrow will start early morning in SUWAYAMA with Roger starting first and end at 15:00 local time.
Roger's Facebook Official page
We are glad to annouce the launch of our Official Facebook Page on the following link
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roger-Feghali-The-Official-Page/39467698622
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