Martynas Samsonas talks about the latest sports idea – Samsonas Crossfit Rally Team Challenge
Car rallies and motorsports in general are considered technical sports. It is often forgotten that cars do not drive themselves and that driving at top speed and maximum risk requires enormous mental and physical preparation. While the latter develops, the other grows in parallel. And here two well-known guys in our rally community came up with the idea that it is necessary to organize a “rally” festival, but without cars, where you can develop exactly the qualities that will help you to be even faster behind the wheel of a sports car. Martynas Samsonas and Tadas Balaišis tell about it
The idea or the thought of such a sports festival has been around for a very long time. We used to organize sports vacations for the employees. At that time it was always interesting to watch the “Race of Champions”. Only here is clear another form. Then I vaguely remember that maybe 20 years ago in Panevėžys on the ice was held the competition of Lithuanian motor sport champions. The winners of various motorsport disciplines competed against each other. With cars with front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive. At that time, if I am not mistaken, Darius Jonušis won. For a long time I myself had an idea to build such a motorsport “Disneyland” in Utena, but this is a very difficult dream, because for this you need a lot of money and a lot of land. So far, this dream has not come true, but who knows how life will develop here.
And that weekend, July 16, it started all of a sudden. Probably within half a day.
Tadas Balaišis and I have some common thoughts, works and organizing rallies. Tadas is also organizing the Visaginas rally, which has the potential to become a bigger event. Tadas and his colleagues are also developing several N5 ideas that the rally community will be pleasantly surprised by. We also have people in Visaginas who can already make/repair N5 bodies and various suspension parts.
This weekend Tadas sent a photo of roller skates, he asked if I had any and if I wanted to come to Visaginas to take a ride on a closed roller skating rink. Well, I got on my bike without waiting long, packed my skates with shoes in my backpack and rode from Utena to Visaginas. There we had a light workout, and while we were talking I said that I have such a silly little dream – to make a sports festival for our rally crews. Tadas says that Antonas and the company LitWild are in Visaginas, they organize trips in nature, sports festivals both on bikes and in water. They say we should do something! Well, I say, we do this silliness. Only such a nuance arose that LitWild had only one day off during the whole summer – July 16. We checked that there are no rally competitions and decided to continue with this theme.
We suddenly had a name, a logo. Then we launched the website, Facebook, rules, regulations and everything else. Of course, I immediately received arrows of criticism about the name, about the events – well, but what to do when everything comes very suddenly 🙂 I understand that neither our triathlon, nor pentathlon, nor Crossfit, nor any name fits what we do. But the desire is great. In time, I have no doubt, we will develop both contests and quality. And one more thing: I did not want to overdo it with the first event. There is a lot to do, both with security and with the general organization, and you do not want to scare half of the participants with the complexity and difficulty of the competition. We also have a limited number of bikes, so we have to start every 2 or 3 minutes and change the same bikes for the participants, there will be a carousel and we do not know how many of our rally participants will gather here. We want to encourage the rally crews to do sports themselves – outside, in nature or in general sports. At the same time, the level of Lithuanian motorsport should undoubtedly be raised.
“I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Martynas, who with his inexhaustible wealth of ideas and inner energy takes many of the most interesting ideas that keep raising the level of our motorsport and simply implements them. And he does this at various levels, from helping with the organization to bringing special equipment or such health and the creation of a sports festival.
Tadas Balaišis
Well, we will see. There is a desire to turn this challenge into an annual “championship”. 4 stages, four seasons. The winter stage in Ignalina, the spring stage in Zarasai, the summer stage in Visaginas and the autumn stage in Utena. Also, as I mentioned earlier, we will change the challenges and increase the number of it. It will also be a challenge for the athletes to adapt to the different events and tasks. Maybe we will combine some games with cars, but first we have to see what we get on July 16.
The registration has already started. We are waiting for the registrations. We hope that Lithuanian rally drivers will be tough. We expect the youngsters from the sprint and mini rallies to show the “pros” from the A-League where the crabs winter. And we hope that this whole challenge will attract interest, develop into a 4-stage championship and please everyone. I hope people will be happier, looking less at what’s bad and more at what they can do better 🙂
Registracija bei visa informacija
Entry form for “rally crew” competition
Samsonas Crossfit Rally Teams Challenge 2023 regulations
