Summarize

Thomas, Patrick deliver a Red-Lined triple

Dubai-based race team Sabertooth Motoring Adventures, which is partnered with South African outfit Red-Lined, has enjoyed a great start to its 2019 international cross country racing season after UAE amateur pairing, gentleman driver Thomas Edward Bell and navigator Patrick McMurren delivered a stunning hat trick of finishes to start off the year.

The duo first finished the gruelling Dakar Rally on their first attempt, before completing the Dubai Baja and then ended up with an impressive third in the T1.1 category and ninth overall in this week's Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge aboard their Red-Lined built T1 Nissan Navara.

“We are absolutely delighted with this incredible result among a strong international field in Abu Dhabi,” Thomas Bell admitted. “The Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge is regarded as one of the toughest desert races in the world — it runs over the dunes all the way and the Liwa Desert offers among the most complicated and difficult dune challenges out there. "They say that if you can master Abu Dhabi and the Liwa Desert, you can pretty much handle any other dunes that you may come across around the world.”

“We are still pretty new to the international scene, so it has been important for us to focus on our strengths and to stick to our team strategy throughout, which was to stay in our bubble and to minimise mistakes. "So we took all challenges the Liwa Desert threw at us and despite sandstorms making the already difficult going quite treacherous and managing to get stuck a few times, our Red-Lined Nissan Navara once again ran like clockwork to make it three finishes on the trot, which is something that we are extremely proud of!”

“For us, it is all about the journey and the adventure that comes with it, but we also managed to bring home a great result, which was a great team effort between my Sabertooth team and our partners at Red-Lined. Our adventure is fast becoming an incredible journey, which we don’t really want to end and we are now looking forward to ticking off more bucket list items starting with the Morocco Desert Challenge next week — we can’t wait to get back into action!”

It was a good event overall for Red-Lined Motoring Adventures as teammates, Saudi Arabian Essa Aldossary and his UAE navigator Ali Hassan powered the team’s second T1 Nissan Navara to 12th overall in Abu Dhabi.

The Sabertooth crew of Bell and McMurren together with the technical support of Red-Lined now head straight to Morocco for the 3000km 8-day Desert Challenge, which takes place over former Paris-Dakar stages across the West African State, including three days in the Sahara Desert from 13-20 April 2019. One of the biggest amateur cross country races in the world, the Morocco Desert Challenge is unique in that it is limited only to non-seeded amateur drivers, with the race also marking Dutch rookie Ronald van Loon’s debut in his Red-Lined built T1 Nissan Navara.

ENDS

Issued on behalf of Red-Lined Motorsport

What:Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge Report
Where:Abu Dhabi, UAE
When:31 March - 5 April 2019
Community:International

For further information please contact terence@redlined.co.za

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