White water rafting builds strong Skoda UK team ahead of Rally Argentina

17th March 2010

The Škoda UK Motorsport team has now arrived in Villa Carlos Paz, host town for this weekend’s Rally Argentina - Round 3 of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge. The 12-strong rally squad made the symbolic passage from Brazil to Argentina at the spectacular Iguacu Falls, during a team building week between the South American IRC rounds.

The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 1.6 miles (2.7kms) of the Iguacu River. Some of the falls are up to 82 metres (269 ft) high, including the aptly-named Devil's Throat, which marks the border between Brazil and Argentina.

After viewing the falls from land, the Škoda UK Motorsport team took to the rapids for some adrenalin-filled white water rafting. However, in a rowing display that would have stunned Sir Steve Redgrave, the entire team spent the majority of the three mile downstream paddle in the Iguacu River.

“Man overboard,” shouted Guy Wilks, as he pushed co-driver Phil Pugh and team manager Pierfrancesco Zanchi off the rubber raft in a two-man tackle that would have graced the Twickenham turf. Soon nobody was on the boat at all; not even the guide. Getting back into the boat unaided was virtually impossible, until Guy came up with one word of encouragement – “Piranhas!”.

While the team’s Fabia S2000 made the 1200 mile journey overland from Curitiba to Villa Carlos Paz, Škoda UK Motorsport personnel did the same journey by air, via Rio de Janeiro, Iguacu and Buenos Aires.

“It’s been a great team-building week, and white water rafting was the pinnacle for strengthening team spirit,” said Guy. “We’ve used the time between events productively. Phil and I have done a lot of fitness training, Škoda UK Motorsport is much stronger as a team because we’ve got to know each other very well and we’ve enjoyed some great sight-seeing tours. We’re all very focused on why we’re here though, so it’s not a holiday. We’ve spent more time than normal analysing our performance in Brazil and preparing for Rally Argentina.

“We’re all looking forward to this weekend’s rally,” added Guy. “The recce schedule is very tough and the rally will be hard – but after our week together in South America, we are very well prepared.”

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