The Baja de Loulé was disputed this weekend, 29th and 30th of May, and consecrated the duo Alexandre Ré/Francisco Esperto, in cars, and António Maio, in motorcycles.
Based on the Algarve Stadium, the race passed through municipalities such as Loulé, Silves, Almodôvar, São Brás de Alportel and Alcoutim, in a mix of hard flooring and sections that were part of previous southern regional rally competitions and the World Rally Championship (WRC).
The bikes were almost always led by António Maio (Yamaha), with the multi-national champion achieving yet another triumph in the Algarve, he who did not lead only in the prologue, with this position being left to Bruno Santos (Husqvarna), a rider who would eventually finish in second place and winning in the TT3 category, ahead of Gustavo Gaudêncio (Honda), the fastest among the TT1.
Filipe Fragoso (Promotion), Óscar Teixeira (Veterans), Salvador Amaral (Junior) and Janaina Souza (Ladies) were the winners in the other groups in competition.
In SSV, there was a fight until the end with Nuno Fontes managing to bring overcame João Monteiro/Victor Melo and let the first place trophy stay in Loulé.
Third place went to Pedro Carvalho/André Guerreiro, after an intense fight with Alexandre Pinto/Fábio Belo (first classified among juniors) and Lourenço Rosa/Joaquim Dias, who suffered problems at the end. André Rodrigues and Ricardo Porto Nunes were the fastest in the TT2 category on the Yamaha with Benfica's colors.
Enter the full list of quads present, the emotion was great.
On the first day, the lead seemed to be assured for Luís Engeitado, but the pilot ended up suffering some problems at the beginning that led him to lose the lead to Fábio Ferreira and Ruben Alexandre.
However, the first broke the current of quad, while the second suffered an accident that led the organization to request medical support, thus handing over the leadership, until the end, to Luís Engeitado. This was also followed by Luís Fernandes and Rafael Carvalho, all on Yamaha.
Finally, in cars history was made with the first victory of an SSV in a race under the aegis of the FPAK, with Alexandre Ré and Francisco Esperto clearly winning in the Can-Am assisted by South Racing, also triumphing in the classification destined for the Iberian TT Cup.
In second place were the Spaniards Luis Recuenco/Sergio Peinado, in Mini All4Racing, and, in third place, André Amaral, navigated by Nelson Ramos in a Ford Ranger, with many of the candidates for victory having fallen by the wayside, such as João Ramos , Nuno Madeira or Alejandro Martins, this logo in the prologue.
The best classified among the T2 was Georgino Pedroso, this time sailed by the former national champion Rui Sousa, in Isuzu, while in the T8 the victory belonged to Ricardo Nascimento / Jorge Fernandes, a feat they achieved even in the end, benefiting from the withdrawal of Michael Braun / Ivo Santos.
Baja de Loulé 2021 was organized by the Clube Automóvel do Algarve, under the aegis of the Portuguese Federation of Automobile and Karting and the Portuguese Motorcycling Federation, with the high sponsorship of the Municipality of Loulé and the support of the municipalities of Silves, Alcoutim, S. Brás de Alportel, Tavira and Almodôvar and Medronhito do Caldeirão.
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