This Saturday, the bp Ultimate 4 Hours SSV Vila de Fronteira opened the program of the great national off-road party, with the competitive SSV providing an excellent show to the many thousands of spectators spread over the 16.4 kilometres of track.
The sun had begun to shine on the horizon, just over an hour ago, when almost three dozen teams left for the 12th edition of the bp Ultimate 4 Hours SSV Vila de Fronteira.
The initial phase was marked by the withdrawal of the author of the “pole position”, Wilson Galo, due to the break of his Can-Am shaft, but also for the duel that Pedro Santinho Mendes (national champion title) and Luís Cidade starred for the leadership.
But after 240 minutes of the race, it was Luís Cidade who won. A return to the highest place on the podium after winning the 2019 edition. “We had a good race. I didn’t start the best way, I lost a position at the beginning, but I managed to recover in the second lap. Then, I caught Pedro [Santinho Mendes]. He let me, quote, and pass, otherwise, we would both stay, probably. But it went well. I always like to come to the border. I like the track and the terrain was spectacular”, said the young Can-Am Off-Road Portugal driver.
Following an unexpected pit stop on the last lap, Pedro Santinho Mendes was relegated from the standings and who inherited the second place was Marco Pereira, with the driver underlining: “They were good surprises: to climb the third on the last lap and finish second after the chess flag. I was in the pits making the mandatory stop when I saw [Beto] Borrego pass. I saw that he was going slow, that he must be going with some problem. When I got back to the track, I tried to pick it up and I was successful. The border is very private. We knew that we weren’t the fastest, but we had to have a steady pace and we would do the math at the end. So it happened.”
After a remarkable career in quads (in the Baja Portalegre 500 alone he won eight), Roberto Borrego has bet in the SSV category and, in Fronteira, the Alentejo won a troubled third place. “It was a very hard day,” he began by underlining. “In the first few laps we walked together and, in a passage of water or a puddle of mud, I touched the rear wheel and punctured it. I came with the hole, for a long time, to the pits, having arrived already only in the wheel. Then I managed to recover even when it was missing, about an hour and a half. Unfortunately, we had another problem. I had to slow down, and manage the car until the end, but I managed to finish on the podium. We are all to be congratulated, the team, my sponsors, my friends, my family, all the people who are on the track pulling for us. It was a bittersweet weekend, but still a good result.”
The duo João Dias/ Nelson Saramago finished in fourth place, while Ricardo Domingues was fifth. The top ten teams closed the group of Hélder Santos/ Flávio Belo, João Paulo Gomes/ Nuno Teles, Gil Sales/ Martim Caldeira, Jorge Silva/ Pedro Silva and António Coimbra.
Two hours after the end of the race reserved for SSV, the start was given to the 26th edition of the bp Ultimate 24 Horas TT Vila de Fronteira, with the participation of 73 teams, made up of almost three hundred drivers, of nine nationalities.
FINAL CLASSIFICATION bp Ultimate 4 Hours SSV Border Village
1º Luís CIDADE (CAN-AM MAVERICK R), at 4h07m33,334s
2º Marco PEREIRA (CAN-AM MAVERICK X3), a 2v
3º Roberto BORREGO (CAN-AM MAVERICK R), a 2v
4º João DIAS/Nelson SARAMAGO (BOMBARDIER CAN-AM XRS), a 2v
5º Ricardo DOMINGUES (CAN-AM MAVERICK R), a 2v
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