Sensationel win of Andy Gabat in St. Agatha Hillclimb Race

Sensational win of Andy Gabat in St.Agatha In the 9th Race for the Austrian Automobile Mountain Climb Championship 2008 on the weekend from the 20th to the 21st September 2008 an unbelievable sensation happened. The first time in the history of this traditional mountain climb race the winner of the overall race was coming out of the camp of the touring cars. Andy Gabat the engineer, designer, managing director and mastermind behind the company „Ing.GABAT Tuning was achieving the shear impossible. With two extraordinary race times in pouring down rain conditions, Andy was able to utilize all the technical capabilities of his Gabat Cosworth and left no chance for rest of the competitors. The training results in dry conditions on Saturday had already made it very obvious. The win of the overall race in the touring car category will lead over Andy Gabat and his performance. Andy was finishing the training in the touring car class in the front with a lead of 0,5sec in front of Herbert Pregartner (Porsche GT2) and a lead of 0,8 sec in front of Alex Strobl ( also Gabat Cosworth). However, Andy Gabats time of 1.16,9 was leaving the rest of the drivers stunned as his time was putting him on the excellent 4th place overall right in the middle of all the Formula 3000 and CN-race cars. The warm-up on race day Sunday was being performed in dry conditions but it was already heavily overcast and rain was imminent. Right on time for the first race the rain started. The tension in the drivers was becoming bigger and bigger as the mountain climb race in St.Agatha is one of the fastest races in Europe. The risk in those wet conditions was extremely high. Obviousely with not too much of an effect on Andy Gabat. How was that possible, we asked Andy? „In Seggauberg we had the same conditions for testing our car last weekend and therefore our car was perfectly set up for such conditions. My team knew exactly what to do and based on those facts I was able to concentrate on driving the car only. This was an absolute advantage for my mind. You have to be fully concentrated and free in your mind if you want to race this rocket of car up the mountain roads. In rainy conditions this task is surely twice as difficult. The top speed of our car when passing the finish line is around 235km/h. The smallest mistake under those conditions and under the permanent loss of traction will definitely lead to a fabulous crash. However, Andy did not make any mistakes, which was leading to a dream like result in the overall race. 1.Andy Gabat ( Gabat Cosworth ) 2.52.551 2.Uwe Lang ( Osella CN ) 2.54.982 3.Guggemos Franz ( March ) 2.57.42 In the Austrian Automobile Mountain Climb Championship 2008 Andy Gabat made up valuable championship points to Herbert Pregartner and is only 7 points behind the leader now.