The All Wheel Drive Club Malta will be taking part in the Croatia Trophy, an off-road endurance race spread on 8 days of gruelling off-roading designed to test vehicles and teams to their limits and beyond.

Bernard Vassallo, chairman of the KMS (Maltese Council for sport), the main sponsor, recently presented Kevin Mallia, President of the AWDC, a commitment letter for financial assistance as part of the International Participation Scheme. Also present for the occasion were Clyde Puli, Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Sports, and Tonio Cini, president of the Malta Motorsport Federation.

This year’s event starts today and team AWDC Malta left for Croatia last Monday. Travelling to and from Croatia this year proved to be a huge stumbling block as the best solution possible was to transport the teams by sea to Salerno and then drive the rest of the way.

Organising the transport back to Malta proved even more difficult as the teams will have to drive all the way back to Pozzallo and catch the ferry to Malta. Team AWDC Malta will in total have driven more than 3,000 km by the time they are back home.

With an impressive starting line-up of over 100 off-road vehicles, the Maltese contingent performance must be impeccable if we are to repeat past performances. Last year, the team composed of Kevin Mallia and Alistair Caruana placed a very respectable 14th overall.

Four teams are representing Malta this year.

The teams representing the AWDC are:

Kamoy Engineering Racing Team

Driver: Stefan Mallia

Co-Driver: Alistair Caruana

Team M 

Driver: Maurice Farrugia

Co-Driver: David Abdilla

Ciappella Racing Team

Driver: Adrian Bezzina

Co-Driver: John Zammit

Coleiro Racing Team

Driver: Kenneth Coleiro

Co-Driver: Neville Ciantar