ERC: Barum Czech Rally / Rally review
Kopecky dominates
Crowd favorite Jan Kopecky claimed victory
on the first stage of the rally, the Friday night
SuperSpecial in Zlin itself. After that, he activated domination mode to charge through
Saturday’s stages winning all of them. Of
course, Kopecky was the clear favorite prior
to the event but his pace and emphatic domination was impressive. The fast, short stages
meant that the gaps on the stages were never
large, 4,5 seconds being the largest margin.
However while the chasing pack were constantly reshuffling their positions, Kopecky
was on top every single time, building up a
lead of well over half a minute.
Vaclav Pech got off to a bit of a slow start but
as the day progressed he found his rhythm
and a couple of second place times. Second overall was his at the end of the day too.
Pech had a sizeable lead of 28 seconds over
third placed Roman Kresta in a privately run
Skoda Fabia S2000. That could have been a
lot smaller though, as Jaromir Tarabus should
have sealed his solid driving with third at the
end of the day. An early check-in cost him a
minute though, dropping him down to fourth.
The main retirement of the day was Esapekka Lappi. The young Finn was having a solid
debut at the rally lying in fourth. On stage six
a tree intervened with his intentions though.
The impact damaged the rollcage on his FaBest of the rest
bia after which he was prevented from startBehind Kopecky an engaging battle unfolded ing the final three stages of the day.
for the ‘best of the rest’ honor. 2003 Winner
26/52
Tarabus got off to an impressive start untill an early check-in cost him a minute,
Fords in trouble
Two brand new Ford Fiesta’s R5 were entered for Tomáš Kostka and Pavel Valoušek.
Kostka started very well and was up to third
after the first proper stage on Saturday. Finding it difficult to cope with the bumpy roads in
his new car he gradually dropped down the
leaderboard though. His rally would come to
an end on stage six as he broke the transmission of his Fiesta. Valousek faired little better
in the second Fiesta. Off the pace from the
start, he was hindered by a puncture and failing power steering. Despite a solid effort on
the third day, including fastest time overall on
stages 11 and 15 he could not climb higher
than eighth overall in the final classification.
Up to speed immediately, Kostka started furiously but slipped behind on the tricky bumpy
stages later on. A broken transmission eventually cost him the rally.