Mladá Boleslav, 23 August, 2011 – Scheduled for the last weekend of August, the seventh event of this year's Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) will see 29 vehicles of the Super 2000 category, of which 14 with the winged-arrow emblem. ŠKODA Fabias dominated the event in the last two years and are among the favourites for victory also this year. As usual, the Barum Rally is also part of the European Championship and the International Czech Republic Championship. Taking place in the “promised land of rally”, the event is expected to attract about 250 thousand spectators.
ŠKODA Motorsport's factory driver Jan Kopecký has two good reasons to look forward to his home rally: he wishes to repeat his victory of 2009 and also make up for last year when he had to give up after a crash, although he was in the lead until that point: “This is our home rally, and I and Petr (Kopecký's co-driver Petr Starý) are looking forward to it very much. We were the fastest crew here in the last two years, but we had bad luck last year and flew off the track. We expect strong support from our great fans, but we know we will be under pressure, because we are expected to succeed here.”
The current leader of IRC Juho Hänninen wishes to continue the string of his this year's achievements: “We have been doing well at the Barum Rally over the past few years, and we want to continue this trend. This is a difficult rally with many tricky places and one of the climaxes of the season, one of the reasons being the great fans here”.
Second in the current IRC rankings and last year's winner of the Barum Rally Freddy Loix is supported by ŠKODA's Belgian importer and will also want to continue his this year's success story. After coming second in the Azores Islands, Andreas Mikkelsen of ŠKODA UK Motorsport has podium ambitions, too. And driving a private Fabia, Roman Kresta, a native of the Zlín region, several times the Czech Republic champion and the current leader of the Czech Republic Championship is also among the favourites for victory.
ŠKODA Germany's Mark Wallenwein and Matthias Kahle are going to make their debut in Zlín. The family of ŠKODA vehicles to appear on the start line also includes one to be driven by Finland's rally matador Toni Gardemeister who is well known in the Czech Republic.
Made up of 15 special stages (248 competition kilometres), the rally starts on Friday with an attractive stage in the centre of Zlín and ends on Sunday afternoon. The weather is expected to be summery and warm as usual, but the event's history remembers several cases where unexpected heavy rainfalls made the track extremely difficult.
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