Barum Czech Rally Zlín 

Barum Czech Rally Zlín as a seventh round of the FIA ERC 2015

24. 3. 2015 - Jakub Hofbauer, Barum Czech Rally Zlín

Barum Czech Rally Zlín organizers have found a deal with the promoter company Eurosport Events to prolong their cooperation for another two years and so at the end of summer holidays the Zlín region can again welcome the European top rally crews. The event will be also held as a round of a recently revised Czech rally championship.

The 2015 edition of the biggest Czech rally will follow schemes of previous years and the date will be also the same. During the last week of summer holidays spectators can look forward to Friday's city super special stage in Zlín and then over the weekend to follow the rally at demanding tarmac stages placed in forests of the Eastern Moravia. The competition itself will be preceded with a Qualifying stage, which is going to be – according to revised sporting regulations – entered by all ERC registered crews. Thanks to that people will see much more crews than only the elite top 15 drivers as in 2014; the rally organizers estimate a participation of 40 – 50 cars in the QS. "By this moment more than 60 rally crews have registered to the FIA ERC. Of course, not all of them will come to Zlín, but from hearings we guess that most of them will appear at our rally," says Miloslav Regner, the Clerk of the Course. "After short interim in 2012 and 2013 we again expect higher level of the starting field. The FIA ERC series are continuously growing its popularity, the number of the latest R5 rally cars is getting bigger as well. The new car of this category has also been in preparations at the Czech factory team of Škoda. Its predecessor, the Fabia Super 2000, won all previous six editions of Barum Czech Rally Zlín in one row and everybody is wondering if the new Fabia R5 will extend this collection of successes."

The national Czech rally championship has been radically revamped for 2015. The updates to the sporting regulations are no longer compatible with the international ones so the national field will run separately from the international group. Nevertheless there remain some common factors like the stage length. "Because of matching the international regulations the length of Barum Czech Rally Zlín's stages will go up to 230 kilometres in total. And because of that for the national classification there has been set up a point scoring coefficient of 1.5 to equal the demands of Barum rally route to others, shorter rounds of the Czech rally championship," explains Regner.

The competition weekend at the end of August will contain already the 8^th round of the Star Rally Historic, a free event for historic rally car. After success in 2014 there will continue an experience programme for spectators as well and a new book about the Barum Czech Rally Zlín's history has been announced. In short, there is a lot to come!