Barum Czech Rally Zlín 

Tarabus&Trunkát won bronze at Rally Acropolis!

25. 5. 2016 - Aleš Holakovský

At the weekend, a significant international success was achieved by the crew Jaromír Tarabus – Daniel Trunkát when they gained the third place at Rally Acropolis, one of the most famous rallies in the world. It is the first placing of a Czech crew on the winners´ podium in overall classification in the long history of this rally.

In addition to one of the biggest success of their career, Jaromír Tarabus and Daniel Trunkát also gained precious points for this year European Rally Championship. Let´s see how the crew describes their way to the success: "This was our third start at Rally Acropolis, but this time we have experienced its legendary shape in the surroundings of Lamia where the World Championship used to be run for many years. Not only are the tracks more stony and bumpy here, but also more technical. At some places, it would be right to drive more carefully but in practice it is not possible if one wants to fight for the top positions," describes Jaromír Tarabus the competition character.

"The Saturday leg was great for us, we were especially pleased with the overall second time at the second run of the famous stage New Gravia, which was, at the same time, the longest stage of the first day. It was there where we had managed to gain the third place," describes Jaromír Tarabus the absolutely successful first leg.

"On Sunday morning, we did not manage to catch right pace, and we wasted a lot of time in the first section of the second leg. Thus the local fast crew Athanasoulas-Panayiotounis got before us. Thanks to a mistake of Alexey Lukyanuk, we moved back to the third place. At the end of the competition we were even close to the second place, so we still strove to run fast although the experience from Ireland where we had left the track during the last stage was still alive. Fortunately, it did not happen here and we were able to celebrate the third place. To be more precise, in the finish of the last stage, we did not know whether we would be the second or third. Thanks to the reverse start order of the second leg, both our crew and Athanasoulas caught up with a slower crew that was struggling with problems with their Mitsubishi on the track of the 33 km stage. It was very difficult to drive in dust after them and not to make a mistake, even though they let us go then quite soon. Finally, everything ended up as it should. If we had reached the second place before the Greek crew thanks to their longer hold-up after a slower competitor, we would be satisfied less than with the third place won by fight," explains Jaromír Tarabus the dramatic end of the "Rally of Gods".

"The aim of our participation in this year European Championship is to fight for the podium in the final order, and in favourable conditions even at individual competitions. We are happy that we made a success of it in Greece, and we have improved our taste after that unfinished Ireland. In addition, on gravel, which is naturally not our "mother" surface. We started at Rally Acropolis three times and finished it also three times, last year as the fourth and this year the third, so this competition seems promised to us. Our Fabia R5 was great, and proved to be an excellent weapon even on gravel. The track was quite stony at some places, however, luckily, we were spared from any punctures. The car was able to run at maximum pace even on that surface and did not have any problems during the competition. This is something which must be thanked for to the whole Kresta Racing team, and additionally, big thanks belongs to Roman Kresta himself for precious advice in the course of the competition," summarizes Daniel Trunkát their bronze performing in this year Rally Acropolis from his position of the team manager. And at the same time, he specifies the following programme of T&T Czech National Team: "Considering the demanding schedule of the European Championship, we have decided to miss the following event on the Azorean Islands and concentrate on the tarmac Ypres Rally. Harmonizing participations on both the events would be logistically almost impossible anyway."

Belgian Ypres Rally takes place from 23rd to 25th June and closes the first half of the European Rally Championship calendar (FIA ERC).