Barum Czech Rally Zlín 

Tomáš Pospíšilík: Rally is about learning and experience

6. 8. 2018 - Evžen Gargulák

Tomáš Pospíšilík is a 24-year-old driver from a village Hrobice near city Slušovice. He already raced in 59 rally competitions after transferring from rallycross series. Tomáš regularly appears in rally competitions on home soil and abroad. His rally career begun in 2014 in Latvia on Rally Liepaja, unfortunately, he did not finish. Very soon after that, he had a major accident on Ypres Rally in Belgium, it was his fifth rally and he put Citroën C2 R2 Max to few somersaults. None of that stopped him or lowered his determination to improve. Then he changed Citroën for Peugeot 208 R2 in which he raced until the end of last season. Later that season he tried for the first time a four-wheel car Škoda Fabia R5 in an exhibition race in Sosnová and than again in Prague and Slušovice.

For over 10 years Tomáš was showing his fine driving skills in rallycross events. He is still the youngest Czech champion, winning the title when he was just 18 years old. In his opinion going from rallycross to classical rally was not easy. "Everyone thinks that any previous experience in motorsport is an advantage, but I disagree. Rallycross is racing on gravel that stays the same. Rally is something completely different. It's more than a hundred tough kilometres divided into many stages. And each one of them we do twice, sometimes more," the young driver said. "Big difference is also inside a car, where it's just you. Rally is mainly about trust and cooperation between two people. A co-pilot is necessary for fast and right passage. Experience and accuracy in reading an itinerary are also important. And the best and most experienced drivers are constantly improving at it. Generally speaking, rally is mostly about constant learning. I was doing rallycross for 10 years. There, you can learn a lot in a very short time. In rally you take one step at a time, gain experience and slowly improve," the talented driver said.

But rally was Tomáš's dream from the beginning. When he was a child, he used to watch such Czech legends like Roman Kresta and Václav Pech. He managed to get over those setbacks at the beginning of his rally career and now he is competitive in Czech and foreign rally events in Škoda Fabia R5. "Changing a FWD for a four-wheel is demanding driving-wise and financially. We wanted to get our racing special thus avoid taking a lease, so we bought an older version of Fabia R5 from Antonín Tlusťák. Luckily, we get financial and technical support from Autokomplex Menčík. Without their support we couldn't race this season," Tomáš thanked his team.

Barum Czech Rally Zlín is a highlight of this season for this Czech driver and it's his fifth appearance there. In previous years he experienced ups and downs on Barum rally. He is especially sad about 2015, where an accident cost him first place in his category. "Standing down from the first place in a FWD category with one and half a minute lead is just hard. Many factors played their part but the biggest one was my inexperience. Local special stages are heavy and I will never underestimate them. Even though I know some of them, but in racing speed everything is different. The competition will surely be tough just like any other year. I hope we'll achieve a good result," Tomáš Pospíšilík said. His co-pilot is Jiří Hovorka.