Articles

Ambassadors Cais and Žáková are getting ready for Barum rally

21. 8. 2021 - Evžen Gargulák

This season, the crew of Erik Cais and Jindřiška Žáková will play the role of ambassadors of the Barum Czech Rally Zlín. Erik and Jindřiška take part in the complete series of the European Rally Championship under the Yacco ACCR Rally Team, where they promote not only the domestic Barum Rally, but also the entire Czech Republic. Currently, the team is already fully dedicated to the preparations for the 50th anniversary of the Zlín rally.

So far, Erik Cais has finished ninth in Poland, eighth in Latvia and very recently as tenth in Italy at this year's European Championships. Overall, he belongs in the elite TOP 10. "For us, the season has started very well, because we managed to make great progress in driving on a gravel surface which was not so familiar to me unlike the asphalt I was used to. The competition is fierce and I was satisfied with the placements. Only in Rome we had technical problems on the first day, which we managed to solve the following day, when we caught up with the loss from the nineteenth place," comment the 22-year-old native of Fryšták.

Last year, Erik was named one of the ten largest rally talents in the world today by Motorsport News. The results can prove it, because in addition to the results in the European Championship, the crew of Cais and Žáková managed to achieve two absolute victories at the Kopná Rally Sprint and the Rzeszow Rally in Poland. "Both of these victories are very valuable to me. Rallysprint Kopná is a well-known competition and everyone knows the track perfectly, so it is not easy to win in a busy competition. I am also happy to win in Poland, where I drove only once before with an R2 car and unfortunately did not finish the race. It was great to enter with the all wheel drive this time and win," says the talented driver.

Jindřiška Žáková, who has already experienced more than a hundred of rally starts, sits next to Erik as a co-driver. "Celebrating a hundred as the co-driver is very important to me. I never thought I would make it last so long in rally sport. I did not even thought I would make this for more than a few years, and it's been ten. In fact, I got to the rally more or less by an accident. My classmate let me drive with a friend who raced but didn't have a co-driver. That's how it started and continues to this day," says Jindřiška. Her dream is to take part in the Dakar Rally. "I think it will remain just a dream. I stay on the ground because it is not only a completely different, but very demanding discipline. It's my dream because I like challenges, which Dakar definitely is," reveals a co-driver, whose debut dates back to 2012.

Cais and Žáková replaced Jaromír Tarabus and Daniel Trunkát in the position of ambassadors, who fulfilled this role in 2015. The aim of the ambassadors is to attract more tourists to Zlín and thus to the whole Czech Republic. "It is a great honor for both of us and we really appreciate the fact that the organizers of the Barum Czech Rally Zlín chose us, especially when it is the jubilee 50th edition. I represent the Barum rally as a home driver in all the competitions I participated in, and it really means a lot to me," concludes Erik Cais at a meeting with journalists at the Autoklub ČR in Prague.