Matador Motorsport Victorious at Pezinská Baba Hill Climb

During the weekend of 21 to 22 July, the European hill climb championships took place at Pezinská Baba. Matador entered the history books with several entries. One of them can be attributed to an excellent performance by Czech driver Marek Fried in the E1 category of touring vehicles.

Marek Fried (driving a BMW M3 GT3) collected absolute victory in the touring vehicle category with a time of 2:17.062 he broke the last year´s record set by Štefan Rosina junior. His victory is a triumph for Matador as well, since Fried has used the manufacturer’s tyres throughout the series. “The motivation for victory of our team was even greater at Baba, because it was our home environment and we used tires from Matador which were excel-lent,” said the team manager Robert Šenkýř after the event.

In the N-category of the hill-climb racing the victory was taken by the Slovak pilot of Matador Motorsport Peter Jureňa with Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX. With overall combined time of 4:50.077. First runner up was Miroslav Jakeš, 2,100 ahead of third-place Jiří Voves.

President of Slovak Republic Ivan Gašparovič made this year´s event even more pleasant by his participation. Together with the Minister of Defense František Kašický and president of the Matador Holding Štefan Rosina they took part in the opening ceremony. František Kašický launched the second round in Alligator 4×4 VPC, which he drove himself.

The second round was tinged by three collisions on the racecourse. The vehicle of the Slovak competitor Adam Studenič turned upside down upon contact with the crash barrier at the dangerous 18th segment of the course, however Studenič came out uninjured. The collision resulted in repeated start of three racers including the Slovak signer and musician Janko Le-hotský.

A formidable accident involving Austrian driver Felix Pailer, whose Lancia Integrale went off the course and caught on fire (without major injuries) meant the race however had to be interrupted again.

The third accident involved the Italian pilot Maurizio Roasia in his Lola F3000. This accident resulted in repeated start of Waldy Hermann which moved him to the second place in front of the Slovak Jaroslav Krajči.