The weather prepared for all competitors the dramatic finish. The SS Kudlovice, which is 32 km long, was fatal for Garcia Ojeda, who got off the track and lost his chance to get in the first position. Bouffier won the most difficult SS of the Rally thanks to the weather. He drove the second best time on the next stage and won the thrilling fight with Jandík of the third position in the progressive standings. Martin Prokop didn´t drove the last SS, because he was sure about his fifth position, which couldn´t have paid him. Bebenek was the third on this Stage and his loss on Prokop was only 0,8. Štěpánek was the second on 14 SS thanks to the changable weather conditions and Karel Trojan was even the winner of the SS 15.

Roman Kresta (st.no. 1, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX):
If somebody had told me on Friday evening that I will win so easily, I wouldn´t have believed him. I drove this car for the first time and everything worked perfectly apart from some minor problems .

Václav Pech (st.no. 3, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX):
We changed turbo in the service and one pipe wasn´t fastened properly so I had to stop in the finish of the first SS and repair it. The oil was leaking on the exhaust pipe. We could slow down on such wet road, our time lead was sufficient. It surprised me that the S1600 car weren´t able to keep up with us.

Bryan Bouffier (st.no. 25, Peugeot 206 S1600):
The duel with Jandík was very narrow, it started to rain on the SS 14 but we drove at full and it paid off. We´re very satisfied, it´s a very nice rally, there were lots of spectators along the track.

Miroslav Jandík (st.no. 18, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VII):
If it had been drier, I would have defended the third position more. But it would have been madness to drive at full with the dry tires on the wet road on the last SS, because our position was super.

Enrique García-Ojeda (st.no. 21, Peugeot 206 S1600):
It was raining just a little at the start of the last but one SS, but later it started to rain heavily. We got off the road due to the water on the road. We got on the track again without the help of the spectators. As we found out that the car is OK, we continued.

Martin Prokop (st.no. 11, Citroën C2 S1600):
We tried to keep our pace, we couldn´t do more. We didn´t have to fight for the fifth place, because the rival got off the track so we didn´t have to race on the last SS.

George Tanev (st.no. 7, Subaru Impreza STi):
We didn´t expected that it should rain. The conditions changed quickly and we made a lot of mistakes with the dry tires on the wet road. We lost the time and damaged our car a bit.

Michal Bebenek (st.no. 30, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX):
It was very dramatic on the last but one SS, we tried hard to keep on the track. We had two spare intermedias, but we managed to change them for the last SS.

Karel Trojan (st.no. 16, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VII):
We hat to refill the water till the end. We can´t do anything with our engine, we will be glad if it doesn´t stop working on the way to the finish of the competition.

Jiří Volf (st.no. 31, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX):
There was a heavy rain on the SS Kudlovice. The windscreen wipers weren´t even able to wipe the water off sometimes. We slowed down on the last SS and therefore Karel hat such a big time lead.

Tomáš Kostka (st.no. 48, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VIII):
We didn´t drive at full at the end of the Kudlovice SS, because we wanted to finish the race without the problems.

Roman Odložilík (st.no. 20, Renault Clio S 1600):
It started to rain on the Kudlovice SS so we had to slow down, but it wasn´t enough and we got off the track.The 12th final position isn´t very satisfactory.

Petr Poulík (st.no. 34, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VII):
The cat in safe in the finish so we´re totally satisfied. We made a puncture on the SS 14– front left wheel.

INFO:
Enrique Garcia Ojeda – Jordi Barrabes (st.no. 21) got off the track on the 14 SS
George Tanev – Petar Sivov (7) got off the track.
Milan Pantálek – Karel Coufalík (29) had an accident on the 15 SS

Zlín, 27th August 2006, 4.10p.m.
Tomáš TKADLEC , Dagmar MACHOVÁ
Viktor HAUSKNOTZ
Press centre
Barum rally Zlín