My first rally.
By Martin Prokop

“I’ve always loved rallying and I remember going to watch rallies when I was little with my parents,” he says. “I can remember thinking that one day I wanted to be a rally driver too, it looked like it was a lot of fun.

“My first rally was Rally Vysocina in 2001, which was part of a rallysprint championship in the Czech Republic. I drove a Skoda Felicia 1.6 Group N car, I’m ashamed to say that I can’t actually remember who my co-driver for that event was.

“I managed to finish the rally but on the time control at the first stage, the engine overheated. I thought that was us finished but after a call with the owner of the car, we decided to continue. I was the last car to finish the rally and nobody was waiting for me when I reached the end. After that I decided that next time I wanted something different: to be one of the first to finish and not one of the last.”