The second edition of the ‘Race of Austrian Champions’ was marked by victories of the three VW Polo drivers Anton Marklund (RX 4WD), Christian Petrakovits (RX 2WD) and Kris Rosenberger (Rally 4WD).
The Austrian ERC track PS Racing Center at Greinbach was the venue for the second runnings of the ‘Race of Austrian Champions’, held during last weekend with invited drivers from the motorsports of Rallycross, Autocross, Hillclimbs and Rallying. The organisers were happy with the good weather and the upcome of spectators from different Austrian racing scenes. “It is a very good idea to have this event as our season closer and to see that a lot of people make the crossover and turning up at our Rallycross track, many of them for the first time. So next year we gonna do this again,” claimed PS Racing Center chief Erich Petrakovits after the race.
The shoot-out was meant to produce a weekend of fun, but the competitors were nevertheless fully commited to their racing. Victory of the Rallycross 4WD category went to Swede Anton Marklund, who brought his brand-new 550+bhp VW Polo Mk5 SuperCar all the 2,600km way down from his Skellefteå home area in Northern Sweden to Greinbach in Austria’s Styrya region. However, the “Norrlänning” will also take part in next weekend’s ‘Global Assistance Setkání mistrů’, a similar shoot-out event at the Czech Autodrom Česká Lípa in Sosnová, as an early preparation for his next year’s ERC SuperCars programme. After Marklund had beaten 2011 ROAC winner Austrian Peter Ramler (Seat Leon Mk1) in the first final by just 0.01s the Swede striked harder in the second final by setting FTD to make the overall victory his.
Victory of the Rally 4WD class had to be shared among Kris Rosenberger (VW Polo S2000) and Beppo Harrach (Mitsubishi Lancer E6), as their aggregated times of both finals produced a surprising ex-aequo result with equal 2:08:47 minutes. Homeboy Christian Petrakovits, who was forced into early retirement in last year’s ROAC, dominated the RX 2WD category this time and eventually drove his S1600 VW Polo Mk4/9N3 to a win over regular “Automobil-Slalom” Honda Civic driver Daniel Karlovits.
- Winner Autocross 2WD:
- Klaus Trondl (F & S Buggy)
- Winner Autocross 4WD:
- Walter Obmann (BMW Buggy)
- Winner Rallycross 2WD:
- Christian Petrakovits (VW Polo Mk4/9N3)
- Winner Rallycross 4WD:
- Anton Marklund (VW Polo Mk5)
- Winner Rally 2WD:
- Max Zellhofer (Suzuki Swift S1600)
- Winner Rally 4WD:
- ex-aequo Kris Rosenberger (VW Polo S2000)
- & Beppo Harrach (Mitsubishi Lancer E6)
