Kopecky honoured by McRae award win

30th August 2010

By Charlie Contadeli

Jan Kopecky has described winning the Colin McRae IRC Flat Out Trophy on Barum Czech Rally Zlin as a “big honour”.

Kopecky was chosen as the recipient of the coveted award by the panel of judges consisting of IRC chiefs Jean-Pierre Nicolas and Gilbert Roy, plus Colin’s father Jim McRae, who was in Zlin to make the presentation.

“I have to say it’s a big honour,” said Kopecky. “He was an official Skoda driver and [on Rally GB in 2005] I did the whole recce with him. He was a very good guy and it’s really sad what happened to him.”

Kopecky was leading the all-asphalt rally by 26 seconds when he went off three stages from home. Had he maintained his advantage he would have won his home rally for the second year in a row and made huge inroads into Skoda team-mate Juho Hanninen’s championship lead.

But having led from the opening stage, the judges felt Kopecky – who was fastest on five stages – was worthy of the award despite his late blunder, which he put down to driver error.