Zoom Valousek pleased his home crowd

Patrick Snijers achieved a fifth-place finish in Ypres last June, but Pavel Valousek did one better when he came fourth on this weekend's Barum Rally Zlin after narrowly failing to secure a podium finish with his Kronos-prepared BFGoodrich-backed Peugeot 207 S2000.

30-year old Valousek, who used to follow his father on the stages until he was old enough to compete himself, is unlikely to forget the whirlwind chain of events that marked his summer of 2008.

On July 24, 2008, he learnt that he had been selected from a shortlist of 24 applicants to represent the BFGoodrich Drivers Team on his home event and, a little more than a week later, he was at the Belgian premises of the Kronos Racing for an initial familiarisation run with the Peugeot 207 S2000 and with BFGoodrich's range of IRC tyres.

Two weeks later, it was time to line up for the start of the first stage of the Czech Republic's most popular rally, the Barum Rally Zlin, against no fewer than 21 other S2000 cars and the cream of the 2008 Intercontinental Rally Challenge!

With three years of World Championship experience behind him, however, Valousek took it all in his stride. After attentively taking onboard the advice handed out by Kronos Racing's engineers and BFGoodrich's technical staff, he paid back their confidence by posting the sixth-fastest time on Friday evening's super special stage through the streets of Zlin.

Serious business began the following morning in the hills around the Czech town and Pavel Valousek emerged in fourth place overall after the first attempt at the awesome Pindula stage, a Barum Rally classic. A sequence of further top-six times over the remainder of the day's tricky, long and technically challenging tests enabled him to conclude the first leg in fifth position with his co-driver Zdenek Hruza, just seconds adrift of the 2007 IRC Champion, Spaniard Enrique Garcia Ojeda.

After profiting from the first day to find his marks, Pavel Valousek's objective on Day 2 – which practically took him past his own doorstep - was to keep his immediate chasers at bay, including double European Champion Renato Travaglia, while at the same time putting pressure on Garcia Ojeda.

A third-fastest time and two fourth-quickest times enabled him to complete the event 2.8 seconds clear of Travaglia, while Garcia Ojeda made a mistake and went off at the end of the morning's loop.