Jolly Club cancel Madeira, concentrate on Finland.

The planned participation of the Jolly Club-prepared Ford Focus with the young Czech crew of Roman Kresta & Jan Tomanek on this year's famous Rally Vinho da Madeira (August 2 - 4) has been cancelled.

The announcement was made today by Roman Vaskuj, Jolly Club's president responsible for the team's operations. Jolly Club's main goal for this summer remains it's participation in the world series' ninth round - Rally Finland.

"Following the unfortunate accident on the Rally Bohemia, caused by one of the top Czech National Championship drivers, our Focus WRC required much more repair work than any of us had expected. We cancelled the pre-Madeira setup testing hoping that the Focus would be in shape on time to leave for Lisbon along with our trucks to catch the ferry departing for Madeira's capital of Funchal," Vaskuj commented.

"We were really looking forward to competing on Madeira, but it was not to be, unfortunately for us, as well as for the event's organizers and others involved. At this point in time we have had to revise our plan to remain focused on our priority, which is to contest selected rounds of the FIA World Rally Championship this year with an objective to increase, and potentially double our WRC program in 2002," Vaskuj concluded.

Jolly Club's participation in this highly regarded European Rally Championship tarmac event with the highest coefficient of 20 was confirmed earlier in July by the Jolly Club WRC Team's management following a successful agreement with the organizers, event partners and team sponsors.

Their main objective was to add this event to the team's program as a supplement to its World Rally Championship program consisting of three to five WRC events in 2001 and to provide the promising Czech driver Roman Kresta with additional international tarmac experience abroad in the heat of intense competition.

After this year's Acropolis Rally in Greece, the start in Finland will be Kresta's second drive behind the wheel of the Zlin-based private rally outfit's Ford Focus WRC. Instead of traveling south to Madeira, the Jolly Club squad will head north to Finland in the second half of August to contest it's second WRC event so far this year.

A group of Jolly Club's mechanics and engineers are currently preparing the Focus WRC for the Finnish World Championship event.