Greinbach says ‘Bring it on’

Petrakovits says his team is ready for anything. © Tim Whittington/RallycrossWorld.com

A couple of weeks ago in France, Austrian event organiser Erich Petrakovits was among the least happy of a generally unhappy bunch in the paddock. When Petrakovits sought brief respite in the media room it was the chance to ask him how he would cope if the wet persisted in Austria, after all we were in the middle of the second wet event of the year, so perhaps he too should be prepared for a wet one. “I’m not worried about rain, we are ready for anything and, as you know, we have had rain at our event before and we can deal with it,” said Petrakovits who, having endured a year outside the ERC in the wake of the poor Austrian event at Melk in 2009, has worked hard to introduce improvements to his PS Racing Center at Greinbach in the effort to keep his event. “We have added 3400 square metres to the paddock, built a grandstand that will accommodate 500 fans on the start-finish line and resurfaced the loose sections of the track.”

It’s good that Petrakovits is quietly confident that his venue and team will cope with a wet event. Greinbach has been hit by heavy rain in the past, its location in the shadow of mountains in Styria leaving it prone to sudden changes in weather and in the 2008 event an extraordinarily heavy storm led to flash flooding on the track.