Top Grafit sponsored Rally Tríbeč Topoľčany also in 2012
After last year's re-launch, the Topolcany town experienced the rush of rally cars again in May 2012. The 2011 Rally Tribec met with positive response, so, the organizer had decided to continue with the tradition of an attractive motorsport event supported by municipal authorities and other partners.
- The rally took place on May 25th and 26th 2012 and was included in the National Championship calendar. The competition attended more than 60 crews from four countries. Similarly to 2011, the race was a three-stage rally, which was raced three times, but in the opposite direction as last year.
The home crew Jaroslav Melicharek and Erik Melicharek of the Melico Racing Team with their Mitsubishi Lancer WRC05 had been expected to prove the victory from the last year. They began very carefully and lost the first section with their main rival Styllex Motorsport - Jozef Beres and Petr Stary with Skoda Fabia S2000 by more than 9 seconds. For the second section, Melico Racing did some changes in the car set-up which soon reflected into the pace and the fastest time in RS4 and RS5. Suddenly, they moved into second place. The home crew, however, were still losing on the city circuit. Before the last section, the gap between Beres and Melicharek was approximately 8sec. A change in the driving style helped Melicharek brothers to shrink the gap on the leading crew to 1.2sec before the very last RS. Even though Melico Racing won the last RS, a 0.3sec split was simply not enough for the victory. Nevertheless, congratulations on second place in Rally Tribec 2012 and the shift to the rank #1 on the continuous 2012 DMACK Tyres Rally Championship.
