EAL President Toivo Asmer. Photo: private collection
Sunday 2 June was the day Ott Tänak-Martin Järveoja won another WRC stage and climbed to the top step of the podium. Awesome! It's easy to move on from such a good emotion to the next part of my article.
There has been plenty of coverage of the EAL's activities on TV, radio, social media and in the press, and generally positive news. All in all, our reputation as arguably one of the strongest associations in Estonia has been further enhanced both at home and abroad. Having visited several major competitions, people always point out the small size of our country in their conversations, but on the other hand they are amazed that Estonia has produced a very large number of racers who are at the absolute top of their level internationally.
Almost half of the year is over and today we are not going to take stock of the season, but I would like to highlight some names and some results, and in particular praise our young racers. Markus Kajak, Albert Tamm, Ragnar Veerus, Mark Dubnitski, Nikita Ljubimov are already traditionally fighting for podium places in various international competitions.
Paul Aron has made an incredibly strong start to the season in the F2 Touring Car series and is also the series points leader. And let's not forget Ralf Aron and Jüri Vipsi. Ruben Volt won the TCR Europe stage for bodybuilders in Austria a week ago, and with this victory he moved up to 4th in the individual standings and topped the series for the Estonian team ALM Honda Racing. Yesterday Ruben took first place in the TCR Italy championship.
In the acceleration races, Andres Arnover is Europe's all-time leader. In the RallyX series of rallycross we are represented by Maiko Tamm, Lucas Orav and Romet Tsirna. In Drift, Kevin Pesur showed excellent skills, becoming the first Estonian to win first place in the high-level Drift Masters in Spain. Proof of the continuing popularity of drifting in Estonia were the two intense days of competition at LaitseRallyPark last weekend, where numerous drift fans came to watch the races. In e-sport, this year's first Estonian champion is clear - Reno Kööts.
In the car, apart from Tänaku/Järveoja, Romet Jürgenson/Siim Oja, Georg Linnamäe/James Morgan, Patrick Enok/Silver Simm, Jaspar Vaher/Timo Taniel shine. Benediktas Vanagas / Kuldar Sikk finished 8th overall at the Dakar desert rally. Incredible fight!
Cooperation with neighbouring countries has been intensified and the European Championship round in Finland was a great success, where Urmo Aava / Janno Siitan came first in the European Championship.
The Talents on the Track and Young Riders at the Wheel series have traditionally been very successful, and every year they add a couple of dozen new riders to the list of participants in the Estonian Championships.
EAL purchased a new, modern timing system at the beginning of this season and it proved to be the right move. To date, the timing service has already been provided for 4 competitions, and importantly, EAL is able to run its timing system at two different competitions simultaneously. Mart Liiksaar, the chairman of the EAL Sword Committee, has been the biggest contributor to the acquisition of the timing system and to making the right decisions and subsequent training of people.
Another notable decision on the part of the EAL was to organise the landing of various competition tyres, which has paid off. The status of an impartial tyre importer is important, and it eliminates from the outset any possible protests about unfair distribution/sales of tyres.
There are plenty of big competitions ahead and I hope we will all have a smile on our faces when we look back on the 2024 season.
Toivo Asmer
President of the Estonian Automobile Sport Association
