ECCE HOMO Sternberk 2022 review!

Review and interview with Lukas Stelc, driver for Kotouc Gearboxes Evo 9 from Ecce Homo 2022.

A fantastic weekend was had by all at the 2022 running of the European Hill Climb Championship at Sternberk, ECCE HOMO, Czech Republic. The 2 day event saw approximately 250 registered entrants. Just that alone deserves a huge congratulations for the organisers to manage the event and ensure it remains to schedule and puts on a great show. The racing surely didnt disappoint. There was a new track record set by Italian Christian Merli with a time of 2:39:80.

For those who are not familiar with the hill climb event, ECCE HOMO is now in its 41st year. The track is 7.8km long, and has a height difference of 307m from start to finish. An extremely fast and challenging track that is not for the faint hearted. It requires focus and courage right up until the last meter.

This year´s contest has seen Kotouc Gearboxes enter the event with our own Mitsubishi Evo IX. The first time attending the event at full distance as the car is regulary competing in the Czech Maverick Rescue Cup which is a Czech championship.

For this season, the car has been completely overhauled. A new motor with tune for 510HP and 750NM!! A huge step up from last year with another 100HP added. In addition, a new roll cage, new sequential gearbox, new suspension setup, and many other upgrades to improve the car.

Because of the upgrades, the car has also moved up a class to compete in the E1 category.

Interview with Lukas Štelc, driver Kotouc Gearboxes

This year was your first competing at the ECCE HOMO Sternberk, how was the experience?

Wow! Driving here is a great experience for sure. As it is my first time racing here, and being such a long track, the 2 training runs was some help, but it requires a little more knowledge of the course to improve the time. Next year will be much better and I look forward to doing it again.

This year the car is greatly improved with 100HP more and a different category, who is your closest competitor now?

Each year, I focus on improving my times and not worrying about the competitors. At ECCE HOMO, I spent alot of time memorising the track, however came an extremely close second (just with 12 hundreths) behind a local who has been doing this race for years. So it was a great success.

Mechanically the car performed well?

Absolutely! It never missed a beat the whole weekend. All the mechanical work I did on the car myself, so I know every nut and bolt on the car.

A new livery on the car for this year?

Yes, we have some new sponsors this year and we also wanted to align the car with our company colours. The fans had a really amazing reaction to it and I have had many great comments from media outlets as well. The car was front page news for the actual event with one czech newspaper. The result is above what we expected. The team is extremely delighted.

So next year what can we expect at ECCE HOMO?

Definitely there is alot of time that I can gain on every section of the track. From run 1 to run 2, I gained alot of time. Next year with the same setup, it would be alot quicker. One more run this year and I would have been able to take 1st place. Its important to keep the car on the road. We wanted to get the runs done and if we did finish first in category, it would have been the icing on the cake.

Next race coming up?

We are back racing the Maverick rescue cup at Usti nad Orlici on the 11-12.6. I have had alot of success there and looking for that to continue this year again. Car is in great condition. Never been better. I invite all to come and watch us race for the title.