Summary of the 2023 hill climbing race season

The ORLEN Janík Motorsport team has completed another season in hillclimb racing, its twenty-eighth in a row. And we will also evaluate 2023 as a successful year. Václav Janík became the Czech Republic champion in his E2/SC/3000 class despite not participating in a single race. He is second in the overall Czech championship standings.

The twenty-eighth season of racing featured five cars in the well-known red-white or red-blue colours, and thus also five competitors. The two Norma M20 FCs were driven by Václav Janík and David Dědek, the Lola B02/50 by Jiří Svoboda, the Hyundai Elantra N TCR by Jaromír Malý and the KTM X-Bow GTX by Karel Hubáček. However, compared to the original plan, he only took part in the home event ECCE Homo.

And why not start the annual summary just "behind the garage", where we as a team recorded a first-class success. Within ECCE Homo our competitors entered not only the Czech Championship, but two of them also entered the European Championship. And it was a class win for David Dědek. Václav Janík finished the European Championship race in fifth place. In the Czech Championship, they both took silver medals, as did Jiri Svoboda. Karel Hubacek finished sixth in his class in the Czech Championship, Jaromír Malý fifth. 

The rest of the season can be divided into pre-ECCE Homo and post-ECCE Homo. We had three race weekends before the home event. The season opener was hosted by Masaryk Circuit, where we tested for three days beforehand. So, our drivers entered the first race weekend with a great start, which was reflected in the results, which were just glittering with podium finishes. David Dědek won his class twice, Václav Janík and Jiří Svoboda finished second twice, and Jaromír Malý took bronze on Saturday and added to the team's collection of silver medals on Sunday.

We also brought a complete collection of valuable metals from Zámecký Vrch to the team garages. Václav Janík improved his result from Brno and from Náměšt' nad Oslavou he took away two winning trophies in the class and finished second overall twice. David Dědek added two silver placings, which meant tenth and seventh place in the overall standings. Jiří Svoboda also brought two silvers to the team showcase. Jaromír Malý finished third and fourth.

Ústí nad Labem 21 saw another dominant performance by Vaclav Janik, who dominated his class twice again and was second overall. David Dědek also did well, finishing third and first in his class and twelfth and tenth overall. Jiri Svoboda added two bronzes in the class. 

The last two events of the season were hosted by Vrbno pod Pradědem and Lanškroun. While we still brought back a lot of podium finishes from the north of Moravia, the end of the season did not go quite as we expected. But first things first. Václav Janík sovereignly dominated his class on Vrbensko hill and finished second twice, David Dědek added two second places in the class and Jaromír Malý recorded two fourth places.

The overall course of the season probably deserved a slightly better ending. However, the Albrechtice hill in Lanškroun was not so friendly to us. The torrid heat only added to the colour of the last race of the season, when only Václav Janík climbed on the podium both days. On Saturday he took second place and on Sunday third. Sunday's result could have been even better if it wasn't for a fault with the vehicle. David Dědek finished eighth twice and Jiří Svoboda seventh and fifth.

In spite of the not very good end of the season, the overall evaluation is positive. Václav Janík is the champion of the Czech Republic in the E2/SC/3000 class and the vice-champion of the Czech Republic in the overall standings. David Dědek is classified as vice-champion in his E2/SC/2000 class and he is eighth in the overall ranking. Jiri Svoboda is thirteenth overall in the results of the Czech Championship and second in the E2/SS/3000 class.

Finally, we would like to thank all team members and our partners for another successful season on the Czech mountains.