Nontas Karanikolas, Giorgos Kakavas and Car Center at EKO Rally Acropolis 2022

After their excellent performance at the Historic Acropolis Rally, Nontas Karanikolas – Giorgos Kakavas will enter the EKO Rally Acropolis 2022, which counts towards the World Rally Championship, with a factory prepared Ford Fiesta Rally3.

Designed and developed by M-Sport Poland, the affordable 4WD Fiesta Rally3 is an “essential stepping stone” for young drivers looking to gain experience in 4WD rallying. Ford’s 1,497 cc turbocharged engine delivers 235 hp and 415 Nm of torque and is mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox.

It is also worth noting that the Fiesta Rally3 marks a new era for M-Sport, which is the first and only manufacturer to offer a car for each level of the FIA ​​rally pyramid.

The weapon of Karanikola – Kakava is, of course, the experience that Car Center has gained in our national race over the years. With a roster of dozens of entries across the Acropolis, Car Center is one of the teams that over time has technically linked its presence to cars in the top categories, many of which came from factory entries.

The participation of the Car Center is supported by the companies HB BODY (car paint mixing plants), Castrol (lubricants), Inter Cars (car spare parts), Mediapharm (pharmaceutical products) and LOXAS (workshop equipment).

The statements of the crew

• Nontas Karanikolas

“The Acropolis Rally is a point of reference for our country in general, but also for the WRC in particular. And I am very happy to be taking part in our big race as a driver for the second time. This year we will have a factory prepared race car, the Ford Fiesta Rally3, with which we will try to be competitive in this category. The fact that the crews of the Junior WRC category, whose title will be decided in Greece, also compete with the same car increases the level of competition and in any case only winners will emerge from this process.

I know the difficulties of the race, especially on the repeated special routes, because the road surface will be badly damaged, but those are the conditions and we have to deal with that. We drove the Fiesta Rally3 for the first time in Poland a few days ago and we could see its potential. They are also the ones we will try to make the best of to get as close as possible to our goal of winning the whole race in our WRC3 category and of course finishing as high as possible in it.

I would especially like to thank our sponsors for their support in our efforts and the entire M-Sport engineering team who will ensure we have a perfect car throughout the race. It is a particular pleasure and honor for us that our participation will take place in the Lamia Service Park with all Junior WRC category cars, but also in the same camp as the M-Sport Ford factory team“!

• George Kakavas

“Being “born” in the automotive sector through the family car business in the Lamia area, motorsport and especially car racing are a “germ” for me that existed through my father and the racing driver co-driver, but and from Panos Hatjitsopanis, who my uncle is From a young age I watched various videos of WRC racing, mainly by Colin McRae, Loeb and of course Panos, with dreams that maybe one day I would be able to compete in a race and a rally race or even an Acropolis rally can.

The dream started when Nondas Karanikolas suggested I join him as a co-driver in this year’s Historic Acropolis Rally, which got me hooked from the first moment and then at the Fthiotidos Rally. Nonda and I met about 3 years ago when he came to Lamia to take part in the – very rainy at the time – Fthiotidos Rally, from where we have developed a very nice relationship, both friendly and professional.

The impatience and excitement is great, as is the anticipation of being able to take part in this year’s Acropolis Rally and making one of my dreams come true“.

Sportish lives the legendary EKO Acropolis Rally together with EKO, the largest Greek marketing company in its category and a main sponsor of the event and also the “EKO Super Special Stage” in OAKA.