Throughout the years our team has been a part of many events – ERC, WRC, various rally championships.
We have visited most of Europe and a big part of the world. And accompanied so many different drivers.
The amount of knowledge is huge and still this sport manages to bring surprise to the table.
Ģirts Krūzmanis and his motorsport beginnings are also the beginnings of this team. Ģirts has been involved in motorsport since he was only 12 years old when he started to participate in karting practices.
From 1997 till 2001 Ģirts drove in a racing team called – Arčers, but in this team he was the second pilot. After someone suggested it – Ģirts decided that it was time to establish his own racing team and in 2002 Union – sports club Spice was registered. This was the year that this team took active participation in various circuit racing events.
Already in its first year the team had great success and stood on the podium – Ģirts Krūzmanis won 2nd place overall in the year. Teams second year came with an even bigger success because Ģirts was the Baltic champion of circuit racing. The Baltic champion title wasn’t lost in years to come – 2004 and 2005. At that time Spice stood on the starting line with multiple race cars. The team represented circuit racing divers like Jānis Kārkliņš, Ģirts Melnbiksis, Agris Petrovskis, Māris Neikšāns, Andis Neikšāns, Juris Sprūdis, Egons Lapiņš, Igors Grušeļevsksis. With I.Grušeļevsksis a new phase began in teams activity. Grušeļevskis was a Russian driver who participated in circuit races with a Latvian license. In the year 2009 during a race I.Grušeļevsksis asked a question to Ģirts – would it be possible to arrange rally test for him (with a fully equipped team) and, even if it was a huge challenge, Ģirts agreed to do it.
At the same time S.Gryazin, whose sons drive with SRT team till this day, went with Grušeļevsksis to these rally tests as his coach. During this event S.Gryazin saw that this team will be able to successfully use their circuit racing knowledge, that they have stored up for years in rally events and will be able to prepare everything that was needed for his sons starts. In 2010 his oldest son Vasily Gryazin had his first rally event – Kalna muižas rally sprint, Latvia. He was only sixteen years old at the time and he remembers this as being the coolest thing ever “I remember a jump, it was such an amazing experience. I felt like I was flying and I know this seems funny now, but at that time it was the thing that made me feel everything that rally brings – adrenaline, excitement, focus.” Vasily went on to start in disciplines like circuit racing, rally, rallycross with SRT for the last 8 years. And his youngest son Nikolay started off his career with SRT in circuit racing and now, today, he is a rally driver who has won multiple races and driven a huge amount of ss km during the years.
Over the last years, our team has participated in rally events with drivers like Raimonds Kisiels, Raul Jeets, Ralfs Sirmacis, Hening Solberg, Oliver Solberg, Reinis Nitišs. R.Sirmacis has become ERC junior vice-champion in 2015 with SRT. And in 2016 with Škoda Fabia R5 participated in 6 ERC stages from which 4 he took a stand on the podium.
If we take a look at the last couple of years we can count up to 25 534 ss km in total from all of our rally drivers.
As for today, tomorrow, a month from now or a year – we stay very busy, you can see SRT participating in ERC stages, different regional championships, we take tests very seriously and spend all of our spare time in tests.
"Rally for me is a kind of discipline where there is no time to be bored. You can't always be quick enough. This is a sport where you can always improve yourself further and further. Each time the situation on the road is different, you have to be ready all the time. Rally brings up character, you always work with yourself, with the car, with the team. You have to overcome fear in some places. But at the end, you get a lot of pleasure from the process, especially when you do get it. In rally, the most important thing is the pilot, co-pilot, and crew. The pilot should be able to drive quickly by the pace-notes, and the co-pilot has to read it clearly and make no mistake. The team performs most of the work on the car. Without a good team, you can be a fast pilot, but not finish the race due to breakdowns. In general, rally is a non-stop adventure." - Nikolay Gryazin
“Of course, for us, rally is the hardest and most interesting discipline in motorsport. It’s because there are two people in the car and they have to trust each other completely. Without that there wouldn’t be good results. Good results and wins don’t come from us alone, the whole team is responsible for that. I have participated in many rally events with different teams and I can say with absolute confidence that SRT is the best.” – Yaroslav Fedorov