2007, the start
Officially, the history of Odessa team began to create from 2007, exact from that time Tsunami Rally Team debuted in championship by rally of Ukraine and from the first try won a series of victories in 2WD classes and won the third place in team results.
The team was created by initiative of Irina Kolomiytseva – co-driver from Odessa- for the period of 2004-2006 she won any victories and podiums in class in stages of championships in rally of Ukraine (she took part in rally with different pilots as Alexey Ianovsky, Igor Storchak and Ruslan Kucher).
At the start of the season 2007, the team was represented by two crews, which were declared in different classes - A3 (2WD class A3 and engine capacity to 2,000 cc, including kit-cars) and U2 (national class for 2WD cars , mainly presented by cars VAZ-2108 of different levels of preparation).
One of the strongest among Tsunami Rally Team was Odessa duet Igor Storchak and Irina Kolomeitseva on Lada 112 Kit Car (with engine of 1.6-liter). At once they became one of the favorites in Class A3. In this category their main competitors were considered crews of citizen of Odessa Alexei Yanovsky (on the same Lada 112 Kit Car) and citizen of Uzhgorod Vadim Trutnev on a more powerful, two-liter Lada 110 Kit Car.
The colors of the new team also defended the crew of citizens of Kiev Sergey Chekan and Alexander Bilous on VAZ-2108. They started in five from the seven stages in the year. But in the second half of the season Tsunami RT staff was expanded - to Igor Storchak and Sergei Chekan joined citizen of Kiev Ruslan Kucher (VAZ-2108), one of the strongest pilot of Ukrainian 2WD, multiple champion and winner of Ukrainian competitions in different classes.
As they say "You must spoil before you spin, practice makes perfect" - in the initial stages, held in Kamenetz-Podolsk ("Rally Stara Fortetsya"), both crews Tsunami RT had to leave the route. However, this was the only miss during the season - in future at least one of the team's crew certainly won the stage in his class or was on the podium.
The best results achieved the crew of Igor Storchak and Irina Kolomeitseva. They won 3 victories in sequence in the class A3 - in Kherson, Ivano-Frankovsk and Lvov after the failure in Kamenetz-Podolsk. Thanks to this jerk Odessa duo was the first in offset of championship in their own class and kept his advantage till the finish of the season.
The last victory they gained at the final stage in Donetsk, where Storchak and Kolomeitseva won the champion title in class A3, simultaneously winning four stages of seven. In addition, this duet from Odessa became the best in 2WD - Igor and Irina scored 10 points in the absolute (three successful finishes) and finished the season by the ninth in the absolut classification of the championship of Ukraine!
Achievements of Sergey Chekan and Alexander Bilous were small - one finish among five starts, though they were on the podium in the class U2. But the successes of Ruslan Kucher and Irina Tymoschuk who started in staff of Tsunami RT only in three final stages, were impressive - two victories and a second place in three starts which allowed them to win the title of vice-champion of Ukraine in the class U2!
We аre not surprised, that exact the crews of Storchak and Kucher effectively finished the season 2007 - in Donetsk thanks to their double victory in the classes A3 and U2, and also a high position in the absolute (fifth and sixth places), Tsunami RT first won the stage in the team offset! So the team from Odessa conquered such grandees as MacCoffee Rally and ACE Racing, their crews were with 4WD cars.