Kenneth Karlsson, Ramona Karlsson and Daniel Thorén are building a RX team together
Picture: Glenn Mattsing
Ramona RX goal is to drive the FIA European RX Championship and the team is working hard with the remaining budget. The first competition is in Belgium May 15-17. ”It’s many parts of the puzzle that needs to be fitted, but it’s for sure moving in the right direction! It would really be a dream come true to run my own Supercar team!” Ramona says and continues ”But it would not be possible to do this alone. Together with Kenneth Karlsson, rallycross enthusiast and founder of “Rallycross Nordic”, and Daniel Thorén, founder and owner of the Swedish company “Thoréns i Kil”, I’m building the platform for the team.
”I’ve known Kenneth since I was a junior, and he is a very driven man with a positive attitude. He also have valuable contacts in the Rallycross business, through his commitments in different Rallycross series and for the Swedish Motorsport Federation. He also has several years’ experience as a start judge in Global Rallycross” Ramona says.
”It feels great to be a kind of an architect to a Rallycross team, and were I can use my 20 year’s of experience in the business. Ramona has really given me that confidence. We work great together and most important of all; we have great fun while we are making progress every day. We both are very driven and positive souls, and we have a lot of ideas, and sometimes we find incredible solutions of different problems. And to do this together with Daniel Thorén is really valuable and important for being able to realize our goals” Kenneth Karlsson says.
Daniel Thorén is an entrepreneur from Ramona’s home town Kil, who came in touch with Ramona in 2013. ”I knocked on the door at Daniel’s company’s workshop just a few weeks before the Swedish Rally Championship Final in 2013. I had run out of budget and I needed more sponsors to be able to come to start. So I simply were driving around to local companied and were selling small sponsor packages. Thoréns i Kil bought one of those, and we came to start in te rally, and we also won it! Soon we discussed a continuation of the cooperation and today Thoréns i Kil is not only one of my largest sponsors – they are also a very important part of my team when it comes to logistics, facilities and practical solutions.
”I’ve always been interested in motorsport, and to become a part of a RX team of this standard is really great and inspiring. I have chosen to cooperate with Ramona because I like her values and what she stands for, and we also have a similar background entrepreneurially, and where we both have built everything from scratch. Now we are building a Rallycross team with our common ambition, which is fantastic. We all do this with a strong passion and a big heart, and as a CEO for Thoréns i Kil I’ve also decided to increase my commitment as a sponsor, because I really see positive marketing benefits with Ramona as a representant for my company” says Daniel Thorén, CEO at Thoréns i Kil.
To organize an international RX team demand a lot of work and planning, but this is not the first time for Ramona to run an international motorsport team. ”In 2012 I run my own Rally team in PWRC, which was a really great and learning experience. I really know how hard you must work, and what focus it takes. My goal with my rallycross team is to work as a team manager before and after the competitions, but at the competitions I will have professional and experienced staff that will help me to just focus 100% on driving as fast as possible” Ramona says and smiles. Ramona RX will soon reveal the rest of the team and the running cost is not 100% sorted, but the team work ambitious to come to start in Belgium.