I'm pretty sure that rallying had very positive effect for some manufacturers and especially for Škoda. Even though their WRC was never able to fight with the top teams they proved they were not some cheap garbage from the east by taking the gamble in 1998. The stock Octavia was a huge success which started new era of the brand. The WRC campaign sure helped it. Last week Škoda communicated some numbers from this year which is going to be the most successful for the brand in the whole history and I do believe that the great success of Fabia S2000 helped their growth into one of the most important carmakers in Europe. I'm of course aware that the most important was the VW policy towards Škoda but that's for another topic.