Sobiesław Zasada
1940-1960
1945-48
In his teenage years, Sobiesław Zasada served as the scoutmaster of the scouting sports team in Bielsko-Biała. He also practiced track and field sports, which, in 1946, resulted in receiving a reward for the best participant on the first athletics championship of the Polish Scouts Association (ZHP) in Kraków.
1949-52
A member of the national team in track and field sports.
1953
On the track of the FIS II downhill run in Zakopane, he sustained an open fracture in his right leg, due to which he almost lost the limb. A two-year recuperation process ended his career in track and field sports.
1957
Sobiesław Zasada opens the first servicing station for cars of all brands in Kraków with very advanced diagnostics equipment.
1960-1970
A success story
1967
He was voted the best sportsman in Poland in a ‘Przegląd Sportowy’ voting contest. ‘Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party did not like this at all. How could the “car guy” have possibly won’? ‘The chief editor of the newspaper, Edward Strzelecki, was summoned before the Committee’. (source: https://przegladsportowy.onet.pl).
1968
He receives the Knight’s Cross medal.
1973
Sobiesław Zasada three times breaks the world record in long-distance driving for over 25 thousand kilometres, 25 thousand miles and fifty thousand kilometres (all of this in a Polish Fiat 125p!).
1977
The establishment of Alpha (currently Alpha Technology), Sobiesław Zasada’s first company with foreign capital. It starts with the production of zippers. In time it expands to processing plastic, die casting non-ferrous metals, centrifugal casting of zinc alloys, producing forms, laser processing and numerical metal sheet bending, galvanization and metal welding. The headquarters of the company have not changed to this day!
1980-
Business projects
1981-89
Managing the matters of exports in Alpha at the same time, Sobiesław Zasada became a consultant in the Development Division of Porsche AG.
1990
President Lech Wałęsa awarded Zasada the Superchampion Award for outstanding sports achievements and his economic and social activities. ‘I think that the Editorial Board couldn’t have made a better choice than Sobiesław Zasada with regard to whom the first Superchampion award should be granted to… (…) I wish there were more role models like him, who would build Poland and bring her fame in such a beautiful manner’.
1995
Over 50 races won alongside his wife, Ewa. Another shared triumph: second place in the Safari Rally in a Mitsubishi EVO IV.
Years later, he would say: ‘My greatest success? Marriage with Ewa; we lived together for 69 years and never had a serious fight’.
2000
Another remarkable achievement: the title of the Best Post-war Sportsman of the last 50 years from the Polish Automobile and Motorcycle Federation.
Zasada has also been awarded the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
2014-18
Yearly participation in the Żubry Rally, with victory achieved every time.
2022-2023
The premiere of the film „Zasada”, the story of his preparations and start in the Safari Rally.
At this time, he also went on a journey in a Fiat 126p, the Polish ‘Maluch’, from Bielsko-Biała to Monte Carlo as a part of the Great Fiat 126p Expedition (Pol. Wielka Wyprawa Maluchów) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the production of this car model!
