Nice weather (but with some chances of rain/snow later), nice roads, 17 rally cars and friends. Should be a great day!
Photo by Evan JonesThis time we have a lot of video materials, thanks to cameragirl and crew.
Note: videos show just part of these long stages.Video Part 1 (stages 1-4)
I was the only one with winter tires. I thought there may be some frozen parts of the road in the morning and did not check that every other driver choose gravel tires. I was wrong. But still it was a fun :) and we did not loose too much time on these short stages: got 7th time here, just 2 seconds behind 6th place.Video Part 2
Now I have gravel tires and 2 long stages (24km each) plus 2 short stages to go in this section. Stages are very nice, experienced drivers can drive here very fast but its very demanding for good notes and good work from co-driver. A lot of turns over crests or right after crests, jumps. So you have to handle car properly before such corners/jumps 100% relaying on co-driver notes.
Fortunately co-driver did a great job today (missed correct places just couple times and found right notes quickly). So often I trust notes and drive like rally driver should, e.g. jump over crest sideways. You have to do this when there is corner over crest. And its a lot of fun :)
Winner of the rally (JC)
Our little car
Tibor on Celica GT4 crashed/rolled while flew thru finish line (stage 5) but did not lose a second because went thru finish and then stopped. Then he put car on its wheels and continue rally!
Video Part 3
Here you may see mistake from co-driver + my mistake around 4:00. Co-driver did not tell me about L5- after jump (I ask several times - what's after jump?)
My mistake: I left throttle. Now I think I should brake shortly only on the crest and use more throttle and less steering right after crest. Not sure this could help because you should steer before jump, there is no traction after jump..
Fortunately we did not crash :)
Video Part 4 (with music)
Last 2 long stages to go. Sunset is coming, fortunately I was thinking about delays and brought extra lamps. Check what cool lamps some guys have.Look at damaged Celica GT4, it still goes a little bit faster then we do!
There is no in-car video from last stage. I tried to drive more carefully because its last stage of the rally and we had enough fun for today and now its important to finish rally with car in perfect shape. Plus dust from previous car makes more problems at night, sometimes you just don't see anything.
However we were driving very sideways thru some corners, I assume some places without gravel but with dirt was frozen after sunset.
Marshals at work
Hard working support crew
We took solid 7th place overall (2nd place among novice drivers):
- 6th place (Celica GT4) 1.17:33
- our time (1995 STI) 1.19:38
- 8th palce (1992 STI) 1.24:54
JC took 1st place (white STI with red leafs) 1.12:13.
He is novice as well, just 2nd year in rally! And note: no one from experienced drivers crashed (I think they know these roads like own backyard). Well Tibor crashed but he flew thru finish line and did not lose a second in the stage.
So it was great day for us :-)
But 3 teams were not able to finish this rally :-(
Our car works fine, handles pretty good in corners but I still think I need to adjust wheel alignment somehow, probably increase rear toe... Car does not have stability in straight lines on loose gravel, that's why I did not drive over 130km/h while other drivers hit 160-180 on straight lines.
