Rally Finland Sno-Job Mon 17th & Tues 18th May 2010

[Warren Dawes]

What a blast. Thanks Warren heaps. Those marshals need to be a metre further away tho

Lol John, we have all had to scrape the blood off our cars at some time in these Rally's. Damned frustrating, isn't it?

 

[Mark A Warmington]

Every time I finish one of these events I wonder why we struggle to get more drivers . I came home and ran SS1 and SS2 to decide which car to run. That was a mistake as it meant I broke my new rule from last week. Result? A crash (retirement) and a false-start.

From then on in it actually became more fun than any of the other events (I really think snow is my prefered surface). Some of those stages were my best and worst so far.

Finishing with SS8 was amazing. I actually think that might of been my most satisfying run yet.

Thanks to everyone (especially Warren)!!!

 

[Damien Jones]

Finishing with SS8 was amazing. I actually think that might of been my most satisfying run yet.

I'll second that; that stage was amazingly fast, just like the WRC Finnish stages.
It was great to have so many more drivers this time around, come join us on TS next event and share accident stories!
I'm not comfortable at all on snow so had a pretty average run; I just can't get the confidence to push. I would have to recommend the little Rex though; all I can say is Subaru build 'em tough! The front bumper only made it to the end of the stage about twice, and the other stages were littered with bits of body panels, glass, co-driver, and transmission components. Hurtling through a blizzard at 120+ km/h with no brakes is quite an experience.....especially when approaching a tight bend!

 

[Warren Dawes]

Overall Results

For a better view, see the attached pic below.

This was our best Rally so far this year, due mainly to the good size field, and some of the closest and most competitive Rally driving we have experienced. If this trend continues, we have the basis for a great RBR Rally Club.
I personally found the combination of Finland Snow and the WRC 09 cars to be nicely balanced. As noted by Mark and Damien, I also was most impressed with the Finland gravel stage at the end, maybe something to look at for a future Rally.

I really had to work hard for the win, the competition in the Oceania group last night was fierce, and made me concentrate like hell and push quite hard. No doubt, I am most comfortable on snow, which seems to suit my driving style.
Well done to Lukasz and Robb for the podium, with just 8 seconds between them and only 47 secs from the win.

Best of all was seeing the Stage wins spread so evenly. Almost anyone was capable of grabbing the Stage wins and only small mistakes made the difference.
Stage wins were:
Senad 2 (top effort in his first Rally)
Damien 2 (dominated the gravel stage as usual)
Warren 2
Rick 1 (Started in fine style)
Cam 1 (welcome back Cam)

Also very pleasing was to see very few of the dreaded red ink, although each driver only had one retirement stage, the penalty was severe.

One interesting point, I notice that the Subaru dominated overall, clearly a popular choice.

Huge thanks to all who joined this Rally, a field of 10 is very comforting, lets hope this is a positive omen for our Rally Club. :rally:

 

[Cam Wedgwood]

What a fantastic results page! Well done everyone, I am a little concerned that my title of 'He Who Wrecks the Most Cars' may soon be a thing of the past though! I'll have to push harder to find more trees...

Brilliant to see the stage wins spread fairly evenly too! Warren, stage 3, 7 seconds clear of the next fastest... Woah!!

Agree with everyone about the last stage, it was a cracker... Perhaps the snow could melt and we could do a thawed out Finland sometime soon. Also, I think that the more modern WRC cars are the go. They just feel right.

Thanks again for all of your hard work to keep the rally club alive Warren, there have definitely been some ups and downs and you have soldiered on and kept it going!

 

[Damien Jones]

Congratulations Warren on your win; such a close podium this event!

 

[Warren Dawes]

Warren, stage 3, 7 seconds clear of the next fastest... Woah!!

OK!! I'll share my secret technique for this Stage, but ssshhhh, don't tell the others.

Actually Cam showed me this technique sometime ago, he reckons it has something to do with weight balance through the turns :wink: , but it is very tricky to just open the door without ripping it off. :tongue: oke: .

 

[Senad Subasic]

Wow. Very pleased with that, 2 stage wins, 2 second places . Too bad I got lost on SS5 :search:

Congrats Warren, quite a margin there. And nice 3rd there for my EU nemesis Robb

Thanks for setting this up, it was really fun, very much looking forward to the next one.

 

[Robb Kulcsar]

I guess that next race, in Europe will be pretty tight, very good times from Lukasz too. Can't hardly wait :tongue:.

 

[Rick Bamford]

Yep Warren, great event and congrats on the win. Consistancy is key to winning rallies and you've got that.

My retierment was really dissapointing for me as it wasn't even a driving error. I clipped another button on the start line selecting camhack and it sent me back to the desktop. Does anyone else have the problem of not being able to go back to the game once this happens? All I could do was open task manager and close RBR(sob sob)

I lost 4:39 due to that (I lost the rally by 4:06) But, "if only's" don't win rallies.

 

[Łukasz Demolin]

Wow, seems I was Mister Consistent this time, nice . I jumped right into the game, my whole training was 10mins of trying out the C4 (not liked it at first) and Focus (I was about to start in the Ford, but opted for seemingly "known" Subaru, which proved to be way trickier at early stages).

I had serious problems with visibility, first stage no Camhack (weird), really babying it through the snowstorm (I didn't see squat ), then I picked up some pace in later stages, it was really a blast. Rolled only twice, and only once it did real damage! (200m before the finish of SS1) Shame about the falstart in SS6 or 7 (I don't remember exactly) seeing how small was the gap between me and Warren at the end (erm, maybe not that small, but still doable ). Those damn photographers on the gravel didn't help either

Thanks for the fun, looking forward to the next event!

 

[Senad Subasic]

My retierment was really dissapointing for me as it wasn't even a driving error. I clipped another button on the start line selecting camhack and it sent me back to the desktop. Does anyone else have the problem of not being able to go back to the game once this happens? All I could do was open task manager and close RBR(sob sob)

Ah, bad luck... Similar thing happens to me too. If I try to switch back to the game, I only get sound, no picture.

 

[Warren Dawes]

Does anyone else have the problem of not being able to go back to the game once this happens? All I could do was open task manager and close RBR(sob sob)

Rick, I'm not sure I have fully tested this situation, but I know RBR has problems with alt/tabbing to and from desktop. For this reason I always run RBR in Windowed mode, and have never had these problems.