RDRC S4 Round 4 - Ulster Rally (5th - 8th May)

[Daniel Tonsberg]

Ill be running today instead of tomorrow :S something came up tomorrow. So no practice! wish me luck!

 

[Magnar Haarstadsveen]

Now it is time for a race report.
The rally was really good for me until i was 2 meters left of the last stage. There i drifted a little wide out of the last corner and hit a marshal right before the finish line. How stupid is it possible to be?..........Ask me i know.

Before that Fernando and i had a incredible fight all the way to the bergheim stages there Fernando was way faster than me and on the falstone also, where i always struggle to get in a good time. So i settle down for the second place in EU2 and maybe a good place overall but throw it away on the last few meters. I also forgot to save replay of the last stage...........i was so mad that i nearly rip the wheel of the table and throw it out the window, and never thought of save the replay, Sorry.
Thanks for an unbelievable fight Fernando, and for this rally to the organizers.

 

[Ricardo Freitas]

Heya Ricardo. Please sign up in the following format:
Driver name - RSRBR name - Session

OK, sorry , i edited my post with my nick in rallysim .

 

[Craig Masters]

Now it is time for a race report.
The rally was really good for me until i was 2 meters left of the last stage. There i drifted a little wide out of the last corner and hit a marshal right before the finish line. How stupid is it possible to be?..........Ask me i know.

Wow, that must be so frustrating....sorry to hear mate. Strangely enough I knew you had stuck trouble on this stage, and maybe I was thinking about it a bit too much when I got to the last stage. Because I also made a small mistake on SS14 which could have ended my rally, but I was lucky to get away with just steering damage, and lost only a few seconds.

 

[Daniel Tonsberg]

Oh well, not my best performance. Had a pretty clean run until Falstone stage, the game auto tabbed out somehow and the screen went black for me. Had to retire that stage. Got mad and just wanted to finish it. Ended up in a fence on faldstone when I ran that the second time, had to retire there aswell.

 

[Magnus Lindgren]

We do not often see tarmac up here in northern Sweden, so this wasn´t a good rally for me. Crashed hard already in SS1, lost the brakes and more, but made it to the finish. The mechanics repaired the car just in time for SS3, and then I managed to complete all stages except for Bergheim and Chirdonhead, where I hit four differnet hard objects alongside the road = 4 retirements, which will put me way down the order
Looking forward to a gravel rally and maybe a chance to pick a point...

 

[Alasdair Beck]

I seem to be odd because I enjoy the tarmac.

SS1- Set a new personal best for this stage despite trying to take it easy on the bumps. Good start.
SS2- Set a new personal best on this one too. I would say this was my favourite of the stages in this rally. Nice and flowing, minimal bumps and a few technical sections.
SS3- Backed off on this stage a bit just because I wanted to survive. Really fast bits on that stage.
SS4- Back to Tanner and I beat my personal best from the first run by a massive 0.1 of a second.
SS5- No problems here at all. Similar time to my first run.
SS6- Improved my time by a couple of seconds. Can't complain.
SS7- Ah the drifting session of the Ulster Rally. Spent most of the time going sideways, probably quite slowly.
SS8- Everything was going well until about have way through when the car decided to fall over on one of the hairpins. It was probably the lightest roll I've ever had. A quick 3 point turn, a small amount of suspension damage causing the back end to try and overtake me everytime I used the brakes but only 10 seconds lost.
SS9- Survived Chirdonhead with my new twitchy braking setup and still set an alright time.
SS10- The twitchy braking caught up with me about 3 corners before the hairpin. Big roll at high speed, CFH and a minute lost. BOLLOCKS!
SS11- Back to Bergheim with a repaired car, no real problems apart from getting out of phase with some bumps and nudging the wall in the process. This damaged the suspension a gnats but not as badly as the previous run.
SS12- Took a second off my time the first time round, can't complain.
SS13- Was a minute quicker without the roll this time round. Had a couple of hairy moments when I touched the grass but no real problems.
SS14- Nudged the barriers after the double hairpins which rearranged the steering but only cost me a couple of seconds.

Overall I'm pretty happy that I finished all the stages. I'm a bit annoyed about stage 10 but I felt my pace was pretty good. I was fastest in the server by over 3 minutes so that can't be bad. Quick acknowledgement of Paulo Franco in the R3 Civic who was flying until he had a couple of retirements. I think we went into first service just a second apart and it looked like it was going to be a good battle. One he probably would have won

Thanks to the organisers for a really challenging rally. Especially on my debut in the championship.

 

[Fernando Agapito]

Now it is time for a race report.
The rally was really good for me until i was 2 meters left of the last stage. There i drifted a little wide out of the last corner and hit a marshal right before the finish line. How stupid is it possible to be?..........Ask me i know.

Before that Fernando and i had a incredible fight all the way to the bergheim stages there Fernando was way faster than me and on the falstone also, where i always struggle to get in a good time. So i settle down for the second place in EU2 and maybe a good place overall but throw it away on the last few meters. I also forgot to save replay of the last stage...........i was so mad that i nearly rip the wheel of the table and throw it out the window, and never thought of save the replay, Sorry.
Thanks for an unbelievable fight Fernando, and for this rally to the organizers.

It was a great battle indeed, we're only milliseconds apart in some stages, it's amazing and I really enjoyed it .

You won most of the early stages (EU2 session) but I attacked like crazy in Bergheim and Falstone II so I think that's where I totally pulled away. Sorry about your trouble in the last stage but I too actually had a bit of bad luck on that final stage. I hit the haystack on a left hairpin in the middle part of the stage, good thing the front bumper received most of the impact and it fell off, but the water temperature is rising quickly so I'm racing with it to the finish line! I was a bit panicking because it could spell doom for my overall position! But fortunately I managed to cross the finish line with still no engine problem but with a temperature of around 125 and still rising .

You're times were really fast so I guess even with the problem at the final stage you could still hold on to your current place

 

[Chris Williamson]

My run of stage finishes this season finally came to an end tonight, with the retirements meaning that I threw away a reasonable finish, so therefore I'm pretty gutted right now. A very challenging rally all round I'd say, especially with the 207 reacting somewhat unexpectedly to some of the bumps here and there, but for the most part it was ok. I was also slightly surprised to be in such a close battle with Andrew Koojo here, but that proved to be a very entertaining fight.

SS1-3: Not the best of starts for me as I struggled a little to find my feet on the tricky and narrow Japanese stages. Pushed a little too hard in places resulting in several small spins and a handful of seconds lost with each.

SS4-7: Learned from the first run and took these a touch more cautiously, resulting in an almost clean run on these stages. Within a few seconds of Andrew in the battle for the S-RDRC lead tonight at the halfway point.

SS8-10: Mistakes started creeping back in as I lost a little bit of time with a missed turn on Bergheim and a couple of spins on Chirdonhead, but generally ok. Started to pull out a small gap in the class battle.

SS11-14: No mistakes on Bergheim meant I pulled more than 30s ahead of Andrew and was feeling confident of a good result, knowing I simply had to keep it on the road now. 2/3 of the way through Chirdonhead and everything changed for the worse however. Hit a bump wrong at high speed and frankly had no chance of saving it as it spat me out into the trees which completely destroyed my gearbox. After that I lost heart and attacked the last two stages for the hell of it - setting a decent time on Falstone, but clipping a barrier on RSI which somehow set my engine on fire and dropping me down another 4 minutes.

 

[Roy Magnes]

I will have to change to the OC4-session tomorrow, a lot of doublebooking this weekend for me.

 

[Sion Williams]

Overall had an OK event. 2 DNF's and a few sloppy stages.

SS1: Went well thought I would be up there till I saw Paulo Franco's times, no competition! But really liked the stage suited the Fiesta
SS2: Not so good, sloppy, had the car on 2 wheels a lot due to cutting where I shouldn't! few spins and offs and to top it off, just before the yellow boards at the finish put it on its side and had to CFH due to another cut
SS3: Clipped the first bridge and sent me flying, car was finished! DNF
SS4: Good no dramas again car liked the stage.
SS5: Again was a bit sloppy another CFH.
SS6: Second time through watched out for the bridges! Had a few flat out tail out moments but turned them into big drifts!
SS7: Good, like the stage and just missed a gear on the final hair pin.
SS8: Was all good again another favourite and had plenty of practise on it! Went a bit wide on a few corners but pretty happy over all
SS9: Going well but hit the flat out bump and went into the tree stumps, broke the gear box so spent half the stage shifting up and down to get some movement! Painfull
SS10: Still had the broken gear box (determined not to take a max!) so pretty slow and painful to watch
SS11: Bent the steering after a fluff up at the first hairpin on the 2nd loop, bit hard to drive but got through.
SS12: Bent steering made it hard and ended up hitting a tree after a stretch, another DNF
SS13: Got a good run with a fixed car pretty happy with the time and the groove.
SS14: Pretty poor, messed up all of the hair pins so lost about 8-10 seconds, ended how it went pretty much TBH

Thanks to all for putting it on still enjoyed it!

Paulo with the R3 Civic was pretty undeliverable though, think I got about 10 sec from him on one stage!

Sion

 

[Corey Twyman]

I was very slow. I had a couple of spins on the first two stages but no damage. Massive roll on SS12 which bent the suspension but I did manage to land on the wheels and in the road. I had to go from there to the end of the rally with the car trying to turn right on me. I had to feather the throttle for 2 and 1/2 stages. Still no CFH's and no red ink so that is a plus. Now I just need to find more speed.

Hats off to the organizers!!!!

Thanks.

 

[Joakim Skalstad]

I will have to change to the OC4-session tomorrow, a lot of doublebooking this weekend for me.

PLEASE CALL ME AND REMIND ME TO RUN IT ASWELL!!

I have had SO MUCH to do the last week.. and it is not over yet
And now it suddenly came a girl into the tight schedule i already have

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

And now it suddenly came a girl into the tight schedule i already have

Kick her out

 

[Andrew Koojo]

im Really Amazed by just Finishing this rally without even a CFH.. and Finishing Bergheim. if i was to shoose the worst stage for me on rbr. this is it. i have never ever Finished this stage till yesterday. if anyone noticed i lost a massive time there. but all good i finished the race. i hope for some points for the Team. . it was an awesome Fight on EU3. The Civic was amazingly Fast. i hope to see it do that on Gravel... it was nice racing with every one on EU3. nice fight with Chris williamson

we should use TS i see no one every goes there. only on OC sessions we get thah fun.

Good luck to those who havent done it yet. and thanks for the wishes from others coz for sure they did something good for me.

 

[David Jundt]

Still probably not using the best setups, but this is it now...

 

[Joakim Skalstad]

No rally for me this time
Sorry guys..

 

[Tero Leppanen]

Ok, Before the rally I thought that this is my chance to gain some points and positions in overall championship. But that was before
SS1 went pretty ok, little nervous at the beginning but not big mistakes.
SS2 Had a spin in one of the "fast" sections
SS3 Pretty good
SS4 Off again
SS5-7 were decent, had a good battle actually with some guys. but then my nightmare
SS8 Tried to take it easy not to break the car but went wide to the field in one corner and something broke... Damn. So no high hopes anymore mister
SS9 I was pretty mad at myself and tried to drive like pros and that was a mistake number two. went off and had to cfh broke the radiator....
SS10 Still broken radiator but not big mistakes.
SS11 ok
SS12 Some crash footage for videos omg
SS13 Half spin nothing serious
SS14 at the end one of the marshals decided to make a suicide and jumped in front of me

So no good race for me and not good points
But thanks for setting this up, looking forward to the next one.

 

[Ross McGregor]

Well i have to say that went really well, finished all the stages and no CFH's, so i'm quite chuffed with that! Perhaps it's no coincidence as this is the best prepared i've been for a rally, and that my team-mate Graham has offered some invaluable setup advice beforehand. It's just a shame he had that issue with the game crashing on him.

SS1: Tanner was very slippy at the start so i gave it a lot or respect, but in SS2 i went off the road a couple of times losing around 10s, so i made a mental note to take it easy through here second time around.

SS3: The english stages in the tarmac mod are very bumpy, so again i was cautious through these, expecially Chirdonhead, which just lulls you into a false sense of security, then bites you in the ass. Actually went off the road in Chirdonhead SS12 which could've been disastrous, but somehow the car slowed down in time to avoid the trees/stumps of doom.

SS4: This went really well, even quicker than in practise where there was zero pressure. Graham's setup tips helped me feel more confident about tarmac in RBR so i'm pushing a wee bit harder now.

SS7: This stage is a great laugh, the total lack of grip makes the handbrake turns awesome fun, and i was just a shade off my practise PB both times through despite having a less than clean run second time round.

SS8: Bergheim; perhaps the most crucial stage in the rally. So many obstacles to avoid and still a couple of stages to go before the service. I was cautious through here but the second run felt great, despite heading off road slightly before a tight junction. (nowt major though) This sim really keeps you on your toes, but the feeling of a perfect handbrake turn into a hairpin is just epic!

SS13: I really like this stage, not many nasty corners to catch you out, i think it's more about maintaining momentum through all those 'easy' rights and lefts.

Overall, i thoroughly enjoyed preparing and taking part in this rally. I didn't like the tarmac in the last round, but with a bit more time to practise beforehand i think i'm getting a better grip on things and gradually getting rid of some 'newbie' errors. And because of this i'm really enjoying RBR more and more, and surprisingly i'm liking the tarmac mod a lot, just took a little time to figure it out i guess! No idea where i finished positions-wise, i wasn't really paying attention, it usually tends to distract me anyway. I just went out and enjoyed that! (a big relief after delving into the sometimes po-faced world of 'serious' leagues the past couple of weeks)

Thanks Rick, Senad, Warren, Pete & Roy for keeping this show on the road!

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

So, not the best of preparations... none at all!

SS1: Some spins, but nothing major, I need time to adjust to the car, and I haven't had breakfast or anything to drink yet!
SS2: A call of help early, and I drove through (!) a photograph-dude, but other than that. The stage went ok, of course a bit behind with the CfH, but like Henning Solberg says "It isn't only only but but"...
SS3: Finally a very good stage. The Renault is a nightmare on tight twisty stages, but it is damn fast in a straight line!

Service 1: No time for food, so, I just have to keep my concentration, and keep building on that last stage!

SS4: Ouch, 3 spins and 16 seconds slower than the first time trough the stage...
SS5: I think I almost nailed it! Happy with the stage, I think it was so good that a Jap-stage can be for me!
SS6: Perfect stage. Not much more to say. It was just perfect. 3.8sec behind the stage overall winner, a C4 WRC.
SS7: Do anyone remember my short video from last rally, with the problems in hairpins, and 90 degrees? Well... Guess how this stage went!

Service 2: FOOD!?!?

SS8: Ouch, suddently the car decide to have much better grip than usual! Damn, what a hit!
SS9: Had a spun in the 4-left "caution" about middle of the stage. When I was going to drive away, the car was stuck in the hole in the road. Lost 10-12 sec there.
SS10: A 360, and I went of the road with two wheels coming to a bridge. How the heck the car survived, I have no idea!

Service 3: Last service, keep your cool. Aim for that 2nd place, 18 important points!

SS11: Another retirement... So, that was that 2nd place! Aim for 3rd and 15 points then!
SS12-14: Meh.

End of Rally: Will get some points. Should've been more. but the preparations just wasn't there.