RDRC S2 - Round 5 - Kouvola Auto-Ralli (18/19th April)

[Dariusz Swiderski]

Better then expected
I was right to feel confident and lack of practice didn't affect my rally. I just love Finland No CFH or DNF and only a few spins
Once i was heading for some spectators but managed to straighten the car just in time, have to look on replay as i was very very close call . Finished 3rd in EU, very happy with that . Points should be plentiful for this round

Grats to Sebastien, light years ahead of everybody else and Ludovic for good fight in 2nd. Too bad for Simone, very good for me as i managed to keep the gap. GL to other sessions.

 

[Łukasz Demolin]

Whew. I jumped in just like Dariusz, had only a few runs on RallyPark + 3-4 regular gravel Finland ones. I thought I can push and have good times, but reality check smacked my head against the floor a couple times and I had to settle for top-8 times in the session. My teammate ran into some problems, so it was even worse for the FTP too. I had minor-to-rather major problems all throughout the even (on one stage spun as many as 3 times fighting with the bent steering rod ). Also screwed up both SSSs, and I had nice pace there, so I can only hate myself for it.

Those Project D's C4s are rigged, I tell you! On the fastest stages no one was able to catch them. Seems like Seb & Ludovic either practiced them to death or the C4 is simply uncatchable once they get it up to speed. Also they totally smoked EU3, destroying my hopes of catching Ludovic. Couldn't keep up with Dariusz or Simone either, and barely held "the Marmite" behind me :].

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

whoopee, loved that, another nicely designed rally, only had one run through every stage in preparation this time, so started off extremely cautiously, but hell, even if I do what I think is I good stage I end up last or second to last, lol.

overall I had a rally nearly free of major events, only noticed one funny thing: On Autiovaara after the jump / bridge section going uphill if you get off to the right, your car dips under the surface and you see RBR bottom up, happened to me both runs, very strange indeed. With only two people giving up, I ended up 15th of 17 still running, it won't be good enough to squeeze into that final points position in my class, but was superb fun anyway. Bring on the next one (oh yes and the huge tables with everybody's times and stuff in-between, love 'em).

on a sidenote: whole event lasted exactly 120 mins for me, of which 72 were spent on track.

 

[Nigel Atkins]

what a fantastic event, i think that was my best ever

haven`t touched my wheel in 2 weeks so was happy to find a good rythem when i practiced on saturday and was supprised just how fast i could go when realy pushing but didn`t fancy risking that in the rally :eek:

1st stage went ok no mistakes, but in the 2nd i bounced into a tree in 5th gear and was supprised to only lose around 10 secs and small wheel damadge, got through stage 3 fine with no dramas.

stage 4 and with recently had a good run through Kaihuavaara i was able to push a bit more and beat my previous time by 13 secs. with my tree hugging mishap fresh in my mind from ss2 i was more cautious in the middle and finshed with a good time 15 secs faster. 2nd run through Sikakama went well and a few secs faster than the 1st run.

with the 1st half gone i was realy having fun and happy with my driving and not having got to know the next 3 stages i didnt push to hard and got through to the end of stage 10 without much trouble.

with just 4 stages to go i found my self leading my class and even scraping with Lukasz for 6th overall but i had a bad run through stage 13 dropping me some 17 secs behind him, so with almost 1 min over 8th place i let it rip round stage 14 and set a new PB

dont know if i can hold on to my 1st place after the times are in but i would be well happy to get a podium and beat my previous best finish of 4th.

huge thanks to the RDRC staff for yet another great event and well done to all the finishers

 

[Chris Williamson]

Quite a pleasant rally and one of the cleanest I think I've driven here with no cfh's and no major dramas. However with this being a relatively easy rally, things come down more to raw pace than red ink so I was always going to struggle to get a good result here. Despite that I was pushing fairly hard and the car felt good, but alas the timesheets didn't seem to agree with my feeling and meant I was some way off the leaders. Hopefully I've done enough to grab a few more points in class again.

As for the event itself, I think that apart from the odd graphically anomaly the Finnish stages are quite well suited to gravel mod and would welcome them again in the RDRC. My only criticism of the event is that it did lack a bit of variety - perhaps throwing in something like Tervaniemi 15km would've been better than running some of the same stages in reverse later on.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

HOly Clap, Tervaniemi would mean an instant DNF for me, the longer the custom stages are, it just causes more lag!

 

[Norman Biscuits]

Much fun, nicely constructed rally.

rFactor has been evaporating all of my Richie B prep recently, meaning I came into this blind.
Was happy for no red ink and not even a CFH.
Few spins, but unfortunately even runs that felt decent didn't convert into timesheet honours.

6th in championship, hoping to just cling onto a points position.

 

[Jakub Sulej]

Oh, that was bad day for me! On second stage I crashed with a tree and my gearbox stucked on 1st gear. Next part of the rally was driving just for fun, but there was also a couple of mistakes. Bad, bad, bad. I hope next time I wont crash...

 

[Robb Kulcsar]

Bad, bad race for me. I don't know even now, how I manage to miss the start of the rally. After that, I drove just for finishing the event. On the 10 km stage I retire only 0,1 km from the finish , overheating. Another retirement on another stage few meters from the start. What looked to be a potential many points rally, turned to be the worst this season .

 

[Warren Dawes]

Since we are sharing disaster stories, here is mine.
For 12 Stages, I had driven a totally clean rally, the cleanest I have ever driven, hadn't had a spin or even touched another object. Near the end of SS13, I drifted a little wide on a turn (one of the dodgy pacenote calls) and rather gently bumped a tree with the side of the car (somewhere around the rear door panel) and it immediately killed the engine. .
One small tap resulted in a DNF and the whole Rally ruined.

RBR can be pretty cruel sometimes. :wink:

 

[Sebastien Levret]

I will not share with you my disaster stories because I made a great rally. All the stages were clear and fast, I made only one mistake on Sikakama II like you Warren, in a turn left I slide out of the track and the rear door panel touch a tree. I made a 360° and my engine was off. I put the neutral gear but the engine didn't start... I was very disapointed and I tried it again and after 3 trys, the engine restart again.
Pffff I can finish this stage.

But like you Warren I don't understand why my engine stop with this contact. BTW my engine also switch off in Antiovaara in a fast right turn, but I can restart it when I was driving.

See you in few days for the results !

 

[Roman Kruszewski]

Guys I have big problem my ISP is down and I have no connection (I'm at work now) I called them and they said it is "major failure and we are working on it". I'll try to join OC3 session, but if it doesn't succeed, I'll have to skip on this one

 

[Kevin Hopkins]

OC4 is set for 12.30 on the server for tonight..IS that right?

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

Sebastian's story brings back to my mind how my motor died on me after the car dipping below the RBR surface - as described above - and would only come back on, after I put the gearing in reverse ??? the joys of sim-playing
and - yes - the pacenotes on the reverse stages (II) are notoriously dreadful, aren't they, had some funny surprises there as well on the first run each.

 

[Warren Dawes]

OC4 is set for 12.30 on the server for tonight..IS that right?

Yes Kevin, that would be right.
The OC times have been changed a bit since the introduction of DST.

 

[Kevin Hopkins]

Why?That now means i have to wait until 12.30 instead of 10.30 to start the rally.Way past my bedtime:frown:

 

[Warren Dawes]

I made only one mistake on Sikakama II like you Warren, in a turn left I slide out of the track and the rear door panel touch a tree. I made a 360° and my engine was off. I put the neutral gear but the engine didn't start... I was very disapointed and I tried it again and after 3 trys, the engine restart again.
Pffff I can finish this stage.

But like you Warren I don't understand why my engine stop with this contact. BTW my engine also switch off in Antiovaara in a fast right turn, but I can restart it when I was driving.

LOL Sebastien, mine was on a left hander too, maybe the same one. I also just assumed the engine had stalled (the light tap at the back couldn't possibly have broken the engine, surely), and I also tried lots of times to restart it. I even tried one last desperate attempt by using CFH (that has worked before), but the damn thing just wouldn't restart. :frown:
It just wasn't meant to be my day.

 

[Warren Dawes]

Why?That now means i have to wait until 12.30 instead of 10.30 to start the rally.Way past my bedtime:frown:

NSW and VIC have come off DST now, so the start time is an hour later to keep their start time the same. Sorry. Maybe we need a NZ timezone for you.

EDIT: Are you sure you converted correctly Kevin, I make it a Start time of 10:30 PM Auckland tonight.

The Server time is France time, not GMT. The Server is GMT+2 hrs.

 

[Sebastien Levret]

LOL Sebastien, mine was on a left hander too, maybe the same one. I also just assumed the engine had stalled (the light tap at the back couldn't possibly have broken the engine, surely), and I also tried lots of times to restart it. I even tried one last desperate attempt by using CFH (that has worked before), but the damn thing just wouldn't restart. :frown:
It just wasn't meant to be my day.

yes maybe the same turn and the same tree, my team mate made the same mistake at the same turn but without the touch and the engine problem

 

[Norbert Serban]

Could you send to me a few repalys, please, because I want to make a short highlights music video
So, my rally is so good, I made a few, little mistakes, and once time, I hitted a photomaker on the Sikakama.
7th in overall this session is pretty good, only one CL car overtook me. I hope I will stand on the podium, in the CL.

EDIT: If you doubt in my work, watch my highlights videos, on youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/jegember95?feature=mhum