RDRC S4 Round 3 - Rally Mont Blanc (14th - 17th April)

Mark Birney · Apr 17, 2012

Lol, just as well I didn't start the rally. The power was out for the past 2 hours, wouldn't have gotten very far

Roy Magnes · Apr 17, 2012

Oscar, you sneaky little....

Why is it that when I have a good rally you have a better one?
Second position again, that makes three podiums in a row and the lead of the championship for me. It could only have been better by beating that Mini

Daniel Monteiro · Apr 17, 2012

Well Roy just keep it like that and you might just win the whole thing! And hope you are recovering well

Senad Subasic · Apr 17, 2012

SS14 was my mistake, and a big one. Corrected now, apologies to 6 affected drivers

Oscar Hardwick · Apr 17, 2012

Roy Magnes said:
Oscar, you sneaky little.... Why is it that when I have a good rally you have a better one?
Second position again, that makes three podiums in a row and the lead of the championship for me. It could only have been better by beating that Mini

You still did really well. I just found my rhythm in the second half of the rally again. Similar to what I did in Norway. I didn't expect the win at all but it did go to show how taxing these french stages are when you make an error. Still, its always fun to be close with you Roy (in the rally that is) and hopefully I can find the points I missed out on in round 2 and really give you a battle for the title

Sion Williams · Apr 17, 2012

Happy with 4th in class and a class stage with on SS14 in 2WD! Good result considering its the first one I've finished!

Time to improve for next time and get some proper speed with the Gr. A Fiesta!

Thanks to all the organizers and well done to all the other competitors and 'Award' winners!

Sion

Aleksi Kivelä · Apr 17, 2012

Third place and only 11 seconds to top! Fantastic! I never thought I would do this well in any rally.

Tiago Rodrigues · Apr 17, 2012

4th place losing more than 3 minutes in stage 13, not bad.

David Jundt · Apr 17, 2012

*The Lancer X of the Tiger Express Rallisport team comes to a halt after the Lyon-Gerland stage as RDRC star commentator Roy Magnes approaches the car*

RM: "David! We've just seen you nearly crashing into the finish tent! Have the two special stages been tough for you?"

DJ: "Not really, no. Although the first run on wet tyres felt a bit more shaky, especially going through the chicane in the middle. But otherwise, I quite like such special stages."

RM: "The difficult weather conditions over the last days have caught out some drivers. Did you struggle to pick the right tyres&setup?"

DJ: "Well, the second half of Day 1 was the trickiest. We had 4 stages, two dry stages and 2 that were wet and damp. As I was worried we could slide off the stage, I opted to go with wet tarmac tyres with more profile. It went quite well on Puy du Lac, and Cote D'Abroz was quite good with the right tyre choice. But then, it went wrong at Joux Plane..."

RM: "What happened?"

*DJ's female Co-Driver Saki Miyazaki explains*

SM: "We had a nice run there in the damp conditions until we got to a corner that was a bit tighter than we had remembered in the pace note. We understeered to the wall, the car went sideways along the wall and we slided on the side down the road and into a tree. When we got back up, our battery was too damaged to get enough drive to continue. We were already 83% through the stages, and we lost around 4 minutes. It was quite devasting to lose such precious time when we were going strong without much danger to crash."

RM: "That's really bad luck. Were there any other breath-taking moments?"

DJ: "My second run through Bisanne was quite spectacular I have to say. Once or twice, I was just before losing the car because I was pushing a bit more. I had two or three moments where I had to countersteer and instantly stop my car from snatching away into the green underground."

SM: "You should have seen him taking hairpins. Some were the failure or funny."

DJ: "Stop gossipping, Saki."

SM: "It's true though."

DJ: *Okayface*

RM: "Overall, are you happy with your result? We can pretty much call this your home rally as we're not that far from the Swiss border, it's the Rally Mont Blanc after all."

DJ: "Apart from the unnecessary or rather unlucky retirement at Joux Plane, it was quite good. Some other drivers seemed to fly though, I doubt taking a stage win in the Production-Class, but I'd be delighted if I had done enough to take one ahead of Norbert Serban or Graham Bridgett. I shouldn't be too sad, I surely scored some good and vital points in the fight for the Top 3 in the P-RDRC with this performance. In the end, I really enjoyed the first tarmac rally of the season. I prefer stages that are twisty and technical to those that require more top speed and the right eye when to brake."

RM: What do you expect after this rally?"

DJ: "Well, I can't tell, but I still hope we can finish under the Top 5 in the Production Class, I really pushed after my mishap. See you at the Ulster Rally".

RM: "Thank you David."

*The Evo X drives away towards the service parc*

Hugo Barbosa · Apr 17, 2012

I must confess that I'm quite surprised with some of my partial results, because I had won

3 stages in Production Class in 7 real attempts. I was aware that can't do all the stages, so entered just to have some fun, without any special pratice and untill second round in Puy de Lac everything went quite well. There I made a mistake when braked on grass and my Subaru started to overheating. I was able to do the next stage with no major problems, but when I was doing what I think could have been a good time in 8 stage, engine stopped and never restarted, so dnf there.

Thanks for the organization and next time hope I can do all rally.

Congrats to the winners.

Regards,

HB

David Jundt · Apr 17, 2012

*Notices it's two minutes to the winner in P-RDRC*

MOTHER OF GOD.

I actually dropped the class win by going off at Joux Plane, ARGH!

On day 1, I first ran dry tyres, then wets. On day 2, I used Inters, then Dry again.

Actually, now I am a bit devasted I lose it short before the finish of stage 6. Wasn't really pushing...

Btw: THAT's how you write a report to the media baby!

Senad Subasic · Apr 17, 2012

Congrats to the winners. Except Oscar

I'm off to do my other assignments, and possibly sleep for a bit.

If there are any other mistakes, let me know either via PM/email, or in this thread. Just in case, quote or tag me, so I don't miss it.

Roy Magnes · Apr 17, 2012

Now that's a report indeed

Could work well for Oscar, I might have to cut a few lines to it to fit it in the video though

edit: Oh, and hi - I'm back home from the hospital

Will take a few days to get my voice sorted again, but at least the cyste is now gone

Harry Platt · Apr 18, 2012

Pretty happy with that. No stage wins in the 2wd cup, but I managed to stay within 10 seconds on average, which I am pretty pleased about considering the little Pug has 100 less horses than the other cars. If only I hadn't retired on 4 of the stages, and rolled on the final run through Lyon-Gerland... Was still great fun though, the 205 GTI loves the tarmac, you barely have to slow down for the corners, it just grips and grips. Hairpins can be a little tricky, you really have to keep the gas hard down.

Senad Subasic · Apr 18, 2012

Roy Magnes said:
edit: Oh, and hi - I'm back home from the hospital Will take a few days to get my voice sorted again, but at least the cyste is now gone

That means I can start with Round 2

Paul Newton · Apr 18, 2012

Unexpected class victory for me. I took it really easy on nearly every course, mostly because the conditions were changing faster than the tires, and managed to make it to the finish every time. Only had one scare when I took one corner too hard on Peklo and banged into a tree a little bit, stalling it in the process as the n12 is prone to do.

Joakim Skalstad · Apr 18, 2012

wooooooot

Someone must have cut my times

i am not "that" fast

4th place in class in a rally i dont like is superb!!!

Fernando Agapito · Apr 18, 2012

Congrats Magnar! Well you're always faster than me in Tarmac

. But anyway I've decided to just go steady, I don't wanna risk the points anymore.

Congrats also to Oscar, Paul and Joao.

Thanks all!

Joao P. Marques · Apr 18, 2012

Ole Marius Myrvold said:
I use auto-clutch. Then clutching doesn't have any use I could use a brick on the clutch to keep it at 100%, nothing happens

Ye, that cfh ruined my chance to get an overall point. However, Marques had a retired stage

Nice rally Ole! My retired stage is Real Madrid's fault has I wanted to check out the final minutes of the game and ended up skipping the first run through Peklo. Anyway a shame we didn't run in a session together, as it would be much more exciting.

Hope to see you on the next round. Congrats to all the winners and participants!

David Jundt · Apr 18, 2012

Paul Newton said:
Unexpected class victory for me. I took it really easy on nearly every course, mostly because the conditions were changing faster than the tires, and managed to make it to the finish every time. Only had one scare when I took one corner too hard on Peklo and banged into a tree a little bit, stalling it in the process as the n12 is prone to do.

But it's deserved. Me, Norbert and Graham all made at least one big mistake, while you didn't, congrats.

I was only 1 second behind Joakim in the end, wow!