RDRC S5 Round 4 - Rally Alsace (27th-30th April)

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Pre-rally: I am happy with the season so far. Second place in the Championship is better than expected. Hadn´t been for technical problems in round 2 I had been in the lead. But as Chris Williamsson not will participate in this rally I am practically in the lead. And I will need this. My favourite Surfaces snow and ice are done and I am afraid I will not be competitive on tarmac. I have been training some tarmac since last season, but I am not as skilled as the mideuropean people... It will be interesting anyway.
First service: As usual I hadnt done any shakedown and I was rusty from the beginning. Smashed the right side into the Armco already in absolute first corner. Then I had a terrible mistake in the beginning of SS2 were I lost the car and Went far away down the slope. Got help without asking for it, but lost nearly one minute. From then I started to find rhytm and I am satisfied with SS3.
Second service: Had really good rhytm through these two stages.
Third service: SS6 was OK, but hit one of those White roadpoles early on Sieversdorf. Thought they were harmless but I got a hole in the radiator. Reach the finishline after a couple of small mistakes.
Fourth service: Lost time on SS8. Messed up two hairpins after mistakes from my codriver. Had to reverse both times. happy not to damage the car. SS9 and 10 were OK. Four stages to go.
Finish: Happy with the rally. Shameful mistake on SS2 and then something strange happend on SS13. Suddenly the windshield got all red with blood. Dont know how it could happen. Probably a spectator got killed but I did never see him. Must have been a very small japanese guy. Took a lot of time to Clean the windshield. Dont know how much time were lost..
All in all I am happy to finish this tarmacrally. Hope to score some important Points towards the Championship battle.
 
I actually did practice for this round and was really looking forward to this but... Everything went wrong from the start. Crashed, cilled the gearbox and battery and did a HUGE cut on SS4 because I missed the first exit out of the roundabout. Sould've listened to Reid better.

After that I was so pissed that I decided to stop by my old friends to have some wine and watch rally cars. There was a lot of time between SS5 & SS7 during which we drank a lot of wine and played a game of canasta. We had such a nice time and I was so drunk that we decided that it's be wiser if I stayed the night there and drove back to Lyon the next day. I was still hungry for some PowerStage points!


...which I have no chance to get because I overshoot the chicane slightly.

Car was good, wine was good but the driver was utter rubbish. :D
 
Good to see some good discussions around here about the event :)

I'm gona start running Tuesday sessions now, because I'm usually away at weekends meaning my Mondays are a write off as I'm so tired! So gona get a bit of practise tonight and tomorrow (although these are many of my favourite stages :D) and give it max attack on Tuesday!

Good luck to all who are still to run and well done to those who have been! And here's to hoping I can extend my grade 4 lead :D:sneaky: On a mission!

Sion
 
PRE-RACE

Last two rallys didn't go as planned, but there's nothing I can change now, but looking at the positive part I had a good pace in the snow. No this is the first full tarmac rally of the season, it will be hard, because most stages are very narrow and full of traps, but I'm positive, car is nice, if I can keep my head in place I'll be able to fight for the podium in the RDRC2 class.

RACE:

-Stage 1: Good. Not much to say about. First stage, very short.

-Stage 2: In the first part I was a bit 'rusty', but saving the situation. In the end, went too fast into a corner, tried to turn the car, lost the rear, clipped the front and rolled the car. Hopefully there were some spectators and the car was still good to go. Actually since that incident I think I went much faster and secure than in the earlier part, but obviously it wasn't a good thing.

-Stage 3: :D Wow! That was as fast and perfect as it gets! Best RDRC2 time in my session, great because I need to recover a bunch of time, but now the real rally starts!

-Stage 4: :mad: Bad! problems with the radio, I could barely hear my co-driver! don't expect much good from this one, hope I can solve it during my way to next stage. Too bad. (OG: I used graphic pacenotes for the first time... ever)

-Stage 5: :D I got my co-driver on time for this one. Can't hide my smail,:inlove: I love this stage when I manage to tame it, it was perfect, really, I beat Norbert and Balasz again, I can only hope to do as well on the second time

-Stage 6: communication problems again. And this time, in one of the wide parts I completely missed my mind, went straight and now the oil temp is too damn high. I'll see if I can fix it somehow for the next stage, but I highly doubt I'll be able to finish it. :(

-Stage 7: (unfinished: oil issues)

DAY ONE RECAP:

:coffee:
Won't be my rally again. It was a pity about the inciden on Bergheim 2. I had a lot of troubles with my codriver, could barely hear them and it was more distracting than helping and completely missed a corner.
A real pity because I love the stages and the car was feeling great, extremely fun...
But I'll have the car ready tomorrow, I'll try to recover some places if possible, but having fun, that's the most important part now.

DAY 2:

-Stage 8: just... almost last corner and went straight into a rock! good thing the car didn't die,but a bit frustrating as it was a very good stage until that point, and the car is a bit damaged for the next two stages

-Stage 9: rolled it at the start again and needed some spectators to put the car back on its wheels again, and now it's a bit hard to drive

-Stage 10: managed to survive with crazy wheels and a steering that was vibrating a lot, not so far from Balasz, so I should be happy about this

-Stage 11: :) having fun and going fast, not much to do in the rest of the rally. I think Norbert, Balasz and we were very close again here (...) yep 1.67 among the three, talk about close!

-Stage 12: nice, just a couple of mistakes, no pressure right now, but wishing rally was longer! :rolleyes:

-Stage 13: (Unfinished)

-Stage 14: It's over. :sleep:

POST-RACE:

What was the problem at Akagi?
Oh, I was just thinking on something else, I thought the rally was over a bit earlier than I should. Akagi is a very wide stage, I don't think it really fitted in this rally and I was trying to do a bit of a show for the spectators, but crashed in the process. A bit stupid on my side, I know.

How did you see the rally overall?
The rally was great, car was outstanding and I had tons of fun, but my head still betrays me sometimes. Anyway just looking ahead to the next one and see if I can chill a bit. I have the pace, but I need a bit more concetration.

__________

Thanks to the organizers for this event. Even if I won't have a good result I really really loved it, tons of fun and the new stages (I had rarely raced them before) are great.

Just wondering if the rest of the drivers use graphical pacenotes? Asking out of curiosity, I know it's legal but I hate them because of realism, only used them today at Bergheim.

Best of luck to the rest of the drivers and I hope you have as much fun as I had :thumbsup:
 
Contractual time on SS10 isn't a bit too generous? Did 7:16.01 (well, I was pretty slow but still...) and I see the contractual time is 7:00.00 :confused:

On SS11, which is less than 3 min long even if driven slowly, contractual time is 7:32.00. This system of default times for unfinished stages is really bad.
 
Contractual time on SS10 isn't a bit too generous? Did 7:16.01 (well, I was pretty slow but still...) and I see the contractual time is 7:00.00 :confused:

On SS11, which is less than 3 min long even if driven slowly, contractual time is 7:32.00. This system of default times for unfinished stages is really bad.
We were using this corrected time in the Rally Club, so will possibly be used here as well:
Foron|11:30.00

Jack Hintz
 
I´m not that good on tarmac for some reason, this highspeed lets me make to many errors. Before the Rally I put in some practice runs, but had problems following my co driver so had to shorten the callout distance, which worked fine on the original stages, but was a mistake for the other ones.

Stage 1: Quite happy with that actually, was cautious before the finish line so i don´t damage my car for the next stage.

Stage 2: Was quite scared of this one, even though I should know it from my grading event. Made some stupid mistakes, even rolled the car which cost me lots of time.

Stage 3: Went much better apart from one oversteer moment in a hairpin which cost maybe 3-4 seconds, still couldn´t really push so was quite slow.

Stage 4: Bergheim, I really like this stage and the way it´s made (mainly because the landscape reminds me of some places where i was on holiday as a little kid) but I really struggle here. made some stupid mistakes again, lost my front bumper after a few corners to one of these white reflection posts, then also destroyed a bit of the vineyard hitting my cooler. Slow time, not good at all.

Stage 5: Only did half of it in practice, which didn´t help. Here the callout distance really hurt me, missing a few hairpins and sliding into spectators instead of going right. Lots of time lost, in the end the engine died from the damage of the previous stage after 92% quite annoying to loose so much time there.

Stage 6: Again Bergheim, this time didn´t make that many mistakes, tried to push = 1s faster then previously :unsure:

Stage 7: Went a lot better then before. Managed to push and finish thanks to remembering a few corners so didn´t miss them this time.

Stage 8: Quite a downer after these 2 beautiful stages before (graphically) but went ok, only 1 reverse moment in a hairpin.

Stage 9: took me some time to figure out that it was the reverse version of this big jump stage. Went quite well I think, not to slow as well.

Stage 10: Missed the entry to the tunnel big time (for some reason the car didn´t stop for a long way. Lost lots of time, the rest went ok.

Stage 11: I quite like this stage, tried to attack which felt ok, but for some reason not very fast.

Stage 12: The stage that gave me Nightmares before the Monaco Rally. I tried to push thinking there is endless amount of grip. This feeling lasted a couple of corners, went wide and hit a tree or something, was already preparing to ESC but some miracle kept the car undamaged almost. Not as fast as I hoped for, but ok.

Stage 13: Was expecting one of these narrow forrest tracks from Japan, so a nice surprise actually. Was fun to drive, only had one moment where i turned to much around a hairpin.

Stage 14: I really wanted to push there, but messed up the chicane at the end by hitting one of the parts there, just kept going so I hope it wont result in a penalty there, but I guess I didn´t gain time with this anyways. The time in the end was still ok but could have been 0,5 faster i think. Also didn´t prepare as much for the corner after the finish line so I ended up in the wall :D

Quite a nice mix of stages, but maybe a bit to challenging for me. Looking forward to have some gravel soon.
 
Only me in OC3 tonight, quite annoyed with the battery issue in SS5 that made any chance of getting a decent position in the rally go out the window :(

SS1: Average pace to save the car, no issues.
SS2: Nice constant pace, new handbrake placement is making a world of difference to the way the car attacks the hairpins. Apart from a fly being in the cockpit and being extremely irritating, no problems.
SS3: Great run, managed to *almost* do every hairpin perfectly except one which some late braking, but other than that no issues.
SS4: Quick run (for me), car is handling perfectly with the new setup.
SS5: Was going great until about 200m from the finish line the battery decided to die for no apparent reason :mad:
Replaced the battery at service, found out one of the terminals has melted. Fixed and minor setup change for SS6 and 7
SS6: No problems, but off the pace from the first daytime loop.
SS7: Bump sent me into a spin near the end, otherwise no big issues.
SS8: Hidden rocks are very nasty! nevertheless made it though, even with a broken wheel. Should make the next 2 stages very interesting.
SS9: Managed to keep my pace fairly good overall, even with the damaged wheel.
SS10: Ended up having to use the handbrake on almost every turn as the steering decided it didnt want to work well anymore. Very obvious in this stages replay when I subsequently lose all steering and drive into a tree.
SS11: Decided to do the stage flat out (but still semi cautious), and managed to do without any mistakes.
SS12: Cautious but quick, no problems.
SS13: Nice clean run, no mistakes.
SS14: Somehow managed to take a spectator out,. so there goes my power stage :p

On the whole, a good rally pace wise, I will be interested to see the final results and see how my pace stacked up against you lot!
Good luck to everyone left to do the rally, I will start working on the next one and get it out soon.
 
I couldn't find a setup that felt comfortable on the tarmac so I was over cautious on every stage. My times were slow but I had no CFH's or DNF's. The one time I tried to push I ended up losing a bit of time.

SS1 - eh, nothing to write about
SS2 - slow
SS3 - slow again
SS4 - I couldn't keep the revs up through the hairpins
SS5 - An off which cracked my windscreen but no other damage
SS6 - Same as before and I hit a couple of signs and at least one spin
SS7 - Same as 5 - another cracked windscreen
SS8 - Not too bad and I gained a little confidence
SS9 - Well let’s see - over confident and launched over the big jump - landed hard spun out and bent my steering
SS10 - Bent steering so I was riding the rails on all of the hairpins.
SS11 - Not bad
SS12 - I didn't lose too much time here but could have been loads quicker
SS13 - I love the hairpins at Akagi
SS14 - Tried to push and almost ended my stage at the third corner. Came across the line smoking

Still was a super fun rally. I really enjoyed the mix of stages with only 2 repeats. The organizers did a super job. Hats off to the crew and to all who participated.
 
My team mate Emil Pribanić will probably be happy to hear that I finished all stages :D

I actually had a good time on these. Since it's tarmac, and I practically haven't even seen half of the stages before, I took it real easy, so my times are probably very slow compared to others.
Still made a mess of Bisanne, and one Bergheim run. Luckily, the car survived it all.

I loved Akagi II! Looked awesome, fun to drive.

Good luck to guys yet to drive, thanks to Jack Hintz and Fernando Agapito and the rest :thumbsup:
 
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