RDRC S7 Round 6 - South Swedish Rally (14th - 16th June 2015)

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A really bad rally for me overall, 3 stages finished out of the 8 that was set to be run :(

But I suppose that the bad rally was to allow me to get a job, just got a call from an employer asking if I can start tomorrow :laugh:

So, every cloud has a silver lining is truly true :thumbsup:

Good luck to anyone still to run in this event.



Also, sorry but I managed to jump past the saving of the last stage of the rally :unsure:
 
SS01: Well, I had a reinstall of Windows last week, so I also had a fresh RBR+RSRBR install. Tested it yesterday, everything worked fine. Except, I had forgotten about that I had to change settings for RSCenter Public as well, not just RSCenter Alone. So I had auto-gearbox and low resolution on the first stage. That didn't go too well! Both jumped the start (reversed and jumped the start!) and stalled the engine in the first sector!
SS02: Hmmm, started with a steaming radiator for some strange reason. But all in all, a good stage!
SS03: Was just thinking on how great it was to be back, driving like I want to, and oups! A tree!!

SS04: I should get myself to learn, that you cannot claw back the time you've already lost... Amateur mistake!
SS05: That went fast! Very fast actually! :)

SS06: The dreaded damp-times! And my, that was slippery!
SS07: Uhm, this is the first stage where I've fallen "off" the world. And landed on something solid! Nice change!
SS08: And that was it! The season is over!

End of Season Thoughts: Ended up thinking more about the future of RDRC than actually concentrate on my driving in the end, maybe not the smartest, but **** happens.
I also hate wet stages, someone once told me that it should fit my driving style, and that is the problem. My driving style is sideways like an idiot, and when it's wet, that just ends up being spins!

Anyway, was a fun season, but far from perfect, not from a driving point of view, or my job as the boss.
 
So the season is over! Just ran in the final EU session, and it was a great end to the season!

As I mentioned, I recently got married, and we went away to Barbados for our honeymoon. We arrived back this morning at 6am GMT, after an overnight flight where unusually I didn't have a wink of sleep! Apart from a two hour nap this afternoon, I was coming to Rally Sweeden having not slept since Monday night.

Because of the honeymoon, obviously there was not enough time to practice at all, however some of the traditional stages were a little easier thanks to years playing them on RBR.

So I drove within my limits, more cautious than normal, perhaps a drop to 85% to make sure I finished this rally to try and pick up a few more points in my hunt for a top three in the RDRC2 class. This resulted in clean stages, apart from SS2 where I braked too late and touched a tree, which cost me a couple of seconds. SS4 was brand new, and very tough with inaccurate pacenotes, but I tried my best and made one small mistake overshooting a hairpin.

SS7 was a strange one, I had a mystery spin 0.3km from the end, and didnt think I was close enough to the trees to have clipped one. I haven't checked the replays, butit was a high speed spin which fortunately threw me out the other side, facing the correct direction, so managed to continue without any issue.

Apart from that, it was a quite 30-odd minutes of rallying. I do want to say a huge thank you to my team and boss Mr C, as well as my teammate @Mark Johnston who kept me on my toes all season long. And finally to the organisers, especially @Ole Marius Myrvold who was so helpful over the course of the season.

Walk Racing will be back in RDRC next season, perhaps with a move to the WRC cars, on the cards.... we will wait and see!!
 
SS1 - Really rough stage for me. Speed was up right from the beginning, but end was bit rubbish.
SS2 - Nice stage, only few little mistakes. One of my all time favorite stages for sure.
SS3 - I don't like those slow stages, nevertheless no drama and everything went well.
SS4 - I'm really amazed. I had about 3 runs on this stage before event, I crashed all of the time! Not a single scrach this time, also speed was quite good.
SS5 - Had crash in the end of the stage, lost ~5 seconds. Good car will be serviced now.
SS6 - First proper mistake in this rally - crashed into fence with rear at first corner. Now car is damage. Maybe it's just delusional, but I feel less power.
SS7 - Had mini-heart attack when engine was smoking in the start and temperature stayed at 100 degrees. Luckily everything went well.
SS8 - Good that we don't have powerstage any more because this was rubbish. No mistakes as such, but speed was low and overall feeling was bad.

I think I can be happy with my performance this time. I don't know where I end up, but it doesn't matter. I finally feel myself good with this car which allows me to drive on limit.

E: I compared my times with Magnar. I'm amazed. http://i.imgur.com/AO2Mdnm.jpg
 
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Just finished my rally too. It went better than expected!

I had some skim practice (about an hour total) and I was scared of the monster stage - drove it only once, barely made it to the finish and because of that I had one thing on my mind: GO SLOW.

So I did. Started with Aussie stages, which went rather well (in practice I was all over the place, managed to keep it nice and tidy); clipped one tree (rookie mistake), but it was just 3 or 4 seconds lost. In Limbo I was relaxed and avoided the risks.

SS4
was scary. Broke all over the place, kept it nice and slow and could not relax for a second. But I did it, no major mistakes! SS5 was my first run ever, so just took it extremely easy (it's just 2kms after all :)).

Last loop: the results told me, that I don't need to take any risks, so focused on keeping it tight and in the middle of the road. Managed to do just that, and bar the few mistakes and ditch-grabs on Harwood it was slow, but solid :). Finished just behind the 2 WRCs of Karl and Dubravko, so I'm chalking it up as a full-on win! :D

Looking forward to the results now (won't deny, I'm super-curious). Thank you all for making it happen!

PS: Handbrake on the gear lever FTW! It makes hairpins and "cutting" the car so much more enjoyable and controllable!
 
No time to train and make a pass in stages, I could only make one pass in BTB stages to meet them.

I walked calmly, too quiet at the start of SS1, but then gained confidence too much and made a stretch at the end of the stage and killed the car's engine, forcing me to make Retired, that is, began in the worst way.

After that and untrained made several small mistakes and then in Vieux Moulin, I lost a lot of time derived small errors and exaggerations.

I think I could only do 1/2 special with a good progress and without making mistakes, which is too little and bad for me, but there are no miracles, despite having plenty of miles with the car and on the stages, the training is essential.

End result of championship worst than expected and I know I could do, but it was great fun and the competitiveness they gave me the rally's carried out :)
 
Well.... At least 2 more stage wins, I'm suprised I was so much faster than everyone else on those 2 stages :confused:
Still extremely dissapointed with how the rally turned out but on the stages that went without too much trouble, I had a lot of fun :)

Well done to everyone though, nice to see competitive times and many different stagewinners in the RDRC-2 field :)
 
Congrats to the top three! :thumbsup: Manuel, Karl, Magnar, well done!

Uneventful rally for me when I take out the usual troubles with Mini that I had to go through for the whole season. On top of that later when I watched some of the replays I figured out that my brakes were not properly calibrated and were on by 15% when not applied.:rolleyes:

SS1 - had some usual issues on the jumps, later on one bad spin but little damage when I hit the tree
SS2 - again one spin and wrong turn
SS3 - apart from understeer OK
SS4 - good setup now, brakes can be better; I think I blinked for the 1st time after 17km :)
SS5 - everything was going OK until one spin after the blind jump going off the road
SS6 - not that bad, well up until I figured out my brake issue
SS7 - stuck in a ditch right before the end for a while
SS8 - nothing to write about but OK
 
Can only be happy with the second fastest RDRC-2 time on Vieux Moulin, on my very first attempt. Once again Sam McDonald proved to be a hero of marathon stages :thumbsup:

This season I decided to properly spend some time practising and keeping it on the road; that resulted in two DNF all season, and a safe approach that was definitely not fast but consistent and resulted in many points, by always getting a podium in the Group A cup and even some points in the RDRC-2 sometimes.

Nevertheless I could enjoy some battles with some people here, and that made the rallies very enjoyable!

Thank you, Roy, Ole Marius, Mike, and whoever else was involved, for a very smooth and exciting season! :)
 
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I think you can't ask for better season than I had! When analyzing my season in RDRC-2 aka first 4 rounds, I think key behind success was successful first round. I've never been super-fast in simracing, neither in RBR, even though I've driven it for long time. So proving that my pace combined with stable drive can deliver good results was definitely boosting my will to prepare and practice for upcoming rounds. And when next round brought me another victory, I was ready to conquer whole world. Well at least my category. Challange was still on - I wasn't sure about my speed on pure tarmac rallies, just like round 3 was. For sure it was hardest rally for me, because twisty and bumpy tarmac stages were dive into unknown. My aim was to get at least top 5 position in RDRC-2, even podium result felt too optimistic. So you can imagine how happy I was when I saw results!
Next round was return to familiar roads. After winning 3 rounds I had hard time matching my expetations to get another victory in category and proper points in overall standings. But championship was secured there, rest is history. When I look back into my rallies in RDRC then winning this champ looks logical way, but it still feels so awesome to find myself being one of top drivers here.

Next season? Well round 6 gave some hope and also showed where I'm slower than Manuel and Sandro. I thought I was flying on original stages, but their times blew me away. Luckily there's enough time before next season, so I think I can narrow down that gap. At least I hope.

Big thanks to organisers who made all of this happen. I'm amazed that old game like RBR still attracts so many participants, you guys rock!
 
Well, looking at the results (was still waiting for them to become official but looking at the guys' season recaps, I figured I'd post too) by finishing in 1st I should be securing the overall title, which would be my 3rd consecutive title.

When I arrived here back in 2011 (I remember like it was yesterday) @Sebastien Levret was king, I used to see that he was always winning the rallies and was a double champion, without a doubt he was the man to beat, and the championship favorite, I had gotten good results in rallyesim before and also liked public session championships, then @James Knowles introduced me me to RDRC and to RaceDepartment, so immediately the goal was clear, looking at Sebastien's domination here and his great pace, I knew I wanted to become the champion, and because he'd won it 2 times, the dream could only be complete by winning it 3 times.

So I began a very long journey,

my first rally was not bad, I was using the Xsara and I remember feeling very encouraged by my pace in it, had to retire because of some technical problems but I got a good feeling, I won my second rally and then my third and then Season 3 was over, which was won by @Nigel Atkins it all looked set for a battle for the title with Sebastien in season 4.

However, around that time @Fernando Agapito came up and we became friends and then decided to become teammates, and it was clear, the goal was to take both titles in season 4.

In the end that season didn't go very well as I had to miss many rounds with technical problems and made many bad mistakes which cost me some wins, however I really enjoyed winning Rally México and the massive battle in the wet gravel of Rallye Terre de L'auxerrois with Fernando will always be one of my best rallying memories, Fernando ended up becoming the champion that season and we parted ways, which I didn't like because that meant my goal would take more time to complete but in retrospect it was a good thing he became a champion, he's left us now and I miss battling with him and his great attention to details, he was on top of everything in the car and always looking for an extra edge, maybe the most formidable opponent I've faced, besides a great human being and a great champion.

Then came season 5, this time I had my eyes set in the title, I had a computer that worked well, a car I really enjoyed driving and had vast experience with, and all the hunger of someone who tried but didn't win the championship the season before, and it was a dream, the whole season was full of wins, podiums and excellent results, I still had some rough edges and made some dumb mistakes but I was overjoyed I managed to take my first title and become the champion.

The next season was amazing again and I managed to be a bit more consistent, I was quite nervous at the midpoint of the season as @Magnar Haarstadsveen and I were having a big battle for the title, I managed to regain my composture towards the second half of the season and managed to take my second title, and our first teams title alongside @Michael Nelson another incredible season and I felt very happy to have defended my throne.

Then came season 7 with a new format and an all new look RDRC which was excellent, Mike and I were ready for it and once again the goal was set, take the third title, and so I did, 2 mistakes all season and the rest was wins, we hit milestones like finishing 1-2 in Finland and became the first team to win the teams title twice, an unforgettable season as I finally after 4 years can very happily say: I achieved my goal :)

I was crying when I was reaching the finish line of the last stage, you can't overestimate the hours we've put into perfecting every last detail of the car's setup, the livery and getting to know every centimeter of the stages, and these years have had everything: great moments of joy, frustration, hope and a lot of emotions, it was also something great to see Mike become very fast as we've progressed, I never imagined it would make me so happy to see him finish in the podiums, it's also great to see that some names have been here since the beginning and to see them progress and become great drivers and champions, and that's been the best part of this, the people, many have left RDRC since I arrived and many are still here, I know I will forget many names but I really want to say thank you for all the moments to everyone, it's been very great.

Thanks to @Rick Bamford @Jack Hintz @Ole Marius Myrvold @Roy Magnes mr. champion Mike, Fernando :cry: Magnar, Dubravko, Emil, Norbert Tiago, Sandro, Nigel, Daniel, Jonathan, Karl (it's been great to see you progress) Oscar Hardwick and everyone, sorry for forgetting some names but you can be sure I'm thankful that you've participated in RDRC and been company in this great time, RDRC was my teenage years.

And I wish to say congrats to all the champions throughout the years all in RDRC and RDRC-2 RDRC-3 Production, etc.

Season 8 is next and at the moment I have plans to keep competing.

lol I'm sorry for the massive post.

TL : DR you guys are awesome
 
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