RDRC S9 Round 5 - Rally Spain (29th March - 4th April 2021)

Ouch!! Went down the mountain in SS10. Lost 26 seconds to penalty but car is still alive! I was lucky, I think... but again, i'll have to finish with a not fully repaired car. Bummer, as I had only 1 minute 24 seconds of repairs so far.:( Oh well, wish me luck for the last two stages!
 
Ouch!! Went down the mountain in SS10. Lost 26 seconds to penalty but car is still alive! I was lucky, I think... but again, i'll have to finish with a not fully repaired car. Bummer, as I had only 1 minute 24 seconds of repairs so far.:( Oh well, wish me luck for the last two stages!

Good thing there's a short repair before the last two stages then :)

Good luck!!
 
Second day done and dusted.

In retrospect I probably should've looked after my tires a little bit more, but thankfully nothing major happened to the car throughout the day. Felt fast through SS9, but halfway through SS10 I had a feeling that something was off with my wheel geometry. My hunch turned out to be correct when I stopped for the final service (maybe I should readjust my driving style for future rallies)

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One of the rare occasions where the car looked relatively fine

The final two stages happened to be my favorites in this location, so I pushed some more with fresh tires.

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Welp...

Okay maybe I pushed a bit too much through SS12. At least the spectators were fine.

In the end I went off the road 3 times in total, which is good considering that I normally fly off more often than that (might need to check my air miles points with my airline after this :roflmao:)

Fun rally, currently in the top 10 so I'll savor this moment before I get my times crushed by everyone else over the weekend. Maybe I should look for sponsors for the rest of the season :O_o:

Good luck everyone!
 
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Done! I'm tired again. I shake like a leaf! Big smile... I AM FIRST!!
Let me contemplate my momentous victory for a few minutes...
Then go for the massacre !
Well done!

Those stages are amazing, what I'd give to have them in AC... Dirt asphalt physics/ffb are weird sometimes.

Still great fun though! Cant wait to test my lack of talent against the best of J-RDRC, bring it on :)
 
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Day 1 completed.

I'm far from a tarmac specialist and I had never driven a rally here in Spain so there was quite a lot of learning that started right after the successful Rally Poland.

Today it was time to put that work into decent times for the first time.

SS1 and SS2 went very well. So far I'm the fastest out of all R5s on them which is a nice suprise.
However I had a near death moment at the start of SS2. It was at the fast left hander right before exiting the town. Went in too fast and almost hit the wall on the right. Thankfully I managed to make it through unscathed.

The very wet SS3 however wasn't as smooth. I was a bit too agressive with the car locking up couple of times and going wide in some corners. I even misssed one corner and had to go around a barrier which thankfully was very short.

Other than that no major problems. Great start and hopefully more good will come tomorrow.
 
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Day 2 completed.

I found the wet tarmac on wet tires more tricky to drive than I imagined.
Had a mistake on SS4 by losing the rear going into a bush. That lost me a position to Tommie Lindberg who seems to be my biggest rival in this rally.

SS5 went well. I was quite careful in some high risk corners but the time was good so I was happy.

The dry SS6 was very strange to drive on wet tires but I managed to keep it in one place, record a great time and get back in front of Tommie in the standings.

Now it's time for the biggest challenge. The 4 long stages in a row.
 
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first five stages done, got another bent radiator after smashing into where the armco started at one bend early on in stage 4, real pity as i was almost faultless up to that point, think i missheard the co-driver or her call was wrong, no idea. Getting used to driving with failing power and that evil hissing sound in the background, third rally in a row. hope i'll survive next stage to reach service.
 
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Completed stages 7-10 last night and 11-12 this morning. Pleased to get through without major incident, except for a 10 second delay on stage 10 when I went off the road and had to rev the hell out of my fiesta in 1st to extricate myself without taking a penalty, and find myself top. In online time trials I usually don't finish as high on the tarmac events, so this has been something of a pleasant surprise.

Frankly it was a surprise to finish, given I terminally damaged 3 cars in practices...

It was also a last hurrah for my logitech g29, which has served me well for over 4 years, the upshift paddle is a bit temperamental so it's time for a new one.
 
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haha, switched it on and the first thing I see and hear are: a lot of bent metal at the end of the penultimate stage, no German swearing but a well-known German Co-Driver voice. Bring it on!

Yeah, I delivered what I promised, I'd say. :D To sum it up: After Argentinia this was my second-worst Rally so far. Had multiple offs, my first puncture of the whole championship, lay on the side a few times and even spun. I am just happy that its over now.

"Raw" tarmac in DR2 is one of the least enjoyable things in terms of physics and feel in my opinion, the only way to tell if you have grip or not is by tire screech. And then you get the wonderful audio mixing of Codemasters which makes your codriver on one stage like 5 times louder than on all the others leading to you not hearing said tire screeching anymore lol.

Biggest issues I've had was when tires didn't fit the condition of the asphalt, as in dry tires on wet (but that was okayish actually) and as in wet tires on dry (which was the stage I collected the puncture in, argh).

When the car was pointing the right way and not laying on its side or running on only three tires the pace was okayish tho. Currently sitting in P5 in class, but quite a bit of time behind P4 already. Lets see where I end up this time, as long as its in the Top 20, I am fine with it.

Everything's still fine here:
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Nice pic for the magazine before the car looked like shite:
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First lucky escape - I had something different in mind when I thought about going sideways.
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Talking 'bout lucky escapes....
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...and being not so lucky soon after. Notice the missing rubber on the RR rim.
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Had quite a few mishaps this time around, really annoyed with myself because of that.
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Looking at the screenshots now I think I am pretty lucky to have finished at all. :D The whole post reads a bit like one of those youtube titles: "RDRC 2 Spain Crash Compilation 2021 FULL HD MUST WATCH".
 

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