SM O.K Auto -ralli, Kouvola

After Laihia I was really looking forward to Kouvola. In Kouvola the stages have been similar as in Joensuu which means going up or down or turning almost all the time. Proper fun. OK I admit that most parts the stages in Laihia were nice, not like the highways in Lapua in 2011&2012. When we started the recce it turned out the organizers had included a couple of new stages which would be driven twice. Excellent news except the stages looked a lot like in Lapua the past years. Pretty flat roads between farms. Not like the usual roller coasters of Kouvola. Last two stages were familiar stages from past years and they were excellent in my opinion.

Since Laihia didn’t go at all like we had planned this rally was a bit like a second start for our summer season. The first three stages went OK with our normal speed. We were 8th on all the stages losing about 1-1,5 sek/km to the old WRC cars and fin-r cars in the front. It was good the see that the tyres and the car worked on those three stages. This way we could get the monkey off our backs after Laihia.

After service we did the same three stages again. On this loop we were constant with our performance again. Now being 7th on all the stages.

After these three new stages we headed towards two more familiar stages from previous years. Especially the second one of these two stages was nice to read as a co-driver. The stage was quite fast and you had to change the rhythm a couple of times. Enjoyable and keeps you awake as a co-driver. As an extra challenge the brake pedal went a bit soft in the end of the stage so Jari got more exercise when pumping the brakes. We were again 7th on both stages.

The very last stage was a 1km super special on Tykkimäki rally cross track. Want to guess our position? Yep, 7th again. After the finish we (us and three other competitors) had the privilege of being invited to after rally scrutineering. The organizers wanted to inspect turbos and see connecting rods. Well nothing to be found there. In Finland you are driving with a group N car against the more freely tunable(engine, bodywork, suspension) fin-R and R4 cars. You would have to“missing a couple of Indians from the canoe” if you were stupid enough to enter your car to the rally as an illegal group N car when you can enter it under fin-R regulations.