FRC Seinäjoki 2015

If the conditions weren't good for a winter rally last year in Joensuu then this year in Seinäjoki they really in favour. First two stages on Friday evening were driven on pure gravel. We even used summer tyres for a 60km road section for Saturday's stages. Those were in better condition for a winter rally. Still the last stage had to be cancelled because the stage was in such a bad condition. We started the rally with too calm of a pace. Managed to finish second in class. We are now in second position in the Suomi Cup points. Points wise our retirement in the Arctic was bad, but the points leader Aaltonen retired at Seinäjoki so that helped us to close the gap a little bit. With this pace it will take until the last rally of the season to see who wins Suomi Cup. Now looking forward to the first summer rally in Joensuu on the 13th of June. We should have a brand new rally car there the BMW 125i.

Snow rally?

Road section on summer tyres. At least the rims look really nice.

FRC Mikkeli 2015

Otherwise a nice event with good stages. Except the very mild winter caused the roads to cave in and on some stages the driving was more surviving than rally driving. Couldn't complain in the finish though. We won our class. Had a good fift in the end. The last stage was cancelled. We were leading by 4,7 seconds before the now to be last the stage. We also told to the crew who was second in the class that this would now be the last stage and class victory would be decided on this one. We both drove flat out and we managed to beat them on that stage by 4 seconds. Nice to have a good result after the Arctic retirement.

Waiting for the rally to start next to Mikkeli market square

Waiting for the last stage to start. The front bumper has taken its toll on rough roads.

Arctic Lapland Rally 2015

The Arctic Lapland Rally didn't go as planned with the E36.

The recce was full of peaceful scenery as always. I has even managed to get into the celebration year exhibition with Andreas.

Beautiful

We were taking it easy on Friday. However the car in front of us had spun on a narrow road and blocked the road. We lost 3 minutes helping to lift it out of the snow bank with a couple of other crews. He spun again 1,5km later. This time there luckily was a 1 meter gap between it and the snow bank. We aimed the E36 towards the snow bank and the gap at about 80km/h. Luckily didn't get stuck and only lightly scraped the car blocking the road. Others followed through the whole we made. Still finished the day only 2,5min after the class leader.

Waiting for the start

Waiting for the Mäntyvaara super special

On the Mäntyvaara super special

In the queue for the special stage

Rally glamour. Cold and dark rally car. Wearing a pink blanket.

We started the second day with good spririts, but only 6km from the start the rear bottomed out when crossing a bridge about 130km/h. A rear brake line got caught between the suspension arm and the chassis leaking all the fluids. We drove the rest of the stage (30km) without brakes. Managed to hit 190km/h on the faster sections since there you don't need the brakes anyway. The twisty bits weren't so much fun... Had to retire since there was still a 38km stage left before service break.