SM Castrol rally 27th-28th of September, Tampere

Tampere was the final round of Finnish rally championship. A short list of things that made it a bit special compared to some of the other rallies: it’s the final round of the championship, Jari lives in Tampere so it’s his home rally, the service park was located in Särkänniemi amusement park, only 1h40min drive to Tampere for me through motorway from Helsinki and in Tampere area the stages are usually great.

 

Since it was Jari’s home rally we had a chance of having a small warm up test on Thursday evening. That helped to get into rally feeling when driving in the darkness. When picking up the paper work next morning we noticed that all of the stages were old Rally Finland stages from the 80’s and 90’s so for sure we were in for a treat. After doing the pace notes for last stage called Pengonpohja Jari made a good analysis of the stage -> If a codriver has “a timing problem in his engine” then there is a need for a new chassis for the rally car after this stage”. I agreed with his analysis. Pengonpohja is a great stage which turns and goes up and down all the time.

 

First two stages were driven already on Friday evening. Actually it was the legendary Savo stage which was to be driven twice. First during the daylight and a couple of hours later when we it was dark. We took it with normal pace on both times and the times were good. We were 7th overall, but in the lead wereNikara and Kruuda both with S2000 cars. Among the normal guys driving the whole series we were 5th. So not bad at all.

The morning didn’t start well for us. Jari didn’t find a good rhythm on the really fast Siikama stage and we dropped to ninth. All the stages on Saturday were to be driven twice. The same phenomenon occurred on the first loop and on the second loop. Siikama didn’t go well on either times. After Siikama wasViitapohja and on both times we liked the stage a lot. After Viitapohja was Pengonpohja and on both times after Pengonpohja we were both ecstatic. Have to say that the stage is probably the second greatest stage I have seen. Ouninpohja still being the greatest. Those two stages can’t really really be compared since Ouninpohja is wider road and faster. Anyhow a great stage to end our championship. We ended up 6th in the championship and luckily my mistake in Turku didn’t matter in the standings.

 

This is the time to thank our sponsors for the season. Like always without whom the season wouldn’t have been possible. Big thank you for our mechanics for keeping the car in order and the sprits high throughout the season. After all this is a team sport. Also from my part thanks for Jari. We had a fun season and it’s easy to continue the cooperation for 2014. Our plans aren’t a big secret. The Finnish 4wd class will be divided into two classes. Our plan is to fight in the SM1 –class among the big boys. The class allows quite free modifications to group N cars. We’ll probably just tune the engine a bit, but otherwise keep the car as it is. As usual the season starts with the legendary Arctic Lapland Rally inRovaniemi. So that I wouldn’t keep a three month radio silence from writing a blog I’ll think of something to write about every now and then.

Vetomies -rally 3rd of August, Jyväskylä

Neste Rally Finland, The Finnish Grand Prix. So what does Vetomieshave to do with it? During some of the years there has been an extra class after the Neste Rally cars. In that class the competitors drive with Finnish 2wd group F cars which have outdated homologation.For example BMW M3, Toyota Corolla GT, Opel Astra, Ford Escortetc etc. This year we participated to the class with my brother Mikkoin his BMW M3. Jari also took part with his brother in their M3. In the middle of Finnish rally championship this was an opportunity to just enjoy the rallying how it’ meant to be done. Sideways :) TheVetomies –rally was done on Saturday and we drove stages Surkee,Leustu, Ouninpohja and Painaa after the big boys had done the stages for the first time. It was really great to be part of the WRC round  atmosphere. Since we haven’t done that many rallies with my brother anymore I was really looking forward to doing one rally with him. Just like back in the day. A BMW, Mikko driving and me co-driving.

The recce was one weekend on a Saturday. Actually a couple of days earlier than even the WRC guys get to do the recce. Maybe the organizers didn’t want them to be in our way during the recce :D We managed to make good pace notes even though Mikko hasn’t done notes in a long time and usually doesn’t do pace note rallies.

Next Friday it was time to get back to Jyväskylä. To kill the time me, Mikko and a couple of our friends went to see Lankamaa stage. After the stage me and Mikko headed towards Kangasniemi to spend thenight. Next morning it was all rally glamour. Wake up at 5am and on the road around 5h45. 

Around 7am we were ready at Paviljonki for paper check and scrutineering. The whole atmosphere was really relaxed since probably 90% of the crews were there just to enjoy themselves.

The Vetomies rally usually has a really high retiring rate and that was wise to keep in mind. Around 11am it was our time to head towards the stages. The Surkee stage was familiar to me from last year. The stage was luckily in quite good shape after the WRC guys. We took it steadily trying not to damage the car. Mikko was also learning how to concentrate on listening to the pace notes. Our tactic was to avoid any damage to the car so that we could enjoy the famousOuninpohja stage. After Surkee we continued through Leustu with the same strategy. One of the Leustu junctions was so soft that we almost got stuck with the heavy rwd BMW.

After Leustu there was a short service break on a road section. We checked the car and didn’t even change the tyres. No fluids or anything needed either. Everything was OK and we just ate and drank a little bit to keep energy levels up. We hadn't even expected any problems. Mikko's trusted mechanic Teuvo was enjoying the rally as a spectator and our dad was the only mechanic we had with us. Even a couple of spectators came to the car laughing and commenting that there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the car since everybody is just talking bs and eating. The Ouninpohja stage started very well. Mikko had better gotten used listening the pace notes and since the stage was in great condition he could push the car without having to worry about it getting broken.

When reaching the famous Kakaristo junction after over 20km we were inside the top ten according to the gps tracker that was installed inside all the cars. About 700m everything went wrong. The organizers had built a jump for Tommi Mäkinen’s VIP people and we landed heavily nose first. Several cars broke in that artificial jump and we were no exception. The landing had damaged our oil cooler which had ripped of the radiator from its mountings. About 3km after the jump on the so called Ouninpohja small road our engine seized. End of our rally. 

Unfortunately we also had to wait for several hours for the WRC guys to drive the stage for the second time. The organizers driving through the stage were really cool and stopped at our spot to ask if we were alright and if we needed anything. Even though we had drinking water the supplied us a couple of liters more. A big thank you for that for those guys. Very friendly. Our car wasn’t blocking the road, but it was on the outside corner where the WRC cars would throw a lot of stones. We tried to clean all the bigger stones after a car had passed, but unfortunately Kris Meeke dropped the driver’s side window with one stone. Kris himself wasn’t too lucky either crashing his car about 3km later. A shame since we was driving a great rally with a factory Citroën. Even though we didn’t finish the rally and broke the BMW’s engine we were quite happy. The setup of the car is pretty much spot on and since the Ouninpohja had gone so well the broken engine isn’t the end of the world.

Manx National Rally, Isle of Man 10-11th of May 2013

Rallies are always mini adventures, but for me the Manx National rally was a bigger adventure than rallies normally. Like I wrote already it was my first rally outside Finland, my first rally on tarmac and my first rally reading pace notes in English. The journey started on Wednesday morning when me and my girlfriend flew from Helsinki to London Gatwick and from there to Isle of Man. Things don't always go as planned and the Gatwick ground crew managed to make a hole to the front of our airplane with a towing bar. So waiting the next flight to IoM and arriving four hours later than intended. Not much time after that than to find the hotel in Douglas, make a short trip to grocery store and eat dinner at the hotel. Then to bed.



Our hotel at Douglas

 The following morning I went to meet Malcolm at the TT Grandstand famous for the Isle of Man TT races. We had exchanged a lot of emails, but this was the first time we got to meet in person. The plan was to sign in for the recce and and drive through the stages. We had bought Pattersons notes for the stages and gotten some old notes from one local co-driver. If lucky we wouldn't have to make much changes to the notes I had prepared. Not the optimal situation since it's always better to make your own notes, but of course time was a luxury we didn't have in this rally. During the recce we made small modifications to the notes and felt comfortable with the notes we had. After the recce we drove to Peel where we had accomodation for the rest of the rally. The scenery was very beautiful. We don't have seaview, sandy beaches and a castle all in the same place here in Helsinki.

On Friday we started the rally around 7.30pm. So we had most of the day to set up the service area, get something to eat, go to scrutineering etc. Next to us in service was an ex Colin McRae legacy. I never would have thought I would get to see that legendary legacy.

At the service park you could also see some cars which you can't find in Finnish rallies because of our regulations. For example Darrians and group B metros.

The Friday's stages went OK for us. There were eight stages in total from which two were super specials driven in a town called Ramsey. The super special beats the h**l out of our Finnish super specials driven on a horse race track or some industrial area. Unfortunately two stages were cancelled, because of an accident. It was a stage which would have been driven twice, but because of the accident the organizer cancelled also the second round. I got to practice reading the notes in English anyhow. It took a lot of brain capacity from me since I had to think more about the notes I'm reading and also since I had to concentrate more on pronouncing the words also. In Finnish rallies it's easier since you process the infor from your note book much more automatically. On the the stages we had a couple of small moments. On one stage the road was so narrow that by just simply turning left in a junction we scraped the rear end of the car in some stone which has had to be more out of the stone wall than others. In the night service we realized the stone had actually scraped everything else, but the driver's door. In the end of one stage we clipped the front wheel to something a little bit and had a puncture. Luckily it was right in the end of a stage and we could change the tyre on a road section. In the night service I helped a little bit by taking of the wheels and light pods. Other than that I tried to stay out of the way so that our mechanics Keith and Vaughan could concentrate on working and not explaining to me how I could help. We managed to get to bed around 1am. A long day.


Night service




A stone scraped driver's side a little bit.

After five hours of sleep it was time to get back to service park. On Friday it had been dry, but on Saturday it was raining like cats and dogs. Naturally we opted for wet tyres. On Saturday we continued with the same rhythm as on Friday. After the first loop we decided to put slicks instead of wet tyres since we would drive the same set of stages again and they seemed to be getting dryer. It's a funny feeling when you are leaving the service with slicks and suddenly there is raining hailstones. 5 miles later on the stages there was almost dry roads as we hoped. The micro climate on Isle of Man is something that you have to see for yourself. I had read about it, but you have to see it to believe it...

Here are a couple of onboard clips from Saturday's stages
Druidale
Greg-ny-Bar


Stage was delayed and waiting in a queue. The scenery is vey different compared to Finland.
So is the road surface.

 After about 180 special stage kilometres we got to the finish. On the IoM I managed to see all kinds of tarmac roads: narrow, wide, fast, slow, smooth, bumpy, dry, wet, muddy. We had been climbing in the class standings little by little and actually after the last stage secured a class victory. The class victory was nice, but the main thing was how everybody made me feel welcome. Of course Malcolm and the rest of the team made the weekend really easy for since I didn't have to worry so much about all the responcibilites I normally carry during the rally weekend. Outside of our team the other competitors and organizers were really friendly and helped to easy my stress levels by enabling me to spend some time talking bs between the stages.

Here is a review of the rally by Special Stage Manx National Rally review We also got our 3 seconds of fame in the review.

Hopefully I have a chance in the future to do more rallies abroad. For this year the schedule starts to be quite booked with the Finnish rallies. Finnish rally championship continues in Laihia in the midde of June and the next round is in Kouvola in the middle of July. Unfortunately we have to skip Rally Finland in the end of July, but since me and Jari are fast thinkers we already have a back up plan. In Neste Rally Finland there is a popular extra class called Vetomies. It is driven during Saturday with Finnish group F cars and this year you will have a chance to drive also Ouninpohja. Since you have to enjoy rallying we go to Vetomies with a laid back attitude. I will actually co-drive for my brother Mikko in his M3 and Jari will be co-driven in his M3 by his brother Harri. In the M3s it's easy to live life according to mantra "life has to be lived sideways"! I hope I didn't misquote Ari Vatanen too badly here.

Something different...

People sometimes get bored. I was a bit bored during the winter break between last rally of 2012 and first rally of 2013. Few of months of not rallying can get to you. When we finished the last rally of winter season in the beginning of March I was facing potential boredom since the first rally of summer season is in the middle of June. It doesn't help much if there is one rally in the middle of May for gravel testing. That's two and a half months. Getting bored is a real risk. So I started to think. This is something I'm not supposed to do since my girlfriend says I'll get ideas. And that's exactly what happened.

So one day I realised that I have always wanted to do a tarmac rally. And since we don't have those in Finland and many Finnish drivers don't go to abroad to drive tarmac rallies I would need a driver to take me as a co-driver. And since not very many foreign drivers speak Finnish I would have to read the pace notes in English. This needed some serious thinking. So after two hours I had made my mind and posted adverts on rally forums.

I posted an advert on British, French, Belgian and German rally forums saying that I was looking for a co-driver's seat on a tarmac rally. First of all I got a lot of encouraging messages from people wishing me luck on finding a seat. To cut a long story short I managed to find a seat through the British forum. Best of all in my books it wasn't just some tarmac rally. I would get to read notes on the legendary Isle of Man in the Manx National rally . Manx wasn't originally on a NEAFP list for foreigners to take part, but the organizers were 130% supportive to enable my entry. Nothing else to say that I can't thank them enough for their help. For me Manx is a bit special. I guess many have seen this clip of Ari Vatanen having a close call in Manx Ari Vatanen, Opel Manta . Since I was two years old in 1983 I have spend more time watching videos, DVDs and clips from the F2 era in the British championship. Those cars on tarmac were just awesome 1999 British tarmac rallies .

The brave soul to give me a ride in his Subaru Impreza is Malcolm Mawdsley from Activ8motorsport activ8motorsport . So on the 10-11th of May I'll be in an Impreza, on Isle of Man, reading pace notes in English (numeric not decriptive as in Finland), 120 miles of special stages on tarmac. On top of that two weeks later is Ovisepät rally in Finland to get gravel experience on Jari's evo 9. So chances are I don't get bored before the next FRC round in the middle of June. The chances of me not getting bored are actually really good.

Arctic Lapland Rally 2013

The opening round of the Finnish Rally Championship didn't go too well for me and Jari. We got stuck in the snow on the second special stage for fifteen minutes. The snow was over waist deep and it took so long to dig us out that we decided to retire and continue the next day. Unluckily we found out later in the service park that the front differential was acting funnily and it was safer not to continue the rally on the second day. Looking at the bright side of things there wasn't a single dent on the mitsubishi, because of the thick snow. Only broken parts hopefully being a damaged oil cooler and a cracked bumper. After some time with the car people wiser than me can figure out what's wrong with the diff.

On the second stage

Few hundred meters after the first picture

The week in Lapland wasn't all bad though. First of all it was nice to be back in rallies. And spending one week 3 meters from from on another in a hotel room and in a recce car you soon find out if you're going to get a long with the driver/co-driver. We had a lot of fun during the recce. The recce car basically being a center of philosophical discussions and left over jokes. Also the ~ 20 kilometers we did on the stages enforced my belief that the speed is there. Like everybody says the stopwatch tells the truth. Now waiting for   one month and the next rally in Mikkeli to find out what's the truth.

Also me and Jari ordered new really cool racing suits from MIR Raceline. Have to take photos of them in Mikkeli and in the daylight.