SM -Itäralli on the 13th of June 2015

One week after the big crash with Antton it was time to head to Joensuu with Jari and BMW M3. It’s always nice to go back to Joensuu where I grew up. You know the city and the stages are really nice. No luck and luck in Joensuu. We had to retire on the second stage since rear suspension mounting broke off from the chassis and the codriver’s side rear wheel was pointing outside in 45 degree angle. The part where we got lucky was that Jari managed to keep the car on the road with good reflexes and the problem wasn’t big to fix. I was feeling a bit sore here and there after the previous week’s crash so I was really happy that I didn’t have to test how it feels to crash again. Sad that we had to retire especially so early. I always love to rally on the roads in the Eastern part of Finland.

BMW with four wheel steering

Kaloppi –ralli 16th of May 2015

Something different. Codriving for Antton Laurén in his Peugeot 208 R2 in a rally which is driven without pace notes. Using just the road book in which the organizer has marked the surprising corners or dangerous places. Otherwise just scanning the road and trying to guess where the road turns and how hard.

There are only three rallies left in the Finnish rally championship. And since Jari wans’t planning on driving any other rallies as practice I have time to kill. Antton was looking for a codriver for the Finnish junior rally championship + some practice rallies. The two series don’t have conflicting schedules so I decided to jump in.

Scrutineering before the start

The rally went well. It’s a really nice car and Antton drives fluently so as a codriver I had really nice time. Of course it felt strange not to have pace notes. Last time I did one of these “blind” rallies was about 2,5 years ago so I wasn’t really in my comfort zone. Well you get used to it.

Road section. All of  them were quite short.

The stages were really nice with one exception. Fourth stage was on a small road and we were driving on number 145. There were deep ruts and in a couple of places Antton had to lift the car from the ruts so that we wouldn’t lose our front bumper. Unfotunately we suffered a puncture 3km before the end of the stage and had to limb to the finish. We lost about 1,5min and the battle for class victory ended there. Since there was only one stage left to go and we had driven enough training kilometers we decided to call it a day. We changed the wheel and drove back to rally headquarters. All in all it was a good day. Since Kaloppi wasn’t a junior championship rally the only aim was to get training kilometers. In that we succeeded and Antton was happy with the car setup.

Can't sell this tyre or use it in testing

Next rally is on the 6th of June in Oripää with Antton&Peugeot without pace notes and one week after that I’m driving with Jari&BMW with pace notes.

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.

2015 season

"Life is meant to be lived sideways" - Dalai Lala. Of course it was Ari Vatanen who said that, but would be cool if the spiritual leader of Tibet would have said that.

So no more 4wd for Jari and me next season for two reasons. 1) Money. It's really expensive to run a 4wd car. Hardly a surprise for anyone. 2) Finnish national homologation for 2015. What is that? It means that it's now possible to apply for a homologation for a car that fits inside the technical rules of the class where it will compete. No special limited edition models so has to have 4 seats originally and a production run minimum 2500pcs.

Mitsubishi was sold and as a trade in Jari took a BMW M3 E36. A familiar car for Jari since he used to drive one before switching to 4wd. We'll be driving the car in the season start Arctic Lapland Rally on the 23-24 of January. The 50th anniversary rally and 290km of special stages. That's about the same as WRC rally Finland. Except no stage is run twice and the longest is 50km long. One thing is for sure. There is going to be some nice slides when the rear tyres search for grip on the snow and ice.

BMW M3

After the first rally there is hope that we'll be running an all new car in Finnish rallies. Jari is building a BMW 125 coupe (E82) and thus utilizing the possibility of national homologation.. That's going to be a beautiful car. I'm pretty sure it will also provide some nice slides for the spectators.

BMW 125 coupe. By the way notice the new blue colour scheme for next season