Winter season 2014

IT has been a long time since I last wrote to the blog. My excuse is that I became a dad and it has taken a lot of time to learn how to be a good one. Also I usually write my blog during the weekends and I haven't had many spare ones during the winter. Between January 18th and March 8 I had only one weekend of without rallies, weddings, bachelor parties or something other than just sitting on my sofa at home. I felt a bit knackered around middle of March.

But back to business. For this season we changed the car to run on bioethanol which is around 103 octane fuel sold in Finland. The good thing about the fuel is that you'll get 50-100nm  more torque with it. The downsides being that the car doesn't start very well when it's really cold during the winter and the fuel consumption grows about 30%.

Unfortunately the first rally of the season didn't go too well. In the Arctic Lapland Rally we flipped the car on it's side on top of a snow bank on the fifth stage. Not that much damage to the car, but we retired since we lost a lot of time. Where weren't any people in the middle of the forest to flip us back to wheels. For some reason the Arctic Rally seems to haunt me. I have been there three times. On the first time with Andreas in the R2 Fiesta we repaired the car 10 minutes on a stage and after that we have flipped the Evo 9 two times on top of a snowbank with Jari. Still I like it as a rally since it's a proper rally with a lot of stage kilometers.

Walking of to the sunset in Lapland...

Second rally of the season was in Mikkeli as usual. Roads in Mikkeli have usually suited Jari very well since he likes fast stages and he also has a really smooth driving style. Even though we had some problems on the last stage when we practically lost all the brakes 10km before the end we finished 4th in SM1 class. Luckily the last stage was really fast and wide so Jari could keep decent pace by paying attention to having smooth lines through corners.

New colours in the car. White and blue has changed into white and black.

Joensuu was the last rally of the winter season. Or more appropriately the first rally of the summer season? Snow was almost nowhere to be found and sometimes we were driving on gravel or slush. First two stages were the most demanding ones. The first one we took on the safe side since on the slush you don't have much grip and even the winter studs are aquaplaning. For the second one we thought about upping the pace, but after a couple of kilometers there were already two 4wd cars off the road. After that we decided to play it safe. For the rest of the day we kept our pace, but stayed on our comfort zone. In the finish we were comfortably sixth.

No snow or rear bumper. We didn't really hit anything, but the bumpers liked to fall off the car in Joensuu

Now waiting for the summer season which starts in Lapua on the 14th of June. After that it's again 2,5 months of waiting until the next FRC round in the autumn. Next year we'll propably drive more rallies to keep up the routine. This year I don't mind the more leisurely schedule since I'll be able to pass the time by relaxing at the summer cottage, with diaper duty and changing an engine to my hobby car.

Testing for 2013 season

It's December already and about time to start winter testing for 2013 season. So what has changed for 2013? Basically everything except the series. I'll continue in Finnish rally championship and my season starts from Arctic Lapland Rally in the end of January. Andreas will try to drive abroad next year and it would have been a bit of a challenge for me to take few months leave from work combined with a house loan and the rest of the black holes making all the money disappear.

So next season I'll switch co-driving for Jari Kihlman -> Arctic Cross Racing
At the same time the fwd Fiesta R2 changes to a group N 4wd Mitsubishi Evo 9. A totally new challenge for me since I have never even sat in a 4wd rally car. In the beginning of December we had a chance to test the evo on snow. Testing was really needed since the car is brand new and has never been driven except in a test bench. I have seen a few rally cars and have to give credit to the car. The attention to detail is magnificent when the car has been built.

Jari comes from Kuusamo which is quite far north and also has good test roads. I hopped into my car and drove up there one weekend. 950km one way from Helsinki is quite a trip, but since there's only a limited amount of time when we have a possibility to test together it's good to use the time we have. I guess most rally people are used to driving long distances, so you just put the cruise control on and try not to get too bored.

In Kuusamo we planned to drive as much as we could. It was to be expected that with a new car we would have little problems to solve. Also I would have get used to a faster accelerating car and Jari would have to get used to my voice and maybe ask some adjustments to my reading rhythm.

Everything went really smooth during the day. We encountered virtually no problems and managed to drive more than we expected. I had always thought the group N cars to be somewhat heavy and clumsy. I had to adjust my perceptions a little bit. The evo was surprisingly light footed and seemed to turn nicely. From co-driver's seat it looked like Jari didn't have to "wrestle" the car at all. What didn't come as a surprise was the power. Compared to the R2 fiesta the evo has roughly double the power and only few hundred kilograms more weight. So on a fast road the scenery certainly moves faster. So we had a test day that went really well. Now still some more testing and waiting for the start of the new season. After the first test I'm certainly looking forward to Arctic Lapland Rally in Rovaniemi.