One week after Riihimäki rally it was time to head to Rovaniemi in Lapland. Arctic Lapland Rally is a legendary rally in Finland and like the name says it's held on the Arctic Circle. The rally is twice as long (233km of special stages) as the normal Finnish championship rounds so we had three and a half days for the recce. The stages were awesome. Even the shortest one was 20km long and the longest was 47km! A real challenge for me since the roads in the Arctic Lapland Rally are the most challenging in Finnish championship. The winter had been perfect for ensuring firm coating of snow and ice on top of the roads. During the recce the temperatures were between -17 and -30. Had to use more than just a T-shirt when walking outside.
We started to the first stage around 1pm on Friday. We were once again fighting against the all Citroën C2 R2 front. Sergey Karyakin from the WRC Academy was entered to the rally with a Fiesta R2, but he had withdrawn before the start. Shame since it would have been nice to compare our speed with one of the WRC Academy guys. The first stage was a super special that we would drive three times during the rally. For a super special the stage was actually really good since it was 3,7km long. We just drove it through with normal speed and managed to be fastest in our class. With a huge margin of 0,1s. The main thing is not to win the super specials, but not to give any easy/stupid seconds away to the competition. Those are hard to get back in the forest between the trees.
In addition of driving in the dark the rally there was a problem off snow dust hanging in the air. Similar phenomenon as Greece or Cyprus WRC rounds have with the gravel dust. When the temperature is cold enough and there is no wind there is a risk of snow dust and these two stages now had the dust hanging in the air. The third stage wasn't that bad with only the occasional dust. We lost 3 seconds to the class winner on the 32km stage so one could say that the battle for the lead was quite even.
After 60 stage kilometers we were 6,1 seconds from the class lead. The fourth stage was also a long one with 36km. On that stage the snow dust really was a problem and you could only see 20-30 meters in front of you. We even dried if we could see better using only the normal day time driving lights. That sometimes helps if there is really much snow in the air and the extra lights doesn't reflect so much from all the snow in the air. That trick didn't provide any assistance. One thing that really saved our day was the fact that we used an accurate trip meter for checking the distances during the recce. No we relied on the pace notes when keeping the throttle to the floor half blind. It worked. The margins weren't huge, but we managed to eat 4,9 seconds from the class leader and were only 1,2s behind when going back to Rovaniemi for the super special and overnight service.
On the super special we attacked a bit too much and went wide one corner loosing time. Without that small mistake we would have been in the class lead, but had to settle for the second place when heading of to bed. The time difference after 100 stage kilometers was 0,9s! Excellent battle and the spirits were high since with differences like this you don't have to sleep in the car half of the rally. In the 45min service we changed the brake discs and pads and drove the car to parc fermé around 9.30pm.
After good night sleep it was an early wake up for breakfast and getting the car out of parc fermé after 8am. Our plan was to attack on the first stage and that we certainly did. We were trying a bit too hard and our driving wasn't neat enough especially on the junctions. We lost almost 20s on the 30km stage. Luckily there were still 100 stage kilometers to go so the game wasn't over yet. We decided to tidy up the driving a bit for the next stage which was also 30km long. Well that wasn't to be. One kilometer from the start of the stage we heard a loud banging noise from the front. We thought that a drive shaft was broken, but when Andreas tried to brake he realized it might just be a brake caliber problem. Apparently when changing the discs and pads one of the brake calibers wasn't tightened properly. We stopped on the stage, took out the front left caliber and switched a spare wheel since the rim was broken too. Then drove 28km with only using the hand brake. Luckily the last 10km was a really fast section so we didn't have to slow down too much. In any case we lost 10min 35s.
Just to make sure we were on a good mood the driver's side window got stuck 3/4 open for a 50km road section in -23 degrees temperature. It got a bit chilly in the car. We don't usually play with the windows too much, but Andreas opened it in a junction because he couldn't see through the window since it was frozen from the inside. The R2 car's heaters don't have enough power to keep the side windows open when the temperature is below -15 or so. Even our water bottles near the floor of the car were 2/3 frozen since only the area near the roof is even somewhat warm. The windshield stays open since it's electrically heated.
Picture is from the fast 10km section. No brakes anymore, but still almost managed to jump.
On the service we managed to get 3,5/4 of the brakes working and close the driver's side window. Even though we had lost a lot of time you should never quit trying. The plan was to pick up any left over points since those might be really valuable in the end of the season. We still had two stages and 70 stage kilometers to go. Anything could happen. On the second last 23km long stage we lost only 4s to the stage winner. A really good result since the brakes weren't 100%. That helped since now we knew we didn't at least take a 30s beating. Something else helped even more. We got an SMS from our service crew before the very last 47km marathon stage. Others crews had had their share of problems(technical or digging the cars out of snow banks) and miraculously we were now second in class and third overall in the 2wd category! That really lifted the spirits and the plan was to drive "fast without risks". Below is our in-car clip from the stage.
Meaning not taking any risks, but also not to lift the throttle if there wasn't any reason to take the bend slower than normal. In the end of the stage we found out that we had been fastest in class by 17,6s and secured the second in class and third overall in 2wd!
Goes without saying that the spirits were quite high in the car! Starting with 0,9s to the lead in the morning, the dropping over 10min and then fighting back to second place. An emotional roller coaster, but that's why the Arctic Lapland Rally has the reputation of being an adventure. After the Arctic Lapland Rally we are now third overall in the 2wd championship standings since the SM2 and SM3 classes are fighting for one title only. The next championship round is on the 25th on February in Mikkeli. Before that we have AKK's training weekend and also one small rally on the previous weekend before Mikkeli.
