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.

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

Pohjanmaa rally 14th of June, Lapua

Pohjanmaa was the first rally on gravel in the championship. To be honest I wasn't looking forward to it too much. Traditionally the roads in Pohjanmaa have been straight, flat and fast. Long straights and 90 degree junctions in the end. This time fortunately I have to admit that I was wrong. During the recce we found out that there were some really nice stages which turned somewhere all the time. The fast part was still true and this meant that the roads were actually quite challenging.

We started the rally as usual. Finding our own pace since we only had done about 20km of testing and the road we used was much more technical than the fast roads in Pohjanmaa. Nevertheless the first two stages before service felt OK. Playing it safe, but still with OK pace. When queuing to service we were surprised when some of our competitors commented that we have obviously been pushing hard. We asked that what did they meant since we hadn't even bothered to check the results yet and were planing to have look at them at the service. People said that we were actually fourth in class before first service. This of course was great news. Jari has a really smooth driving style and he isn't afraid of really high speeds so these things combined meant that our position was really good. In the incar from the first stage you can see how fast the roads were in some parts. On the almost straight section our car achieved 212km/h according the organizers GPS tracking unit.
Kihlman/Heikkinen Pohjanmaa stage 1

After the service we kept the the same pace and arrived to service at the same fourth place. After the service the stages 5 and 6 were the same stages (numbers 1 and 2) from the morning and those run for the second time. A couple of kilometers after the start of the fifth stage I noticed that Jari had decided to push on this one. Nothing stupid, but I could see that we are driving on the car's and tyres' limits without taking stupid risks. At this point I also made my note reading more aggressive sounding to match Jari's effort level. The result was excellent. Were third fastest on that stage losing only 0,1seconds to Karl Kruuda on his S2000 Fiesta and losing 10 seconds to Jarkko Nikara who really was flying through that 20km stage. This time the GPS tracker hit 216km/h on the fast section.

GPS tracker recorded 216km/h on the fifth stage

On the last stage we started by keeping the same fast rhythm as on the fifth stage. Not far away from the start we saw that Nikara had rolled his car and decided to ease off and play it safe. Never a good idea to crash on the last stage. After Nikara's crash we moved up one place and finished the personal best for both of us with a 4wd car -> third in class! For both of us it felt like victory since we hadn't done much testing before the rally and hadn't really pushed except on one stage.

Picture from rallism.fi and taken by Toni Ollikainen

Now it's again a long pause of 2,5 months before the next FRC round in the end of August in Turku. The plan is to do a little bit of pace note training, work on my hobby cars and just relax during the summer.

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.

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.

SM O.K Auto -ralli, Kouvola

After Laihia I was really looking forward to Kouvola. In Kouvola the stages have been similar as in Joensuu which means going up or down or turning almost all the time. Proper fun. OK I admit that most parts the stages in Laihia were nice, not like the highways in Lapua in 2011&2012. When we started the recce it turned out the organizers had included a couple of new stages which would be driven twice. Excellent news except the stages looked a lot like in Lapua the past years. Pretty flat roads between farms. Not like the usual roller coasters of Kouvola. Last two stages were familiar stages from past years and they were excellent in my opinion.

Since Laihia didn’t go at all like we had planned this rally was a bit like a second start for our summer season. The first three stages went OK with our normal speed. We were 8th on all the stages losing about 1-1,5 sek/km to the old WRC cars and fin-r cars in the front. It was good the see that the tyres and the car worked on those three stages. This way we could get the monkey off our backs after Laihia.

After service we did the same three stages again. On this loop we were constant with our performance again. Now being 7th on all the stages.

After these three new stages we headed towards two more familiar stages from previous years. Especially the second one of these two stages was nice to read as a co-driver. The stage was quite fast and you had to change the rhythm a couple of times. Enjoyable and keeps you awake as a co-driver. As an extra challenge the brake pedal went a bit soft in the end of the stage so Jari got more exercise when pumping the brakes. We were again 7th on both stages.

The very last stage was a 1km super special on Tykkimäki rally cross track. Want to guess our position? Yep, 7th again. After the finish we (us and three other competitors) had the privilege of being invited to after rally scrutineering. The organizers wanted to inspect turbos and see connecting rods. Well nothing to be found there. In Finland you are driving with a group N car against the more freely tunable(engine, bodywork, suspension) fin-R and R4 cars. You would have to“missing a couple of Indians from the canoe” if you were stupid enough to enter your car to the rally as an illegal group N car when you can enter it under fin-R regulations.

SM-Pohjanmaa ralli 15th of June 2013

This season's winter rallies are over and it was time to get back to gravel. This year the waiting wasn't so bad since I managed to co-drive on Isle of Man. I also sold my summer car and had to find another in a bit of a hurry. For those who don't know the Finnish summer is short and if you want to have a convertible you have to act fast to be able to drive it even a litte bit.

The summer part of the season started from Laihia in the western part or Finland. I haven't been a big fan of the area based on two previous years' experiences in Lapua. The roads were really really fast and not that challenging. Laihia luckily turned out to be different. The organizer had managed to find more driveable roads. Now that the roads weren't a problem we in return had other issues. More than one.

The recce went OK. Easy recce since two stages were run twice so you basically had about 60km to put on paper. No sweat. Plenty of time to eat during the recce and bs with other crews. The problems started in the Friday evening scrutineering. For some reason all the cars (at least the crews we discussed with) got 10db higher readings from the sound measurement than normally. Since we are usually at the limit we had difficulties getting the car through. Luckily we weren't the only ones so the issue wasn't fully about the car. Well this was a minor nuisance.

During the scrutineering we had a couple of alarming discussions about tyres. We have been running Pirelli's throughout the season. Good tyres and I have nothing bad to say about them. This time we had K4s with us and they are designed to +20 celcius temperatures. We were looking at +15 for the event and we were warned the tyres wouldn't heat up enough. I wasn't too concerned since last year with Michelin's medium compound you could run also with a bit colder temperatures. Oh boy the people warning us were right. We put the two softer K6s in the front so that we could at least turn the car if the K4s would be as slippy as everybody warned us. They were. It was like trying to drive a shopping cart with stearable front wheels through the stages. No matter how carefully Jari was driving the rear was trying to overtake us all the time. Looking from the co-driver's seat the amount of work Jari had to do was frustrating to watch. Obviously even more frustrating for him. Now we learned a lesson about the tyres.

Another issue was a lack of power. For some reason there are now ponies missing from the engine and we'll take the car to a dyno to find a reason. With the right tyres and with the normal power the next round will hopefully be easier for us. Would be nice to get a trouble free rally since the roads in Kouvola area are really challenging and require all the concentration available if you want to have times near the front runners.

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.

SM-Itäralli, Joensuu 9th of March

Finally my home event is back in the Finnish rally championship calendar. Nowadays I live in Helsinki, but I still regard Itäralli as my home event. I don't even have to lie when saying that Itäralli has the best roads in the championship. Ask any driver or co-driver. The roads are sometimes fast, sometimes slower. All the time going up and down the hillsides. Simply brilliant.

The rally started with the normal recce on Friday. Nothing much to report. The only out of the ordinary thing was towing one of our fellow competitors out of a snowbank when his Renault Megane had slid of the road. I haven't been very impressed with my Volvo XC60 as a winter car especially since it doesn't want to turn at all. Have to give it thumbs up as a towing truck however. Didn't even break a sweat getting the Renault out of the ditch. In the evening we relaxed at one of Jari's friends place and went to sauna and a jacuzzi. The jacuzzi was on his backyard. I'm not kidding. It was awesome to sit in a warm jacuzzi in the middle of the Finnish winter.

Saturday's first special stage wasn't the best for us. I made one mistake when reading the notes (luckily an obvious one in an easy place) and Jari also took it on the safe side. Our main competitors had pressed flat out so we took a beating. On the second stage we drove better, but still took a beating again. Not fun. On the third one we lost a lot of time again. This time we were a little bit amazed since that kind of a stage would have normally suited Jari's driving style. Jari was complaining that the car was little out of breath. After the third stage we headed to service where Eero from Printsport connected his laptop to our car's motec. The analysis indicated that our turbo wasn't giving the boost it should on the lower spectrum of rev band and was giving normal boost only on the high revs. Well that explained some of the lacking speed. Not all of it though.

From service we headed to super special stage on Joensuu horse track. Nothing to comment on that. It was a super special... Stages number 5 and 6 were the best on the rally. The fifth a super fast roller coaster of a stage! We don't have our own incar films in youtube but here is the stage from Juha Salo's car Juha Salo, Itäralli, stage 5 Stage number 6 was 30km long spectacular piece of road. Mostly really fast, but between 20-25km you had 5km section of really technical small road again some incar footage from Juha Salo's car. Juha Salo, Itäralli, stage 6 What can I say about the stages. The stopwatch didn't like our work again, but the stages themselves were awesome! On these kinds of roads you know why you love rallying. In the end of stage six the started some noise from the back of the car and on the road section towards service it started to get worse. We checked the propshaft bolts and they seemed to be tight. The noise seemed to be somehow linked to the propshaft since the noise came an went. It didn't gradually get worse like normally when something is about to explode. We limped to service where the Printsport mechanics were waiting also to help out our own mechanics to diagnose the problem. It turbned that vulcanization of the propshaft had been damaged and it was causing the vibration. Full credit to the mechanics for the service. Diagnosing the problem and changing the propshaft took around 17 minutes. I was still stuffing pasta in my mouth when they reported that the car is good to go.

Stages number 7 and 8 were the same as stages 1 and 2. Except now we drove in the dark. We changed our driving style to be more aggressive and it immediately helped. On those stages the time difference to fastest guys dropped to the same level as in Mikkeli. Also we managed to climb a couple of places on the last two stages to 11th overall. Stil not exactly the result we were looking for. On the positive side we managed to analyze what we were doing wrong and know it in this kind of stages in the future.

The next Finnish championship rally is in the middle of June in Laihia so now it's the time to do some servicing to the Mitsubishi. Obviously we need a new turbo, there are always bushes to be changed, etc etc. Before Laihia we have to get some gravel experience of the car since we haven't driven one meter with it on gravel yet. Hopefully I'll be updating my blog with rallying stuff during April and May even though the championship continues in June.

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.

Finnish 4wd rally cars, the future?

I know that I'm touching a sensitive subject here, but the idea is so tempting that I just can't let it pass. Could we use non-homologated cars in Finnish 4wd championship? The same goes for 2wd cars also, but in my eyes the 4wd class is more vulnerable with the already high costs and cars that are sooner or later going to meet the end of their homologation.

I read from new Hanaa! -magazine about Esapekka Lappi's rally in Spain and there it was mentioned that in Spain there is a possibility to build your own "N1" 4wd rally cars using Mitsusubishi Evo's or Subaru's mechanical parts. The suspension can be whatever and same goes for electrics. Weight of the car either 1200kg or 1300kg depending if you are using a 34mm or 36mm restrictor. Chassis has to be from a production car (I'm not interested in seeing "I did it myself group B fiberglass works of art") and you can fit a bodykit to fit the axles.

As an eternal pessimist I'm worried that the price for new R5 cars is going to be out of reach for many 4wd drivers in Finland. And I guess that goes for many other countries also. The possibility to lift the group N mechanical parts to some other car would enable having many different brands on our rally stages which otherwise would never show up to Finnish rallying. All you need is a cheap chassis donor car from Germany or one that some Finnish insurance company has "bought" with exploded air bags. Then put the roll cage in and fit the mechanical parts. I'm not even trying to speculate if the mechanics fit to some car or would the suspension work at all, but I can't help but speculate with some of the cars out there. Or what how big would the resale market for these cars be. For example your own WRC/S2000 replicas: Fabia, Fiesta, DS3, Countryman or Polo
Why stop there if you can use your imagination? Here are some of my personal favorites for thinking outside the box: Alfa Romeo Giulietta, BMW 135 Coupe, Hyundai Veloster, Toyota GT86 and Audi A1.

One can always speculate with wild ideas. Most likely these kind of rule changes are never going to happen in Finland, but it's always fun to think "what if".

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.

Team sport

Of course rallying is a team sport and you rely a lot on the people around you. The driver trusts the co-driver and the other way around. Both rely on their mechanics. During rallies all spend their time next to each other in hotels rooms, recce car, rally car and service car. You have to get along and more or less work under pressure. For anyone who knows the sport this goes without saying. A team sport.

There's also another aspect to rallying being a team sport. For most part the rallying community is a social punch of people and that's why I like it. Since the cars are start to stages on championship order you are always next to your main competitors. That doesn't really make a difference. Most of the crews are still finding it easy to chit chat when waiting in line to get to the stages. When somebody has had difficulties with the car setup there are easily 3-5 people speculating the setup and what could help. Same goes for lending stuff like tape, batteries, pliers etc when you are on the stages. On the service park the stuff that you lend/sell are just bigger -> windscreens, drive shafts, bumpers etc. The kind of an unwritten rule is that if you can't beat the opposition with driving skills then they simply are faster than you. Can't call this a team effort, but maybe more of a close community effort.

Merikarvia rally 18th of August

A couple of weeks after Neste Rally Finland it was time to get back to our familiar Finnish championship. The championship continued near Pori in Merikarvia. The good thing was that the playing field was equal to everybody. There hadn't been a championship rally near Pori in ages so the stages were new to everyone. The stages turned out to be mostly fast and wide, but then you suddenly were also driving on narrow and slow roads. A quick attitude change was required from time to time. 

We started the first stage with our normal pace. After the stage it was a bit of a surprise to find out that we had been fastest in our class with a margin of almost 17 seconds. Obviously driving the NORF a couple of weeks earlier helped to keep rust out of driver's wrists. The second stage was interesting. First driving on a really narrow "summer cottage road" and then in the blasting several kilometers flat out without even touching the brake pedal of our R2 Fiesta. We lost time to bigger engine d Honda Civics, but again were fastest in our class. 

The third and fourth stages followed the same pattern. Driving with our normal rhythm and being fastest in our own class. The most interesting part of the rally was stage number five. By being 44km long it was roughly half of the rally. The stage also had very challenging roads so it wasn't a stage you could just cruise through. We tried to attack on the stage since it suited our small R2 car quite well and the was a slim chance of catching Ville Hautamäki's civic which was only 15 seconds ahead of us. We didn't catch Ville, but managed to win our class by 1min30s so can't complain. The overall championship standings after Merikarvia remain very interesting. Joonas Lindroos secured the 2wd championship win, but Andreas is in a close battle with Ville Hautamäki for the second place in the season finale in Kerava on the 15th of September.

WRC, Neste Oil Rally Finland 1-4th of August

Secret agent Austin Powers had a "things to do before I die" list in of one the movies. On my list was to one day be able to participate in Finland's WRC event. The rally of the Thousand lakes, the rally of the Thousand tales, Suurajot, Jyskälä. Many names, but everybody knows what the names mean. Well that can now be marked as done. And at the same time got to co-drive through long version (33km) of Ouninpohja. Twice.

But If we start from the beginning. Preparation for "Jyskälä" had been long and Andreas had done a big job of securing sponsors, spare parts, mechanics etc. I helped more on the normal side of team plans, fuel calculations, hotel reservations and so on. The recce from Monday to Wednesday was surprisingly relaxed we had enough time to drive through the stages with some thought and get good pace notes.

The rally really started on Thursday. The not so fun part was to drive 1,5 hours from Jyväskylä to Lahti for three stages. Then back to Jyväskylä. All the cars gathered to Lahti harbour for people to see and hear the drivers being interviewed. My girlfriend was there to see me which was nice.

Posing in Lahti harbour. The shiny blue MIR suit is good for blocking all the sun heat. Picture by Tiina Ketolainen.

From Lahti we drove to the first proper stage Koukunmaa. The first stage didn't go too well for us. We were both quite nervous. In the beginning of the stage I was reading too much forwards and Andreas wasn't driving on the car's limits either. After the stage we got our act together since what was there to be nervous about. More people, but the same Finnish roads as usual.  The next stage was a super special in Lahti horse race track. We managed to drive on a normal rhythm and beat our Norwegian partner. Third and final stage for the day was Mynnilä. It was already 10pm when we started the stage and we even installed extra headlights.

In Mynnilä stage. Picture by "Juha_Koo"

It was good to get a couple of good stages after the first nervous one. After Mynnilä it was time to head back to Jyväskylä and the night service. Luckily we had excellent mechanics in the service so we didn't have to worry about them to check the car and getting it to parc fermé. It was quite late when we finally managed get back to hotel. Around 12.30am or so.

After 5-5,5 hours of sleep it was time to get up and head to breakfast. Normally you would be quite tired with so short sleep, but since you were so exited to continue the rally you didn't even feel that tired. Friday started with Urria and its famous jump. We took the jump carefully and managed to drive a good time for the morning. A good start. Next stage was 22km long Jukojärvi. I personally really enjoyed the stage. As a road it wasn't too fast or too slow. All the time turning somewhere.

Picture by "Jack Bacon"

After Jukojärvi we headed to service. After the service we were to drive first round of stages Mökkiperä, Palsankylä and Lankamaa. Mökkiperä didn't start too well. One of our biggest competitors Jukka Korhonen had gone off into a ditch and that distracted us a little bit. The car didn't block us in any way, but you immediately started to think "what does this mean in the overall results?". Until that point we had been driving stage times which were only few seconds apart. Palsankylä went quite OK. Personally I liked Lankamaa stage a lot. It's a very difficult stage for a driver and a co-driver. At some point it's really fast and then slower. All the time quite narrow. But if you have good pace notes the speeds are in some sections quite respectable.

Entering a junction. Picture by Tiina Ketolainen.

Then back to service and going to Mökkiperä, Palsankylä and Lankamaa for the second time. The roads were rougher, but not too bad since people had been scaring us before the rally that they would be even worse. Not much to report about the second round except I again enjoyed the Lankamaa stage a lot. There was a small timing error in the Lankamaa stage and for a short period of time the results showed us being fourth overall in the standings right behind Citroën and Ford factory cars. People cracked a few jokes about that. The very last stage for the day was Killeri super special. The Norwegians beat us this time since we took the first round a bit too carelessly. But the rally had been going OK and we were happy to get through the day without any problems. Also we were looking forward to getting a good night sleep since around 7,5 hours of sleep was in the cards.

Posing with Tuija Huttunen. One of the many people who in Finnish rally training donate countless hours of their personal spare time helping  the young drivers. I'm still quite energetic at 10.30pm and with only 5,5hours of sleep on the previous night. Picture by Juha Huttunen (also one of the helping people in training)

Saturday. The last day of rally Finland. Still around 143km of special stages to go. 66km of those driven in legendary Ouninpohja. Leustu 1 and Surkee 1 started the day however. Leustu was a very nice stage. First on a smaller road and then on a really fast section. We had a bit of a moment in one left hand junction where a down hill braking caught us by surprise. Lost a couple of seconds since Andreas had to throw the car more sideways than optimal and that kills the momentum with a fwd car. After Leustu 1 and Surkee 1 we had service then the same stages were driven again. We took a bit of a gamble by continuing with a low car. We speculated that the roads might stay in better condition than they actually really where. Well you win some and you loose some. Sometimes you have to make decisions.

Some deep ruts on Leustu or Surkee junction. Picture by "Jack Bacon"

After the service was the legendary Ouninpohja. We tried to convince each other that it's just a Finnish road like every other stage. Still in the start line of Ouninpohja 1 you could sense our concentration was above normal. First you have 6-7km of fast roads going up and down, then the really fast sections going basically flat out, then the Kakaristo junction and after fast narrow road almost to the finish line. The first run wasn't easy for us and we were pretty humble guys at the finish line. In the beginning I read a bit too much forwards until I got the rhythm improved. Also Andreas had his hands full since there were places on the stage where we were jumping even though we didn't have it in the notes. The stage really is that fast even for a R2 Fiesta.

One of Ouninpohja crests. Picture by Jenni Lehtola.

Storming through Ouninpohja. Picture by "Jack Bacon"

Jumping again. Picture by "Jack Bacon"

Landing. The normal ride height isn't that low. Picture by "Jack Bacon"

Second time through Ouninpohja was much easier. The stage was more or less in muscle memory and you knew what to expect. Still at one slower left hand corner I realized that the pace was so fast I hadn't had a chance to fully inhale during the past couple of kilometers. Funny what you might notice during such a fast special stage.

At the Ouninpohja 2 finish we were happy and sad. Happy that we were second in class behind Joonas Lindroos and also at the same time second fastest 2wd car. Sad that the rally was over. We had virtually no problems during the rally and the stages were spectacular. The atmosphere on stages and even on the road sections is unbelievable. There are people standing by the road and waving even on the road sections. If you need to pass someone on the road sections they try to make as much room as possible and wave when you pass them by. What an adventure. Hopefully got a chance to go back again.

On the podium celebrating the second place. Picture by Juha Huttunen.

SM Vaakuna rally, Mikkeli 26th of February 2012

Winter season's final Finnish Rally Championship round was held in Mikkeli. Luckily the weather wasn't as cold as the previous year when the temperature was around -32 celcius.

The rally started already on Friday evening with an 11 kilometer super special stage. The stage circled on a horse racing track before heading into the woods. In the woods the road was narrow and had a lot of loose snow outside the ruts. We lost some time when the rear stepped out of the ruts a couple of times.

Picture by "Jack Bacon"

On Saturday morning things luckily turned brighter. Long and challenging stage number 2 went really well. We beat Joonas Lindroos by ten seconds and took the class lead. However the class lead disappeared during the next two stages. Those were wide and fast roads. We don't have a lot of power in our car so if the rear steps out even a little bit it kills the speed.

Before the last stage the situation was clear. Joonas was leading by 15 seconds so without his mistake positions weren't going to change. The last stage went really well and we even managed to catch the car which started ahead of us. We weren't able to pass him so we just cruised to the finish. After steady start of the season we are now second in the 2wd championship so things are really well after the winter season. Next round of the Finnish Rally Championship will be held on 8-9th of June.

Picture by "Jack Bacon"

Arctic Lapland Rally, 27th-28th of January 2012

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.

The second stage was a proper stage with 23km of fast roads. We lost 5 seconds to the class leader, but we were happy to get the rally properly under way. I managed to be late with the pace notes once when going through somebody's yard, but luckily there wasn't anything tricky with the corner and had the time to catch up immediately. After this stage we entered the service for the first time and then headed for two long stages which were to be driven in the dark.


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.

ALR 2012 Stage 10, 47km

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.