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.

Co-driver's equipment

Someone asked once that why my equipment bag is so big? Simply because as a co-driver you have to carry a lot of stuff with you to the rallies.

First of all you have the normal stuff that the driver's also have: suit, underwear, socks, shoes, balaclava, HANS device, helmet, camel bag. The HANS device and helmet aren't something you easily carry in a bag since they require a lot of space. Especially the helmet. These take a lot of space in the bag since the rest of co-driver's equipment fit into a compact space. Driver's also have gloves, but obviously those don't mean much space wise. Instead of gloves I have two watches. One as a primary watch and the other as a back up.

Then the stuff in the co-driver's bag: Pace note book or two depending on a rally, different kinds of pencils/pens, extra led for pencils, eraser, a notepad for keeping team plans and other papers, organizer's road book, a small flashlight, electrical tape(always handy to have around), spare battery for watches, spare battery for intercom, couple of spare fuses, couple of protein bars, couple of recovery drinks, mobile phone, small piece of cloth for wheel nuts so that they don't melt inside the snow when changing tires from front to back, small screwdriver, small pliers.

In winter rallies I also have a couple of chemical "glove warmers" which warm up when you open the package. Nice to have if you retire and have to wait a couple of hours standing on a snow bank. Of course you have your normal winter clothing in the car with you, but since the warmers only weight some tens of grams they are nice to have around.  For testing I have a map book with all the roads in Finland. That isn't with me inside the rally car simply because it takes a lot of space and weighs maybe half a kilo.

So that's pretty much it. A lot more than just a pace note book and a road book that many picture the co-driver to have in a rally car. Of course it would be lighter to drive around without many of the items, but if they weight roughly a kilo then it doesn't make that much of a difference in my eyes. The annoyance of not having them around when you need them is bigger than the extra weight carried inside the car.

Tahko-ralli 13th of October 2012, Nilsiä

After Finnish rally championship had ended I had a chance to sit one rally in my brother's group F BMW M3. My friend Aki who normally co-drives for my brother Mikko couldn't make it and of course I volunteered to sit in the M3. I had gotten used to the Fiesta R2 with 170hp, top speed of  ~160km/h and pace notes in my hand. In M3 you´ve got a bit under 300hp, top speed of  ~200km/h and no pace notes. So a bit of mental adjustment to be done. We all headed to Nilsiä already on Friday since the start was so early that there was no sense to wake up 3am in the morning if you tried to sleep at home. At Nilsiä there were 91km of special stages so a nice long rally for one day.

It wasn't to be our rally unfortunately. The roads were really fast. We just didn't have the guts to leave the braking points as late as the fastest drivers when the speeds were over 150km/h or so. On some stages we were banging against the rev limiter and the digital speedometer was showing 205km/h. On stage number five our average speed was 130km/h and the fastest cars had 136km/h. On legendary Ouninpohja stage in Rally Finland the average speed is 130km/h -> with WRC cars and using pace notes. In the beginning of the rally we had some under steering problems, but we got those sorted out in the first service. After that the driving was easier and Mikko had more confidence in the M3.

Picture by Ari Lehikoinen. Ari is the man who has sprayed the orange colour on Mikko's M3. Ari also paints other stuff than car so a true artist.

But it was a nice event and definitely my last rally for this year. There aren't any more rallies in Finnish rally calendar so all I can do is to wait for next year. If there aren't any major changes in plans probably the next time I'm sitting in a rally car is during winter testing around Christmas time. I counted that during 2012 I did 7 FRC events, 2 smaller local rallies, Neste Rally Finland and some testing. So 10 rallies + roughly 5 weekends of testing. Added to that physical training and pace note training. It's good to unwind a little bit now that I have the chance.

Talotekniikka10 ralli 15th of September 2012, Kerava

What a fantastic rally! We were fighting for second place in the Finnish 2wd championship, bu that wasn't meant to be. The stages were mostly really fast and there was no hope of fighting against more powerful Civic type-r of Ville Hautamäki. That became very clear after two first stages.

Picture by Marko Mäkinen, official pictures of Finnish Rally Championship

That didn't spoil the day though. We had an excellent battle in our class with Joonas Lindroos' C2 R2 and Jukka Korhonen's Fiesta R2. All three were inside few seconds on every stage. For example on sixth stage only two tenths of a second separated us and Lindroos. On the next one all three drove exactly the same time! Not even a tenth of a second separating the cars. We weren't fighting for championship points, just for bragging rights so it was good fun. Of course we had to finish the rally with Andreas. But on the other hand it's easier to drive fast than just cruise around. So after a lot of fast driving we finished third in our class and sixth overall among 2wd cars. That meant we finished third in the championship. Can't complain and have to be really happy about the result. There were seven rallies in the championship and none of the top three cars retired even once. Our lowest class result was fourth with two wins, three second places and one third place. With those results I can just look back and say that it was a good season! And of course not forgetting the biggest adventure of the year -> our WRC round Neste Oil Rally Finland. For a first timer it was a dream come true to be on the legendary stages. Especially when we had trouble free rally and a great result.

Only constant in life is change and that goes for rallying also. Have to write something about next season when year 2013 is nearer. Before that there is still one more training weekend at the Vierumäki sports center. So saying hi to the now already familiar rowing machine. Good fun if you are into masochistic stuff :) But before that still one more rally. Co-driving for my brother in his M3. Let the gravel fly!

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.