Short post because the event that is described needs to be seen live. Black on white doesn’t present it well.
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Rally Chumatskiy Shlyah ’19
In southern Ukraine, near Odesa, men last time gathered to finish Ukraine’s championship affairs at the Chumatskiy Shlyah rally. Like all the events, it was on gravel. Even though the weather was great at the rally time, previous weather conditions meant that you could distinguish a car only by its shape – color, sponsor stickers, and other design elements were hiding underneath a thick layer of dirt. In addition, several stages were canceled with a bunch of other organizational difficulties. Rally Chumatskiy Shlyah.
Continue reading…Niederösterreich Rallye ’19
Between Vienna and Linz, the fastest of the Austrian Rally gathered for the sixth round of the Austrian Rally Championship. Niederösterreich Rallye. There the main battles took place between the two crews, which chased each other throughout the season. One, then the other takes the victory, and the rest of the participants can only dream of a third position at best. Those two crews are 2016 champion Hermann Neubauer with Ford Fiesta R5 and young talent Julian Wagner with Škoda Fabia R5. Although Hermann has more victories, the unfinished opening event caused trouble for him, as he needed to chase Wagner whole season in terms of points. This Niederosterreich rally was won by Neubauer again, reducing the gap to 8 points. The Austrian champion will be revealed in the middle of November during the Rallye W4.
Continue reading…Hellendoorn Rally ’19
This time we will travel to the eastern part of the Netherlands, the Hellendoorn neighborhood, where the event of the Dutch Rally Championship takes place every year. 170 kilometers of stages were waiting for the participants. Although this rally is officially a tarmac event, crews have to sweat a lot to try to get their car on the gravel and sand. Not to mention when the rain comes. Roads run through villages and small towns, so from time to time, there are gravel roads. Also, drivers tend to cut corners heavily and the road gets dirty pretty quickly. Some drivers, intentionally or unintentionally, have the ability to cut a meter – another even through cornfields. And here’s a brief look at the Dutch Championship itself and the guest who has only missed one of this event in a decade.
Continue reading…Escort Rally Special ’19
In the southern part of Belgium, just off the French border, in the vicinity of the old Chimay racetrack, this is the second year of the event, which has been dedicated to one of the most iconic rally cars – the Ford Escort. And this is Escort Rally Special Rally.
Continue reading…East Sweden Rally ’19
This winter, Sweden’s Patrik Flodin was among the returnees in Sweden’s WRC event, including Gronholm, Bertelli, and Tuohino. This Swede I think will be remembered by those who followed the Production WRC Championship 2007-2011. Patrik has been faithfully driving Subaru Impreza all those years and almost twice won the PWRC Championship. In 2010, he was beaten by now well-known Hayden Paddon, and in 2011 – by Portuguese star Armindo Araujo. The Swede no longer took the title for the third time. In 2012, he traveled to famous European rallies with the Ford Fiesta S2000 and then landed in his native Sweden, where he drove the classic Volvo and BMW E30 models. The question was, did the Swede return to serious R5 technique only for the winter or will he continue to participate all year? East Sweden Rally had an answer.
Continue reading…Woodpecker Stages Rally ’19
The R5 Rally Car Class is a great move from the FIA. This class dominates the national championships and is a great stepping stone to the World Rally Championship. Some manufacturers are doing better, their cars are dominant, and buyers have the longest queues. For others, it is harder to succeed, lacking in speed and reliability. And a new player has recently entered this highly competitive pot of Škoda, Ford, Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Citroen. Probably it is unlikely to reach heights like rivals because it is a private initiative, not a manufacturer’s project, but diversity is a welcome thing. And we’re talking about a British project where a Japanese engine sits in a chassis from Malaysia. Globalization, in other words.
Continue reading…Vosges Rallye Festival ’19
Recently, we have a look at the Top Fry Rally, which is a race between historic cars and, quite often, historic drivers. This time the theme is very similar – the same historic cars with the same historical drivers as Stig Blomquist, Timo Salonen, or the father of legendary Colin Mcrea – Jimmy Mcrea. The difference is one but fundamental. At an event like the Vosges Rallye Festival in France or the Eifel Rallye Festival in Germany, there is no counting time for the stages, so there are no results after the rally.
Continue reading…Barum Czech Rally Zlin ’19
Barum Czech Rally Zlin is one of the most famous and iconic rallies in Central Europe. For thirty-five years, this event has been immovable in the European Rally Championship calendar. At the same time, it is the Czech Championship round. It is special for its roads, located in the southeastern part of the Czech Republic, in the outskirts of city Zlin. Those roads are very narrow, twisted in hills, forests, and villages with very variable quality of tarmac, which often gots dirty when drivers cut the corners. Every turn there requires maximum accuracy, and for the co-drivers, it is not easy to read the pace notes under these conditions. Alongside these extremely challenging roads, thousands of rally fans gather to watch the spectacle and cheer their favorites.
Continue reading…Samsonas Rally Rokiškis ’19
When autumn comes, it’s a lot of fun to remember things that happened in the summer. Samsonas Rally Rokiškis was a good affair in the northern part of Lithuania. Samsonas name and quality of the rally attract very interesting participants. Some are doing better, others – worse. And what happened in early August? Fastest Lithuanian driver Vaidotas Žala with his Škoda Fabia R5 left no chances for others in Rokiškis region roads. But with this article, we will not tell a great Lithuanian rally epic, but rather honor a rare guest on the stages, but a very active person in a rally world. And past years only Lithuanians have the opportunity to see the legend flying on their country’s roads. Since 2012, Toni Gardemeister has only one official competition a year. He visited Latvia, Estonia, even the Barbados Rally described earlier. Well, for the last two years the Finn has been playing Lithuanian gravel roads with the BMW M3.
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