National Rally championships News

[svstock]

Rally Kurzeme-2013
Spin, off, some close calls, jump, water's plash.

That water plash aren't natural?.. that water flow

[Rallyper]

Tarmac and speed - versus handling of car in hands of drivers not able to come out good from hazardous situations. (Having said without knowing circumstances today - but generally speaking tarmac gives a much more dangerous way of doing rallies. Especially when there´s a combination of high speeds)

[EightGear]

Tarmac and speed - versus handling of car in hands of drivers not able to come out good from hazardous situations. (Having said without knowing circumstances today - but generally speaking tarmac gives a much more dangerous way of doing rallies. Especially when there´s a combination of high speeds)

The brakes didn't work anymore.

[KKSF]

That water plash aren't natural?.. that water flow

Correct, it's manmade.

[WUff1]

To won the national title already by the end of August (start of the second half of the seson) definetely meens that championship itself was booring, without competition.

In Austria Raimund Baumschlager is already champion 2013 (for the 11th time) - a very similar situation to other countries with the dominating drivers being older experienced, but still very fast drivers, who´s international chances/times are more or less gone, except when international rallies take place in their home countries (e.g. now Pech at Barum)

[ChristianArp]

And what about Kim Madsen for his first outing in the official 208 R2(finished 12th overall)

Drove decently I guess, was very obvious that he was uncertain of the car.
Spoke to him Friday night during the 'rallyshow' (basically stage 3+6 used as shakedown) and he said it was really fun to drive, but that it was very strange to him still. Friday night was his first run at real speed, we don't really have testing here.
He said that he needed to get used to the fact that the car feels the same inside, but is a lot narrower than the Maxi - and that he no longer needs to ease on the throttle..
He did look nervous on the high speed sections where I was on stage 8 and 10, but looked to be pushing more and more during the day in the 'normal' sections.
Also, he stills runs according to the Danish seeding system, so he started among Evos and Maxis on stages that were laps of the same route. I know at least once he was bothered because Steen Andersen was about to catch him on a long section of straights, but then he could maintain the gap (he could see him in the mirrors, but didn't affect either) in the next twisty section through a forest.
Besides, for the spectators it was a strange sight to see a small standard-ish looking car in between the bigger and much louder cars.

In our national rallies, he should be a lock to win class 2, and should challenge for Division B honours for r2 and r3 cars.
Especially since it seems Klaus Hammer will be out for a fair while.

[EightGear]

Unfortunately, it is now official: A woman has died after the car crashed into the spectators during the Amsterdam Rallysprint. Three further spectators are (heavily) injured.....

Some witnesses say they were sent away from their spectating spot twice by the marshalls, but they didn't listen and kept returning.

RIP.

[CameraMan]

Video from Rally Kurzeme 2013 (saturday): rally-video.eu/2013-kurzeme-rally-video/ (G.Gross, A. Lukyanuk, R.Kvaraciejus, E.Kaur, O.Tänak, V.Gryazin, mistakes, jumps and etc.)

[tommeke_B]

Tarmac and speed - versus handling of car in hands of drivers not able to come out good from hazardous situations. (Having said without knowing circumstances today - but generally speaking tarmac gives a much more dangerous way of doing rallies. Especially when there´s a combination of high speeds)

This incident had nothing to do with gravel on tarmac. The problem is the positioning of spectators in this one. A car can lose brakes on both gravel and tarmac... Other than that, there are more fatal accidents on tarmac, but there are much more events on tarmac in Europe as well...

If my memory is correct, a very similar accident happened in Barneveld some years ago (2007-2008??), where a car missed junction (after losing brakes) and went into the public. Any Dutch member can confirm? The danger in the straights after junctions is very underestimated in many countries...

RIP...

[Pille]

Some pictures from Kurzeme rally: Kuramaa ralli - Rally Kurzeme

Also, very sad to hear about the rallysprint accident. Awful news