National Rally championships News

[uranium]

Just one remark, Alexander Saliuk is Ukrainian driver, but is using Kazakh license this year.

[sindroms]

"Rally Kurzeme 2013", Latvian championship leg and Estonian as well, this weekend - friday and saturday, shakedown today in 16:00(CET). Entries - http://autorally.lv/?l=2&m=2 - Kahle (GER) on ancient Octavia WRC, Kangur on R5, Tanak vs. Lukyanuk. Great battle ahead, first twelves in list - everyone is fighter for podium.

[ChristianArp]

In Denmark, the roadbook for the fourth round of the championship has been published. The race has been promoted 'in secret' as one of the most challenging stage-wise for many years, and in an area almost never used for rallying before. When I say in secret, I mean by word-of-mouth from the organisers, not through press releases - then again, that's how it's done here, you rarely see press releases from the races themselves. Basically, none of the drivers are from anywhere close to the area of the stages, and new stages, so should be everyone starting from scratch on pacenotes purely.
I will be marshalling on stages 1+4 and later on when the stage is reused and expanded into stages 8+10. Will try and do a little update during lunch, if we aren't swamped with the changes to the stage.

Looking forward to seeing the following:
- will Esben Hegelund build on the confidence from having won an event (he won round 3)?
- how will the top guys respond to longer stages than is normal here? Christian Jensen in particular..
- will anyone be able to follow the foreigners? Joachim Grahn (Focus WRC05) and Rune Danneborg (Fiesta S2000) will be here to challenge.
- how will the speed compare between group N and s2000? Tim Svanholt seems to build on his pace every time he's in the car.
- will Kim Madsen be able to win 2wd outright (r2 and r3)? I expect him to take class 2, but will he be able to challenge Hammer and McBride in faster cars?
- Morten Karl or Kenneth Madsen for Tuned National? Kenneth has a brand new engine, claiming 20bhp more and 'significantly' more torque.. And the race is called Suzuki Rally, should be extra motivation.

Should be interesting, weather forecast says cloudy around 17 degrees all day, with scattered mini-showers during the day. Should be a day on slicks all the way through, but this is the Danish weather service we are talking about.. might as well end up being a torrential downpour all day.

And for interested parties, here's the roadbook with stage maps.
http://www.rallydanmark.dk/DM4/Sydhavs_rutebog_13.pdf

[MartijnS]

Hellendoorn Rally in the Netherlands looks like to be a good one this year, 3 weeks from now.

3x Ford Fiesta WRC: Dennis Kuipers, Peter Versluis, Bas van Kamperdijk
1x Ford Focus WRC: Erik van Loon
1x Citroën DS3 WRC: Peter van Merksteijn
1x Skoda Fabia WRC: Gert Huzink (probably..is driving Amsterdam Rallysprint this weekend with that car)
1x Mitsubishi Lancer WRC: Bob de Jong (probably)
1x Citroën C4 WRC: Jeroen Swaanen (probably)

Some more WRC's could be entering, but I think these will be it for now.

[Tom206wrc]

Why Nicolas Althaus back at the wheels of a 207 S2000 on next week's Rally Valli Cuneesi(italian round of swiss rallies championship) ??? Has Skoda Switzerland stopped

[rage82]

I'm looking at the results of Kurzeme rally and Lukyanuk has a minute penalty in the first stage. Without it he would be 2-nd overall after 7 stages today. Another very impressive drive if he can keep it on the road until the end.

[VFTS]

Mads Ostberg fastest on shakedown today. Rally Telemark in Norway starts saturday

Rally Telemark: Tider fra shakedown

[bluuford]

I'm looking at the results of Kurzeme rally and Lukyanuk has a minute penalty in the first stage. Without it he would be 2-nd overall after 7 stages today. Another very impressive drive if he can keep it on the road until the end.

He went to swim with his car in previuos rally (into the pond) and sadly it looks like it is not good for the cars.. Today he had also some probems.. So, not good to park your car into the lake :-P

[miniwintz]

Apparently clutch problems in SS12, it seems like he won't finish the rally

[Tom206wrc]

In Denmark victory for IB Kragh in front of Christian Jensen and Asben Hegelund
Full results on RallyResult.dk - Som at være der selv