Finnish rallying championship news

http://rallirinki.kuvat.fi/kuvat/100...JPG?img=img900

Last Saturday was national rally held near Jyväskylä called Jyväskylän Suurajot - 1000 Lakes Rally. That name might ring a bell... I think this was now 4th time for event to be held as such, in the midsummer with emphasis on the historic rally cars. This year around 165 cars started and some 40% of them in historic classes. Event had 5 stages near Petäjävesi and Uurainen, and like always with Central Finnish rallies, some of these stages has been used in the WRC event as well. Beautiful fast roads with a lot of going up and down, flowing bends as well as treacherous bends. We did SS1 in whole, some 40 cars in SS3 and most of the cars in SS5.

On SS1 we stayed at a tightening right after a faster section. Young birch trees on the left, about hundred rally fans on the right. That section continued with an S-bend, and a little later on another set of S-bends if you walked around. Very nice, that is. 6-7 cars had close calls there, going wide. First car to roll was a small Fiesta, unfortunate braking that let the rear end loose and the car spun and rolled. That was so early in the corner that I didn't even see it, only heard. A little later we saw a much heavier crash. BMW entered the corner too fast and too wide, soon after exiting the road rear left hit a stone and the car rolled around 3 times into the trees. Crew okey, car not so. 3-4 trees thick as a leg got chopped in a blink. Car was well into the trees, but it took less than 10 minute from spectators to got it back on the road and pulled away. Funny thing - or "funny" - it was my friend's friend that drove that BMW, first proper event, first stage... It's tough how it takes a long time to build a car and then three minutes into the stage, crash, and months work again. This picture tells a lot. You can see the crash here - the whole video is very nicely done by the way.

For SS5 (parts of SS Kuohu from old 1000 Lakes) we opted for the first corner of the stage, a tightening left. Only a few slides there, it was quite close to the start of the stage, so not so high speed. But it was nice place to spend the rest of the day anyway.

Here's a crash compilation video from SS2 which had a treacherous left-hander that was the most action-filled place on the rally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhZ2Jxt2EYY

Here's my friend's photos from the event: 1000 Lakes 2013

And now I've reached the moment where next rally for me is Rally Finland. There are one national event next weekend and FRC event the weekend after that, but those I will miss other activities.

Nikara with Mini WRC for the next FRC event in Kouvola too.

Also Fredrik Åhlin makes a return :-)

The rally is tomorrow! Results same pages as before!

So, in Kouvola a very tight fight between Salo and Vihavainen. Both were pushing very hard and the whole time it was matter of seconds. But in the end Vihavainen made a mistake on SS7 and lost 19 secs so the battle was over and Salo won. The route was not similar to previous Kouvola FRCs, as it was faster this year.

Take a look of this onboard from SS4 Salo/Salminen, average speed of 135kph... Sensation of speed on the field sections is not so evident, but wait for the final section of the stage when they "dive" into the forest around 04:45, crazy! :eek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXpLAQBC2zM

Also, SS6 Salo/Salminen: SM O.K autoralli, ss6, Juha Salo, Lancer Evo X R4 - YouTube

This video contains footage from two different difficult right handers, take a look of the corner speeds on the second one, pretty crazy! (Lindroos for example) (also few mistakes and one big crash): O.K. Auto Ralli, Kouvola 13.7.2013 - YouTube

Oh, and I forgot. Two stars of the rally for me were Matias Kauppinen and Vasily Gryazin.

Gryazin showed very good stage times (2x4th, 3x3rd, 1x2nd & 1st), overall he was fourth, +47,3 secs from Salo. In my opinion this is a very good result, especially when he sure lost some time on the superfast sections with S2000.

In SM3 it was a very tight rally. Matias Kauppinen showed some great speed, in the end he was second in the class, +6,3 secs from Lindroos which IMHO is very good. He won Lindroos on five stages. A small shame that Kauppinen will drive NORF with GrN. Subaru and not Citroen, I'm sure he would be really fast on NORF stages among 2WD competitors. For Jaro Kinnunen it was a short rally - 1km from SS1 start a problem with water system resulted in overheat and they had to retire.

Vasily Gryazin certainly made an impression among the 4wd cars. Really well driven for a guy of his age.

SM3 class is always the class to watch for. That's where the real battles are nowadays and impossible to say before the rally in which order are the top 5 drivers. Matias Kauppinen drove a brilliant rally. Lindroos has had to push to the limit this year. No matter what he says in the interviews :)

I would like to include one more name to the "stars of the rally". Jari Huttunen drove really close to the SM3 class top drivers' stage times on the two first two stages. Exception being that Huttunen drives an old GSI Kadett and WITHOUT pace notes :eek: Would have been interesting to see his pace for the rest of the rally, but he had crashed on stage number three. Was he then pushing too much? Maybe. Maybe not. Don't know what caused the crash. When finding the limits you sometimes crash.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Susiraja

Vasily Gryazin certainly made an impression among the 4wd cars. Really well driven for a guy of his age.

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Do you believe that four years ago was the first time ever when that guy sat behind the wheel of stock car? Seriously. As I said somewhere in previous posts it's definitely worth to pay attention to him. Next outings - "Rally Estonia" and NORF.

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FIA Historic ERC event Lahti Historic Rally will start today.

Results should appear here: Online1 valikko
Itinerary, pages 6-7: http://www.lahtihistoricrally.com/ti...ersio%20fi.pdf
Entry list: http://www.lahtihistoricrally.com/ti...jat%202013.pdf

There will be live onboard from JML's car here Red Bull Live

(From his fb account)

Testing testing!!! Today we are trying something different. Not sure how well it will work, but from 14.00 CET today we will be trying to send a live stream from onboard Jari-Matti's Audi Quattro as he goes through the stages today. Tune in to see what happens - don't know if it will work properly!! Hopefully you'll be sitting in the co-driver's seat for some epic driving this afternoon - let's see - no promises - this is just us testing!!!

Feedback would be appreciated to [email:ikwdt3bp]media@jmlatvala.com[/email:ikwdt3bp]

It doesn't work... :(

It has been online for a moment. But god, such a poor quality...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPBqHiYYfsI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

When historic cars crash heavily, it's always nasty outcome. This here was a Talbot.

Please remember that second to last round of Finnish championship is going in. It started already yesterday with two stages being run in the darkness. A lot of happenings too, Åhlin crashed, Vihavainen crashed but continues, ... Juha Salo had the shortest rally ever as his car's electrics died when lights went green on start line of SS1. Joni Nikko out with technical issue, same for Jaro Kinnunen. Matias Kauppinen and SM2 leader Jussi Vainionpää retired as well.

Respective overnight leaders are Teemu Asunmaa (by 0,1s), Marko Mänty and Joonas Lindroos.

Results: Tulossivu
GPS tracking: gpsseuranta.net - SM-ralli Turku, lauantai

Are all the Finns sleeping it off or something? :) Propably most dramatic rally of the season. On the 4wd side Salo retired on Friday, Vihavainen went off the road and Nikko had problems. On Saturday Nikko had a big high speed crash only 1km from the start. After check up the crew luckily relatively OK. Turku winner being Mäenpää before Asunmaa and Tiippana. Who would have guessed. We would have been fourth, but because of co-driver(that's me) mistake with a time card we recieved 1minute time penalty and ended up sixth only 12 seconds from the fourth place. Not 100% sure how I managed to do the time card mistake.... No words to describe how sorry I am for the driver. On the positive side our speed was the best during the whole season. Looking forward to final round in Tampere.
In SM2 class Ruotsalainen won before, Veikkanen and Vainionpää. Vainionpää had a lucky escape when his brake pedal went to the floor on Friday evening.
In SM3 also technical problems, off roading etc. After the final stage Lindroos won, before Haapamäki and Pinomäki.

All the drama in Turku promises that many crews will enter final FRC round in Tampere with maximum attack mode ;)

Any videos? Please!

What about Åhlin´s crash. How is car and crew? Was it Fiesta R2?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rallyper

Any videos? Please!

What about Åhlin´s crash. How is car and crew? Was it Fiesta R2?

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From youtube some videos can be found with "turku ralli 2013" or something similar searches. Here is Nikko's crash SM Turku Ralli Ek 3 Joni Nikko - YouTube

Åhlin was driving with a Fiesta R2. Enough damage not to continue, but I guess nothing very bad with the car. The crew unhurt as far as I know so that's the main thing.

My friend's pictures from the event: Turku SM-ralli 2013

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Joni Nikko's huge crash from onboard video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpB0UJVlHbU

Picture from outside:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BS_DZV2IEAA7SOv.jpg:large


And the morning after... being rebuilt:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BTFiwTDCIAASENV.jpg:large

Finnish F-Cup series continued yesterday after a long hiatus. First gravel event was held in Western Finland at Uusikaupunki. Volvo was the make of the day as team partners Jaska Nuorala and Tero Salminen took a one-two before Kimmo Juhannusvuori in BMW.

Here's a very nice, fast and flowing onboard from the winner Nuorala: Nyt ei nostella - Jaska Nuoralan in-car EK5 // F-Cup 2013 Uusikaupunki - YouTube Average speed of 114,2 km/h.

Following weekends will keep Finnish rallying fans busy. Next weekend is Historic Rally Trophy event in Heinola, then F-Cup in Urjala, then FRC grande finale in Tampere, then Historic Rally Trophy and rally sprint finale, then F-Cup finale in Naantali. That's the way it should be :-)

Kari Hämäläinen has entered the last FRC event in Printsport Fiesta R5. I have not heard that Printsport would've bought an R5, is that the case? Would be first in Finland.

Jarkko Nikara has entered FRC Tampere with Printsport's Fiesta S2000. Altogether 175 entries for the final round with over 50 Volvo guests from Sweden. Very nice.

Hi, is there a website with more info about FRC Tampere? As a round of FRC, itinerary should be available in advance, is this correct?

About FRC Tampere I was able to find these:
http://mediaguru.fi/tamua/kilpailijat.php
https://akk.autourheilu.fi/Public/Ki...id=2896&edit=0
Fortunately, the itinerary can be found there. Unfortunately, there are no maps, so no idea where the stages are :S Are there any maps available already?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by txl

About FRC Tampere I was able to find these:
http://mediaguru.fi/tamua/kilpailijat.php
https://akk.autourheilu.fi/Public/Ki...id=2896&edit=0
Fortunately, the itinerary can be found there. Unfortunately, there are no maps, so no idea where the stages are :S Are there any maps available already?

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No maps available yet. The recce hasn't started yet so the stages are still a secret.

Thanks for the info.

From Printsport's Facebook, pictures of:

Nikara's Fiesta S2000: https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 4963_n.jpg
Kruuda's Fiesta S2000: https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 8626_n.jpg

Kruuda is using car owned by Kari Hämäläinen

and

Hämäläinen drives Markko Märtin Motorsport´s Fiesta R5 serviced by Printsport

Unsurprisingly Jarkko Nikara is leading ralliSM after the first stage, Kruuda + 4.6 and Juha Salo + 6.2!
Hope Jarkko has a good rally and gain some good experience with s2000 car.

Where I can find some results from Tampere Castrol Rally?

Here

http://www.mut-palvelu.fi/online2011/index.php

or

http://www.mut-palvelu.fi/smralli/?lk=1&ek=1

and

https://twitter.com/RalliSM

Some minute-errors in SS2, but i think they will be fixes tonight. Nikara leading after friday, Salo second and Kruuda third i think.. Mänty leading SM2 and Kinnunen SM3.

Suprisingly fastest 2wd was Jaska Nuorala with Volvo 240 :) Hes driving in extra class SC4

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Co-FIN

Here

http://www.mut-palvelu.fi/online2011/index.php

or

http://www.mut-palvelu.fi/smralli/?lk=1&ek=1

and

https://twitter.com/RalliSM

Some minute-errors in SS2, but i think they will be fixes tonight. Nikara leading after friday, Salo second and Kruuda third i think.. Mänty leading SM2 and Kinnunen SM3.
I was just going to ask what has happened with Jarkko and Salo on the 2-nd pass of Savo. Thanks for the clarification that kind of time loss was very strange! Let's see what's will tomorrow
Suprisingly fastest 2wd was Jaska Nuorala with Volvo 240 :) Hes driving in extra class SC4

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Kruuda is 2. actually. 9 secs behind Nikara.

Kinnunen in the lead of R2 after SS2 :bounce:

From Hartusvuori twitter - onboard Jarkko Nikara on Savo 1 - http://printsport.smugmug.com/Rally2013 ... &k=5MPDD5M

A really nice event in Tampere, the organizers had done a fantastic job with the event. :) Perhaps the most well-organized FRC event I've been to...

Quite expected results: Nikara winning, Kruuda second (maybe even surprisingly good speed imho...) and after a tight fight Vihavainen third. Salo took it quite easy in the end, calculated drive to win the championship.

My little video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvYeu54cnLs

Classic stages, great rally.

Some photos: http://nikop.kuvat.fi/kuvat/2013/SM+Castrol-ralli/

http://nikop.kuvat.fi/kuvat/2013/SM%...pg?img=smaller

http://nikop.kuvat.fi/kuvat/2013/SM%...pg?img=smaller

http://nikop.kuvat.fi/kuvat/2013/SM%...pg?img=smaller

Juha Salo´s EvoX R4 is on sale in "nettiauto.com", price 95 000 € with spare parts

News is that he is talking with Tommi Mäkinen about next year
-he is part of Hannu´s Rally Team and Hannu Lehessaari has bought many Subaru´s from Tommi (4 bodies this year and several before)

I like those additional lights on Fiesta R5...hope for seeing something like that also on other R5 cars, especially Skoda Fabia.