I saw him live in Portugal last weekend, and truelly he is very fast as the guy who drove for a first time on a gravel
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I saw him live in Portugal last weekend, and truelly he is very fast as the guy who drove for a first time on a gravel
COC Kai Tarkiainen tells a little more about how SS Himos 2 will be run. So, there'll be heats of 5-7 drivers starting the stage with 30-second intervals. The 5 km stage will be run in two loops and once the last driver of each heat will start the second loop, a new heat will start.
It's 2,5 kms uphill and then of course 2,5 kms downhill, so hopefully timing will be good for each heat, perhaps something between 2,5-3 minutes is right for one loop. Of course this leaves a lot of questions, both sport and safety related, but nevertheless, it'll be interesting to spectate live. Tarkiainen says the downhill part, a newly remade service road on the ski hill, will be "wild experience" for the drivers too. Rally Radio was today making their recce and said via FB that it's not yet possible to drive the downhill part with road car. Once I'll see the downhill section I'll make a decision whether to do SS Torittu and SS Himos 2 on Thursday or both runs of Himos.
I know that on gravel it's a bit different case due to the dust but for example shakedown in Barum rally has been plenty of times run in 30 seconds intervals even when it was like 5 km long and I don't remember anyone complaining.
I'm more worried how it'll work when driver comes for second loop and there might be driver in front with less than 30 seconds. Finnish rallysprints run with 30 second intervals on snow, tarmac and gravel and in most times, dust is not an issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
Who is going to win ? :)
I think that biggest problem is that road is new and there is suppose to drive totally 3 rounds/240-300 times... New roads are usually quite soft in first few years so it's not going to be fun for last cars...Quote:
Originally Posted by Hartusvuori
It'll absolutely be soft, of course based not a real experience. Considering it's a road that's underneath a ski slope from November to April, it's not a normal road. Even the normal road on Himos area are soft, Was it 2009 with that one right-hander and around 20 offs....?Quote:
Originally Posted by donlorean
I was there... :) It was not a normal road for Himos stages though, very narrow and loose compared to the faster sections on Himos stages, of course depending on which course and roads that are choosen on Himos.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hartusvuori
It was 2008... It wasn't very soft part. Small road and start went quite bad but worst part of that stage(Vaheri) was in middle section. Small road and lot of stones... I was co-driver that year in VW Polo and I think that main reason why there was so many off's was that in recce there was lot of dust... During recce weather was very hot and all roads was very dry. On that stage we were 2nd or 3rd car in recce and we saw that this right hander tightens a little over the crest. And when we did our second lap in recce there was so much dust that visibility was only 20-30m... We knew that it's impossible to do good pacenotes and see that it tightens... We told our friends that go to watch in that corner... And in rally we put some heat to our nearest competitor and told that now we start to push because they were about 30sek ahead of us... They rolled in that right hander;-))))))))))))))))))))))))))Quote:
Originally Posted by Hartusvuori
He, he... It was very soft in that corner. Particulary after 50 cars. The tracks were about 20-30 cm deep, but not for the first cars of course. I remember Mikko and Loeb hanged with left rear in ditch. But JML went off. After having had a bad start first day he should take the pace second day but this was first stage in the morning and he lost about one minute because he got stuck.
And Aava hit a small tree and did a 180 degree in his sudden stop. After that every car more or less was in that ditch, which became less dangerous but still made those running too fast big problems. Will never forget that morning in Haveri...
Me and my son did our own recce there two days before and my son said this is going to be tuff place. While I had a bend about 500m away. When coming to that stage on race-day every local guy was there with ropes and gloves, so we knew directly we should stay at that place...