I am not crying about it, I only said my opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by MartijnS
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I am not crying about it, I only said my opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by MartijnS
armindo droves 4x, PG and eyvind only 2x
nasser´s drive was very bloody, totaly on the edge :)
Still, Im quite impressed, perhaps this means the Evo X still has a chance to be competitive for the Production championship, and of course National championships.Quote:
Originally Posted by chryby
Take a look at Finnish championship and Evo X competitivnes :)
Well that ain't a good ideia because no matter what car Finns drive they will make it fly, even if it is a Datsun.Quote:
Originally Posted by mm1
Yes, but there are other Finns in Subarus aswell.
Ok fair enough :p .Quote:
Originally Posted by mm1
I think it is interesting to read while waiting for the start of the rally. This is my raw translation from Estonian article: Original can be found here: http://rally.ee/?a=a009&b=8039
Estonians in Jordan rally in 1987
In 1987 the length of Jordan rally was 1300km. There were 48 cars representing 12 countries and five of them were from the former Soviet Union. Class winners were Raido Rüütel and Tõnu Vunn (Recently known as Jaan Mölder co-driver) with their Lada VFTS.
This rally was very different to all rallies our drivers had experienced before. It is worth mentioning that only 19 cars reached to the finish. Soviet Union Rally team achieved second place just behind local rally team. Our fastest crew (Raido Rüütel, Tõnu Vunn from Karksi collective farm rally club) finished in 7th place in general standings and won 1600 cm3 class. Second place in the same class belonged to Latvians from Riga – Ivars Caune/Andris Cimkus and third place belonged also to the Latvians Srazys Brundza/Sergei Dadvan.
Raido Rüütel shares his memories: Jordan Rally was one of the hardest rallies in Middle-East Championship. There were 49 crews at the start list. In addition to local crews there were crews from England, Finland and our five crews. Most famous crew at the start was Lasse Lamppi and Pentti Kukula with their Mitsubishi Starion Turbo (They finished in 14th place).
The winners of the rally were Mohammed Bin Sulayem - John Spiller with their Toyota Celica Twincam Turbo. They drove under UAE flag but they were actually British. Second place belonged to Saeed al Hajiri - Nigel Harris who drove with Porsche 911 SC RS that was prepared by David Richards company Prodrive. They won the same rally in the previous year. Third place belonged to Hani Bisharat - Wafai Mseis theiy were driving with Toyota Celica.
Rüütel continues: It was extremely difficult rally to us. We had to compete with our 1600cm3 LADAs against the cars that had 2000 and 2500cm3 engine capacities. Therefore we didn’t expect to fight for the rally win. But still our aim was to finish at top 10. There were 3 cars at the finish line from our Soviet Union team – exactly the number of cars to qualify for the teams competition. Vukovitš - Svingevitš retired due to the broken engine on the penultimate stage, our leading crew Eugenijus Tumalevičius - Pranas Videika retired after stage 10.
The rally lasted for three days and there were 34 stages in total. Most of them were short stages but some of them were still over 30 km. We had only two aims, finish the rally in one piece and keep the car in top 10. On such a rally it was very important preserve yourself and the car and also mechanics had really big responsibility. We could not take any risks while we were driving but at the same time we tried to be as fast as possible and conserve the car as much as possible. Only Tumalevičius – Videika were allowed to drive as fast as they could. They would have finished in top 6 if the piston on their engine would have lasted until the end of rally. On the other way around when they would have driven slower then it would have been easier for the car but their position would have been worse as well. I think that it is the most difficult task to divide your energy and conserve the car as much as needed to survive three days and at the same time drive as fast as you can.
Raido Rüütel continued: Our rally was not straightforward as well. At the beginning of the second day our car started OK but later we still had to push it over the start ramp. The fault was caused by the heat that we hadn’t experienced before and it was so unusual for us that finding and fixing process took us two minutes more time than allowed. Luckily we had spare distributor cap in the car. We were late to the start of the first stage for 2 minutes but that was not a problem. We managed to make up that time easily – we had driven with very big reserve so far and pushing little bit more was not a problem.
At stage 11 the gearbox of our Lada started to emit strange noises, something was wrong with fourth gear. Just for precaution we didn’t use fourth gear anymore. That mean, after the third gear we switched directly to 5th gear. We continued like that until the end of stage 16. Then we had longer resting break and we managed to change the faulty gearbox.
By the end of second day we (Rüütel/Vunn) had reached to eight position. On the last day we continued our careful tactics and we finished in seventh place – first in our class.
Raido Rüütel tells a little about his expectations: When travelling to Jordan I was expecting fights with sand and etc. In reality everything was different, rally route was passing huge empty areas and roads were covered with rocks and coarse gravel. Our legend was based on the numbers how fast you can go in specific bend… it didn’t worked there at all. There were nearly no bends. We had to adapt new categories in our notes that we had never used before, such as “hole with danger”, “hole with double danger”, “hole with stop” etc. Another difficult thing was that there were nearly no marks you can use as a markers. Everything looks the same, empty desert. The track itself was marked with coloured (red) stones. Still some of the competition cars got lost. And you cannot forget the dust; it was huge problem to negotiate.
Rüütel continued: This rally gave me a lot in terms of sporting side. It was possible to test my limits and at the same time the limits of the car on such a tough conditions. It was the first time when I really experienced how important is the physical fitness of the driver.
The work of mechanics was also unusual. They drove from one stage end to another stage end without missing any stages. There was a lot of work for them and the time was extremely limited. There were also three Estonians among the mechanics.
Organization of the rally was flowing as well; buts still there were a few spots that were not guarded on such a long track. In one place somebody put a sign on the stage that it was not allowed to drive there. Those who believed that the track was modified overnight drove to the wrong direction. Such mistakes cost a lot of time that was not possible to fight back – luckily we managed to escape from such mistakes.
The son of Jordan King prince Abdullah took part in 1987 edition of Jordan rally as well. Year before he became third in overall rankings. However, in 1987 he was not so lucky – he went off road and damaged the car so much that it was not possible to continue.
Nice story Bluuford. To me, 1300 km's of special stage distance would be near to ideal for a desert rally like Jordan, just like the old Moroccan WRC event. Since the rules have been smoothen this year as far as total stage distance goes, I think it's a shame Jordan didn't took the oppertunity (if it was possible at all).
To my knowlegde almost the whole route is man-made, sort of artificial roads build just for the rally in the middle of the desert... So increasing the total SS distance would have created a great amount of extra work for the organizers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Josti