56. Renties Ypres Rally Belgium 2021

[Integrale]

Lots of showers in the next few days, dry from Wednesday onwards. I expect lots of mud in the cuts.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G781B met Tapatalk

[Gio]

Warm weather from Wednesday, it will dry up very quickly

[Integrale]

So here’s my preview. WRC is finally coming to Ypres!

My first real Ypres Rally was in 1999. I lived in a village not far from Ypres and that year my brother took me to the stages for the first time. I was 12 years old, Freddy Loix drove a Mitsubishi and I had made a drawing of his car – which I was able to give to him in the service park on the market place! It was a thrilling weekend and many would follow. My interest in rallying started because of a local event and friends and familiy. I’m sure other rally enthusiasts can relate.

I’ve made some really nice memories around Ypres. I remember spectating one weekend with two Englishmen my brother knew. They had a white Integrale. I’ll never forget speeding up the Rode Berg and drifting down in the back of that Integrale. It might explain my nickname.

Anyway, from the end of the 90s there was this continuous talk about Ypres becoming a WRC event in Belgian autosport magazines. But it never happened. It was some sort of a dream to see the fastest cars and drivers on the planet racing it out on ‘your’ roads. I can’t begin to explain to you how exciting it is to see it happening now, probably one time only.

So in this post I’ll try to write a preview for those who’ve never spectated Ypres and want to know a little bit more about the rally, the area, the characteristics of the stages and some things to look out for. Many fans know the rally well, but I hope I can add something you might not have known. As I grew up in this area, I hope you will enjoy the event and its very specific character.

The rally

It started in 1965 with the ‘6 hours of Ypres’, immediately followed by the ‘12 hours of Ypres’ and from 1975 to 1997 it became the ‘24 hours of Ypres’. They started on Friday evening and raced until midnight. The second leg started on Saturday afternoon and lasted all through the night. Here’s a video from 1986 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2RNfNDzf8) with the Delta S4, RS200, Metro, 205 T16, 037, R4 Turbo, Quattro S1, Manta 400 ... Ypres always had a nice entry list because of its involvement in championships like the ERC and IRC or some British championships.

In the 90s they tried fitting in some stages from much further in Belgium (even the Ardennes), but it wasn’t really a success. So this year they’re doing it again! Anyway, for years now the Ypres Rally has been very compact. If you look at the itinerary for Friday and Saturday this year you can see that 43 procent of the total distance are special stages. It’s also very easy to reach the stages because there are many intersecting roads.

In 1995 a child of 10 years old died when a car crashed on the second corner of the first stage of the rally. Nine others were wounded. They all stood in a forbidden zone. I was actually there with my parents as it was about a kilometre away from my home, but luckily we went home before the accident happened. I only remember the general area, a hamburger van, and the passage of Patrick Snijers in his Bastos Escort Cosworth. They never used that stage again. It was a tragedy and safety became much stricter. I remember editions when all you could see was the top half of the car, because there was a field of red and white ribbons blocking the view. Now there is a good balance again of safety and spectator friendliness (less ribbons). The rule is to stay 10 metres away from the road while some zones are totally forbidden.

The market place of Ypres is the service park area and that’s a pretty impressive scene. You have the Lakenhallen and the second biggest market place of Belgium. Ypres has some history. It was a big centre of commerce in cloth in the Middle Ages (Lakenhallen means something like Cloth Halls). And as you probaby know, the Ypres Salient was one of the biggest battlegrounds in the first World War. The Lakenhallen were bombed to the ground. In fact the whole city was.

The British Minister of War in 1919 – one Winston Churchill – suggested that Ypres should be preserved as a ruin to remember those who fought and died. “A more sacred place for the British race does not exist in the wolrd.” The local people thought something else and returned. With money paid by Germany in reparations the Cloth Halls and main square were rebuilt. Stone by stone, like it was. It was finished in 1967. In the vicinity of Ypres you’ll find lots of British, Belgian, German and Belgian war cemeteries. On SS Dikkebus you pass one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr6IABVABX0&t=67s).

Ypres also has something with cats. The legend goes that from the 16th century they threw living cats of the Belfort Tower during a parade or something. Ypres needed cats to catch the mice, but apparently the cats themselves reproduced fast as well. If two cats were thrown down, it was a bad year. If three cats were thrown down, it was a good year. Something like that. Anyway they still do it every 3 years with a big parade. Last time was 2018 and 5.000 Japanese tourists came to Ypres! So yeah, Ypres is called ‘Kattestad’ or Cat City.

Sorry, I got carried away there. Overall it’s a rally and a city which both have a lot of history.

The stages

The rally uses narrow farm roads in the area around the city. Stages to the north are totally flat and stages to the south and southeast have more elevation changes. Most of the up-and-down stages are located in Heuvelland (Hill Land). Lovely place to mountainbike. Heuvelland has many ‘witness hills’, actually sandbanks from 7 million years ago, when the North Sea came upto there. Because of the iron sandstone in those places, erosion had less influence on the hills. It aren’t mountains as a name like ‘Kemmelberg’ would suggest. The highest point of Kemmelberg is 156 metres and the rally route goes over it – just like some big cycling events like Gent-Wevelgem. The gradient is about 20 percent. The cobblestone descent they're taking this year is very steep.

The route of all the stages is very compact because the stages are somewhat squeezed into the land area between bigger roads. As a consequence there are lots of road and direction changes. If I would have to describe the stages, it would be start-stop-stages. You attack a fast section, you brake for a junction, you relaunch for the next section, you brake for a hairpin junction, etcetera. Time is won when you’re brave and precise in the fast little kinks – we call them ‘waaiers’ – and neat in the slow turns. Some cuts you can’t take and some cuts you really have to take (or you miss the track in the gravel). I can tell you already that drivers are going to talk about not getting into a good rhythm.

During the year the roads are used by farmers getting to and from their land as well as local people getting around. Lots of mud can get thrown on the asphalt by the farm vehicles or cutting corners. The grip level changes unexpectedly because the surface changes all the time. It can be smooth asphalt, abrasive asphalt, patches here and there, concrete, slippery, dusty … If it rains, expect lots of mud on the road. But it seems it will be dry. The roads are typically centre-crowned, except for the concrete parts. But this isn’t asphalt like in Catalunya. It’s incredibly slippery and unpredictable, even when dry.

Drivers who can read the road in front of them have an advantage. Of course experience with the stages (like Neuville and Breen have) is better. Late starters might be slightly disadvantaged by the dirt on the road from earlier cuts, but late starters also see the braking points of their rivals. There is lots of cutting and this always means a risk for flat tyres. This will play a role as always.

It’s like a tradition in Ypres that there are many retirements on the first day. If you start too fierce, the stages will punish you. Juha Kankkunen experienced that in 1995 on the first stage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlqmkcwroP8). Or François Duval in 2009, also on the first stage (https://youtu.be/QOP3k_bSPR0). There’s no margin for error with ditches lining the roads, electricity poles and other rally-ending infrastructure. A high speed spin will end your rally, otherwise you’re a very lucky boy. This year my first stage will be SS2 and I’m pretty sure I won’t see all the WRC cars, but I hope I’m wrong of course.

I’ll zoom in on the itinerary now. This year we get 2 sections of 4 stages on Friday in the Ypres area and the same on Saturday. On Sunday we go really wild and drive all the way to Stavelot for 2 sections of 2 stages, both using parts of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit and the surrounding area.

Friday

•Shakedown Langemark (9,8 km) is representative for the rally because in past years it was simply part of the rally. But it doesn’t have the really bad and bumpy asphalt. The stage switches back and forth between slippery asphalt roads and concrete roads. The condition of the surface is good compared to most other stages in the rally. There are little cuts here and there. It’s a flat and open area in the north of Ypres with no elevation changes. Some beautiful fast sections. If you don’t feel comfortable here, it might be a weekend of tweaking your setup and never getting there. Nice to know, the finish of the shakedown is close to the old stage SS Zoning, where they used to do four laps around the industrial area. A super special stage avant la lettre. (https://youtu.be/OmqHEdZ1oSA?t=194)

[Integrale]

Friday

• SS Reninge (15 km) is driven in the usual direction, but there are several diversions from the normal route and the finish is in another place from years before. We’re racing between the farmlands here. Overall it’s a good first test with many fast sections on bumpy asphalt with dirt in the corners. The surface really changes a lot on this stage: from worn asphalt to concrete with sharp edges to slippery (shiny) asphalt. A very fast and open stage, no elevation changes, some blind corners due to farms or hedges, and ditches waiting to end your rally quickly. This is one of the original stages of the first edition in 1965 (together with SS Hollebeke and SS Kemmelberg). But of course the route isn’t the same as it was back then. It wasn’t run for many years (local farmers didn’t want it anymore) but made its return in 2014. I used these roads to get to my football club. Local knowledge isn’t everything, because I put my mother’s Yaris in a ditch on these roads.

• SS Westouter-Boeschepe (19,6 km) starts in Belgium, but after about 7 km we’re in France. This is a beautiful grasslands area in between some quiet villages in Heuvelland. The stage has far more elevation changes and crests than the first stage, definitely another character. Not a lot of ditches here, instead there are some banks. The first 5 km have really beautiful fast sections where you have to be committed. The middle is flat, some long straights, but I especially like the last part towards Mont Kokereel (France). The asphalt there is worn, very bumpy and with a small layer of gravel on top (or in the middle). It’s just a different kind of asphalt it seems (if you can call it that). Again surface changes all over the place. Overall a nice longer SS where you can make a difference.

• SS Kemmelberg (23,6 km) uses a different route almost every year. Normally it’s about 13 to 15 km long, but now it’s remarkably more. It looks like a combination of a reversed Kemmelberg stage with some roads of SS Sauvegarde added in the second part. SS Sauvegarde has also been called SS Wijtschate in recent years. There is a great variety of roads on this stage (narrow and wide, asphalt, concrete and cobblestones) and I think it might deliver the biggest time differences of the day (not only due to its length).

The start is around the Monteberg area, where the Rallysprint of the Monteberg is driven every year. In the Rallysprint they drive up the famous S-curves, but on this stage they’re coming down the zigzag S-curves. This is a circuit-like two-lane road. After that we’re using some narrow Monteberg Rallysprint roads reversed to get to the foot of the Kemmelberg. These are asphalt roads in a fairly good condition, but always dusty. To get to the top of the Kemmelberg they use some of the tightest roads of the rally (not the big steep cobblestone road to the top). After the top, we’re coming down on a very long righthand bend over cobblestones. We might see some Scandinavian flicks at the bottom to manage the junction to the right. Normally they drive the Kemmelberg in reverse. Oh yeah, there’s an ultra-secret bunker complex under the Kemmelberg from the Cold War. So there’s that as well. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPzAa4mtJ2A)

After the Kemmelberg it looks like business as usual with the roads of SS Sauvegarde, some typical narrow Ypres roads, junctions, but especially very fast sections. This is for sure the stage with the most climbing and descending. It will give the drivers some thrills I’m sure.

• SS Zonnebeke (9,5 km) must be the fastest stage of the rally. The asphalt is more new and there are less direction changes or junctions from one road to another. There may be more of a flow to the stage, but it’s short. The area is flat again, but the ditches are back as well. Apart from two hairpins and the chicane afer the bridge it’s all fast here. The cars will reach the limiter a few times because of some long straights. A couple of sections in the kilometres before the finish are really scary fast. If they show helicopter images you might see some attractions of the theme park Bellewaerde near the finish. Childhood memories.

Saturday

• SS Hollebeke (25,9 km) is the longest stage of the rally and a real classic. I hope the drivers have slept well, because it’s the first one on Saturday. The asphalt is like in Zonnebeke. The cuts are deep. There’s more of a start-stop kind of rhythm here, but in between the slow speed corners there are always some interesting fast sections. I saw this in 2010. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PoxGuXhEjY) Electricity pole check, ditch check. In the last 8 km of the stage the route goes in and out of Zwarte Leen, a small woodlot area. The asphalt is dirtier and more humid there, very slippery and slow.

On a sidenote, this SS passes very close to Hill 60, a hill both Brits and Germans wanted to have in the First World War. The Brits even dug tunnels into the hill and placed mines to detonate the whole hill. Gas was used as well. The pits or little ponds you might see in the area round SS Hollebeke are actually bomb craters. The area looked a lot different about a hundred years ago…

• SS Dikkebus (12,5 km) is probably my favourite stage of the rally. It’s incredibly quick and challenging. I’ve stood about everywhere on this stage over the years. There are beautiful sections with natural meandering corners. Towards the end the route goes to Westouter and the Sulferberg, so it goes up and down again. No big surface changes, the asphalt towards the end might be a little more broken. Freddy Loix was always fast here.

• SS Watou (13,6 km) has very bad asphalt with bumps and holes in the road. It’s also quite narrow, so little margin for error. Big cuts and therefore gravel in almost all of the corners. On the map it looks like there are a lot of straights, but because of the bumps it’s very tricky. Because yes, there are ditches. It was on this stage that Kris Meeke crashed very hard in 2010. (https://youtu.be/9Zwdaskg6Sc?t=105)

• SS Mesen-Middelhoek (8 km) starts with some shenanigans on the little market place of Mesen. After that it’s essentially eight very fast sections broken up by hairpins or 90 degree corners. That sounds worse than it is, because the fast sections are nice. The asphalt is not too bad here. A short sprint to end the loop.

Sunday

• SS Stavelot (9 km) uses some ‘normal’ roads to get to the Spa-Francorchamps circuit (the part from Les Combes to Stavelot). The only thing that’s similar to the Ypres roads is that it’s narrow. But this is a different rally. The area is completely changed, no open areas anymore. The route goes through forests and small vilages, there are banks, and it’s very up and down all the time. The surface might be particularly moist in places, it’s also an early start. I can’t tell a lot about this stage because it’s not really in my backyard.

• SS Francorchamps (11,2 km) is the power stage and it’s still a bit of a mystery to me. Last year SS Ster would have been driven but in the opposite direction, starting from Francorchamps. Now it looks like they want to finish in Francorchamps (for the podium and all that stuff). Some parts of the SS from last year have been used in the opposite direction in a regional rally. I watched some onboards and it looks like an okay stage. This one is very much between the trees. There are some ditches like in Ypres. The road might be a bit bumpier and dirtier. The last part uses some service roads to enter the track at the Bus Stop chicane, drive to the La Source hairpin, to Eau Rouge, where they finish on the rallycross track. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk5oYGE6Cf0)

Spectating tips around Ypres

• Avoid junctions and hairpins at all costs. You might have a very boring rally. Go to combinations of fast corners where the cars have reached some speed already. It’s even better if there’s a fast section after your spot (not a braking area), because time is won in maintaining your speed and the drivers know that.

• The rally is normally driven more than a month earlier. This means the corn and wheat lining a substantial part of the stages has grown much higher. You actually want to see the wheels of the car at the moment the car moves. This is always in the cuts. It’s difficult for me as well to decide on my spots because of this, because I’m now living elsewhere.

• There are a lot of little roads going to the stages everywhere. The rally organizers have told that it’s possible to go everywhere on the stage, with the exception of forbidden zones (which are marked with signs and ribbon). The rule is that you have to stay 10 metres away from the road. This means you really don’t have to go to the marked spectator zones or parking areas. Most of the time you can park on the side of a small road or something.

• Good walking boots are handy. You will probably cross some muddy fields and jump a ditch or two. There’s barbed wire and electric fences to confront, so maybe some crawling too.

• Bring something to stand on. I’m taking a little ladder. It doesn’t weigh that much, and it can be the difference between seeing other people’s heads or corn leafs and actually seeing the cars.

• Traffic can get really congested around some main roads. There will be traffic between SS1 and SS3, SS2 and SS4, etc. So drive around the congestions (and enjoy the other Ypres roads) or time your stage changes right. Sometimes it also helps to choose a spot in the last part of the stage, because it gives you another 10 minutes before the first car. Waze is good to check on traffic, but I still like to rely on good old map reading.

• Eat fries with mayonaise at a small frietkot at least once! And enjoy our beer. Don’t drink Jupiler or Stella, try something else. There’s thousands of them. But it's not lemonade. Enjoy the rally!

[AnttiL]

Thanks for the excellent text! Notice that the Langemark WRC shakedown is driven on Friday morning. On Thursday there's the non-priority shakedown at Nieuwkerke.

As for Belgian beer, be cautious, they can taste easy, but be 9% strong Orval, Duvel, Saison Dupont and Rochefort 10 are my all time favourites.

[dimviii]

[Got Mail]

Thanks for the excellent text! Notice that the Langemark WRC shakedown is driven on Friday morning. On Thursday there's the non-priority shakedown at Nieuwkerke.

As for Belgian beer, be cautious, they can taste easy, but be 9% strong Orval, Duvel, Saison Dupont and Rochefort 10 are my all time favourites.

Boktor. My personal favourite.

[SlowlySidewaySpain]

Thanks for the excellent text! Notice that the Langemark WRC shakedown is driven on Friday morning. On Thursday there's the non-priority shakedown at Nieuwkerke.

As for Belgian beer, be cautious, they can taste easy, but be 9% strong Orval, Duvel, Saison Dupont and Rochefort 10 are my all time favourites.

Beer paradise!!!

[mas-racing]

Monday Test :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQk-JUvjzFk

[hsmed]

What a great preview, Integrale! I have visited Ypres many times - both for the rally and also for its war history - and your preview meant, that I really want to go once more. However, it will not be this year, but I will watch the TV coverage with great pleasure.