Quote Originally Posted by DocMS View Post
What a rally to see in real time. Stages very close together, conditions absolutely perfect but not to put a negative spin the marshals need to be on the same page. In some stages when we arrived 2.5hrs before first car we where refused to walk along the stage to our marked spectator point, being told we must stay at this spectator location only. Then on other stages it wasn't an issue. Marshalling is a tough job and I have respect for the people who do this but for next year its something they need to work on.

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We had exactly similar issues on a handful of stages. It was often as if only the marked areas were allowed. Sometimes you could continue walking further, sometimes they stopped. When there is no real reason for this, it's just annoying. Once they told me to take a marked detour instead of walking 200 meters on the road and continue. That was fine, because the reason was that a house owner didn't want anyone to pass their house - except the rally stage and spectators after the stage... Then, eventually, when spectating on a non-spectator zone, even with marshals, it was just fine. They just tried to deny the access, no matter was it 1,5 hours or 45 minutes before the stage. But I'm sure, comes the second year in Umeå, they are more experienced, know more about the spectator behaviour too and through that grow some common sense.

The weirdest thing happened yesterday when leaving Sarsjöliden after the first run. I walked from the field to the road after the last car. A marshal there said I couldn't walk on the stage. I said it was the last car. He asked where I was intending to go. I replied "back home to Finland". He just smiled and showed with his hand that "Finland is that way. Have a nice day!" I started to walk, but some 15 meters later another marshal from the field started to run in the waist deep snow ("run") shouting that I couldn't walk on the road. Fekking hell.

All in all, the event was really nice. Maybe because I wasn't expecting anything special, it turned out so good. Also, the weather after Thursday 11AM was just 10/10 perfect. I could've stood there in the woods even without the rally. Also, everything was super well organized. This year there were no seperate charges for parking and that made parking easy, no queues. Also good field parks. Snow was deep. This year we have had too a lot of snow. There have been winters on the Finnish side of the gulf with a lot less snow, so Umeå can't be snow-guaranteed, but it's more so than anything 800 km South from it. I'm most likely to return next year, I see no reason why not.