Heh, my run was pretty weird. Eventful, but lucky enough to end ok.
First of all, I'm on another controller I'm not used to, so I'm reacting much slower than before to abrupt direction changes or snap corrections due to a stronger spring, oth, gained some needed precision at speed/near center (and for rwd). But well, this is Greece, where input is harsh. Speaking of input, hey magnar_haa, glad to keep seeing you at the top after moving to manual gearbox.
SS1 went pretty normal, yet I was surprised to see a decent time in the table. On SS2 I kept to a safe pace, but a little bump on the low side-wall sent me flying. I was incredibly lucky to not fall off to a TD, but damage was done:
Yet, even with the time lost after having to reverse to track, I fell just 12s behind current top time. Twice lucky.
On SS3 things got hairy, a tiny tiny scrap mid stage got me radiator damage light up, certainly because of the dmg already brought from SS2. Then later, I had one of these ea wrc *censored moments*. Not yet used to the controller spring + expecting understeer, I overdid an hairpin entry that gripped, nearly fell off, but reversed just in time into the track, and then I got a 5s penalty for hitting some invisible limit in reverse at this spot:
Whatever. SS4 next, fortunately it was downhill to make up for the creeping eng/turbo damage under the broken rad, and I was lucky the engine light didn't ever turn on. 2nd temporary spot? I'll take it! At this time it started to look like the very fast STR guys taking TT-like risk, suffering failed stages, so off overall results. Next service I got a passably half-repaired car.
By then I was at a decent overall position (3rd), so I played safe and took 2 spares for my first set of hards. I tend to puncture often in Greece with cars I tend to handbrake + power-oversteer a lot (Yaris the most in WRC1), and end up exiting wide.
Then SS5 and SS6 were uneventful at a constrained "meh" pace, but can't complain as I kept decently close to leaders.
By SS7 I noticed I was already in temporary 2nd, and just 25s behind magnar_haa. The plan was to just keep chugging, and avoid risking early dmg. Yet, I was now a bit eager and cursing having brought 2 spares to slow me down a bit further for that final very long stage.
There I went, but by mid-stage I had a small scrape with the wall which got me radiator damage. Well, I was lucky again that the rest was mostly downhill, absorbing some of the creeping loss of power that would follow. Ended losing just ~2s to present rival. So, chapeau to magnar_haa, who bettered me on almost every stage. Hope to see Myrvold and Kuolema1337 joining the podium fight. Also, GG to Roy's run, still up for this contention!
GL all
