RDRC S9 Round 2 - Rally Sweden (15th February - 21st February 2021)

[Mark Gormley]

First leg done. Struggled to feel totally on top of the car but that's just a Sweden thing for me. No major incidents except for an almost roll on one of the early stages (can't remember which) and then this on SS5:

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Fresh tyres for SS6 made things feel a lot better again and I managed to finish the first day without further incident.

 

[xminxG]

First day done, going to wait a few days to do the final 2, seems a lot of people haven't done their times yet.

I do wish they'd add in class leader boards so you knew where you were overall in the final patch, but I guess not.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

I do wish they'd add in class leader boards so you knew where you were overall in the final patch, but I guess not.

Hmm? You do have a leaderboard in the class you are driving after each stage. And it is on the webpage as well.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Ok, first of all, sorry for maxing out pictures in a post, but a picture says more than a 1000 words and I don't wanna write 10k words (I have enough with the magazine, haha!).

Usually this would be "my" rally. It was like that in the RBR days, and it was like that in DiRT Rally 1. But It was well over a year since I touched the game when we started with RDRC-preparations, and including screenshots and magazine-work that needed me to be in the game, I've spent 2.9hrs in DiRT Rally 2 since the Monte Carlo event. Not ideal preparations. So my goals for the season (and especially Rally Sweden) have been lowered significantly. I would like a stage-win in the class before the season is over, but I've already had a podium. I'm happy with that!

On to Sweden.

No Pictures of SS1, but SS2 showed that there was a mild winter again in Värmland, with mud, not snow covering parts of the car. But I found a snowbank. "Closer to snow" indeed!

Assortment of Hump-Bump-Jump-Time

SS4 and 5 was the first two trips over the famous Colins Crest. Flat out is the way!

Then when the evening came, I got kindahomesick (It takes about the same time to drive from my childhood home and to Colins Crest, as it takes to drive from where I live now, to my childhood home.) Looking good!

It even looks good in the dark!

Really good!

But I, personally, hate driving in the dark. I am slow as a turtle glued on top of a snail. At least that's the way it feels. Doesn't help that I drive sideways either. You can see the tail lights, you can see the road, sorta. This wasn't a half-spin. This was me driving flat out like always. It just lights up the inner snowbank and I can't see a thing of what's ahead of me on the road. No wonder I have to drive slow!

Then the overnight service came. And with SS9, also the light. A car in perfect shape, looking fiiine started SS9!

And then, the very last stage. SS12. Colins Crest - again. Flat out? Flat out! FLAT OUT!

In hindsight, such a fast, bumpy, narrow rally. Which increasingly worse ruts and tracks. H-shifter and full chaos. I probably shouldn't have done all 12 stages in one go, starting a quarter to 1 in the night...
But I've never been smart before, so I don't plan to start now. Probably lost any chance of power-stage points and a top 5 with doing it this way. There were times I thought a corner came up without warning, and then my brain registered "oh, three left tightens.".

But I had loads of fun! It's not much that beats throwing an RWD-car around corners, sideways, over ruts, while the wheels rattles, and you have one hand on the shifter as well. One handed drift. That's the way to do it!
Quick and effective? Nah.
Fun and cool to look at? Yeah!
Tiring? Yuup!
Gif? Coming!
Hotel? Trivago!

RDRC-Boss Out!

 

[LuMue]

So here's our little Sweden-review from Müller Motorsports

Paul was the first in his Skoda Octav...äh, sorry, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI Not many people had set a time when the countdown started, but he likes it like that as the pressure is much lower then...

@alex2106 was streaming at the same time, he had started some 10 minutes earlier, also in a Lancer, so that would be the aim for Paul.
He did well on the first 4 stages, had no mistakes and got in a 4s lead over Alex. Stage 5 went also good but it seemed that Alex had a mistake, as the lead grew up to 21s after SS5 and before the darkness came to Värmland...

It looks so amazing...

And we love this one so much

The night went fine for Paul, the goal was to bring the car home without too much risk. His lead shrinked to 17,8s over night but that stil felt comfortable.

As Alex did a bigger break after the night stages it was PAul who had to set the pace now.
He managed to make it home without accidents or spins, a clean run through the snowy landscape...

His run can be seen re-live here:

Than it was me to chase Paul in my Delta HF

I started well into this rally and managed to get a 16s lead over Paul after SS3. On stages 4 and 5 I had some small mistakes in my driving, nearly rolled the car but was lucky to get back on the four wheels after going some meters on 2 wheels... Lost 1.2s on Paul on SS4 but made 2.1s again on SS5.

Night over Värmland...let the discs glow!

The night went good for me, I was able tu put another 16s between Paul and me

Next were the 4 long stages in a row with Colins Crest driven from both sides. Despite the loosing concentration the Delta kept on the street and my lead over Paul raised with every sector. Nearly a minute in the end...

My run is archived here:

So the team is quite happy with Rally Sweden!
Paul means his gears were much too long so his acceleration was much to low in the technical sections and that's why he lost so much time on his team-mate... well, I think it's just missing skills

The Power Stage won't bring any extra points for sure but maybe one driver can reach the Top 10 in the end... oh, there is already someone that is over 2 minutes faster than me That's pure flat-out - respect!

See you in Argentina - we love the bridges...

 

[alex2106]

@LuMue its really fun battling it out with you guys. Really looking forward to how the championship will evolve, it seems that Paul and I are riiiiightabout on the same level, he's just a tad quicker than me per stage, however, come end of the rally it really starts to add up. Need to work on that! You are much quicker than I am tho. No friggin' chance.

Regarding my mistake: I rolled the car on SS5 sadly, where the big rock is on the right side at the beginning of the stage. Hit the snowbank on the left, which catapulted me on the snowbank on the right and left me on the roof for a bit until DIRT finally allowed me to reset the car. Very costly mistake - and confidence was a bit lower than before afterwards for the whole event . See here, timestamp is 33:18:

 

[LuMue]

@LuMue its really fun battling it out with you guys. Really looking forward to how the championship will evolve, it seems that Paul and I are riiiiightabout on the same level, he's just a tad quicker than me per stage, however, come end of the rally it really starts to add up. Need to work on that! You are much quicker than I am tho. No friggin' chance.

When you have no chance for a class-win you have to search for opponents that race on the same level and it seems Paul and you have found each other to fight a nice battle over the whole championship. That's what motivates him...
I'm just faster because I have some spend hundred hours more in Sweden than you - and than I'm not fast enough

 

[Roy Magnes]

I have completed the first loop of stages before work this morning, and it all came down within the first minute of the very first stage. I clipped a bank on the inside down the fast slopes, rolled the car, and got a puncture for good measure. Finished the stage 1m45s off the current stage leader...

I kept on going over the next stages, and without any special happening, I climbed a little bit up the leaderboard. But it shows that neither I or the car is the fastest ones in the championship, so I will really struggle to score any points from this round too.

But there is still some stages left of the rally, so I have not given up on those points just yet

 

[Fleskebacon]

I have completed the first loop of stages before work this morning, and it all came down within the first minute of the very first stage. I clipped a bank on the inside down the fast slopes, rolled the car, and got a puncture for good measure. Finished the stage 1m45s off the current stage leader...

View attachment 446658

I did the exact same thing, on the first stage, probably the same inside snowbank, rolled several times, but I was lucky and landed on my wheels in the right direction hundred metres down the road, without any major damage.

Probably only lost 7-8 seconds from it. Lucky for me I'm not that fast anyway - 10 seconds is a tinkle in the ocean for me, losing so much time on each stage in any case!

I was in a flow in the later stages though, and actually managed to gain some places before finishing. Quite happy, overall.

 

[Interslice]

Lucky I didn't leave this run until the last day. Delayed here in the hotel due to an 8 hour update.

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

Alright, the slowest driver of the championship is about to go live for SS4-SS8

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Alright, the slowest driver of the championship is about to go live for SS4-SS8

Don't be so hard on yourself. Slowest Portuguese in the championship?

 

[James Barrington]

Finished a few hours ago. Had an amazing battle with James McAdam and a few others - lots of trading places every stage! Was expecting to be a little slower this time round but seem to have done well by keeping it clean, didn't have to repair anything other than minor bodywork damage.

Once again, thank you to the team for organising the rally, it felt a bit intense at times.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Finished a few hours ago. Had an amazing battle with James McAdam and a few others

Battle of the James'eses or something?

 

[Mark Gormley]

Leg 2 and rally complete. Had a spin on SS9 and ended up perched on top of a snow bank, but otherwise a clean run and happy to finish after the retirement from Monte Carlo.

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[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Leg 2 and rally complete. Had a spin on SS9 and ended up perched on top of a snow bank, but otherwise a clean run and happy to finish after the retirement from Monte Carlo.

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That looked a lot more calm and collected than my driving!

 

[Mathieu Labbé]

Finished the first day with the little Opel R2. My brain still can't comprehend how fast the top drivers are but I must say I'm enjoying Sweden so far. First two stages were so brutal!

Loving these rally reports, really adds to the immersion

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

First two stages were so brutal!

Oh. SS8 won't be much better. Nor will the last day!

It will be fun though! Promise!

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

Don't be so hard on yourself. Slowest Portuguese in the championship?

Either will do


Alright, SS5 was done without any hick-ups, so I finally managed to set a somewhat competitive time on the board, capitalizing on other drivers having had spins and crashes - every little helps when you're slow

Then came service, car was repaired quickly, no big shambles there. And on to SS6...


As the sun was slowly coming down, the mood was set for an idyllic drive in the Swedish winter wonderland.

A photographer managed to capture some nice shots over this long right corner next to the lake when going sideways - the stuff of dreams...

And then, with the head on the clouds with so much beautiful ice dancing, I forgot to brake earlier on a downhill section coming into a junction and poor Phil Mills saw a snowbank and some spectators fast approaching. Luckily for us the snow slowed us down enough, unluckily we got stuck. The Snowbank Busters were quick to put us back on the road so overall we were very lucky indeed.

On to SS7, as the darnkess slowly started to creep in, and we kept on dancing...

Then, the big adventure would happen uphill this time; there were warning signs on the road, but again, pure enjoyment took over, and I misjudged the trajectory coming to a tight corner, hitting the inside snowbank. That sent the Sierra on two wheels to give a little love tap to the rescue vehicle, losing one of the extra lights in the process. Again, very lucky indeed.

Finally the night fell on SS8 and the enjoyment gave place to awareness and care. There was still a helicopter (or a drone?) in the sky that managed to grab a few shots from a distance.

Someone placed their action camera pointing very nicely towards the moon, and then probably forgot about it and went to watch the jump at Colin's Crest because there was nobody around.

And to the Crest we arrived. Having read that others had had a few scares and moments, the plan was to go easy. But it went so well on SS7 that on SS8 it was simply time to go flat out; ecstasy was at an all time high, but very quickly crashed - and so did we. Phil may have hit his head a bit too hard...

Still managed to make it to the service park, although with a battered car; the radiator got badly damaged and the steering and dampers are completely off. The mechanics can already see that they won't manage to fix everything properly in time, but with the fight for P9 being so close at the moment, they have to make the decision of their lifetimes.

Thank you Snowbank Busters for the help and all who joined in on the action on the live-stream with some good advice, hope you had a laugh Take it easy and see you all at the finish line

 

[LukeT222]

Well that was a rally I'll remember for a while! Had a brilliant moment that ranks as one of the best in my years of sim racing (even if it's almost all been offline) in stage 1. Just got into the zone and had an absolute blast only to find I was P20 at the end. Honestly so happy with that! I know I'm a very long way of pace wise so to wind up in the top half even if it was only after one stage felt truly incredible.

I felt so much closer to the front of the pack too, from 10 seconds off on average each split in Monte to only 3 off here and at one point within a second of my first green sector. Still think I should have listened to @Ole Marius Myrvold when he said to run at 00:01 on Monday to get one though

Unfortunately went back to my old ways after that. Got distracted in SS2 and hit a snowbank hard enough to get a puncture then rolled in SS4 to get another one but after my extended experience at Monte with 3 wheels didn't lose too much time and still had decent pace when I did have all 4 wheels.

I have to admit I'm very confused about what happened to me on SS8. I'm not sure if there was a technical issue if it was just a mistake from me but I just didn't seem to turn at a corner and rolled into a house. Did some massive damage to the suspension and lost 5 minutes trying desperately to limp back to service only for it to completely fail and end my rally early with probably about 4 or 5km to go.

Gutted to have my rally end that way but still very happy with my pace, at least when I managed to keep it on the road. Not too bad considering I realised just before my run that I had never run a full rally on snow before tonight for some reason. Think I'm going to have to change my goals for the rest of the season though tbh. Had hoped to be in the top 80% or so of finishers but now I'm 0 for 2 in terms of making it that far I think I'm gonna have to make my goal just finishing one of the bloody rallies! Oh well, on to Argentina where I'm sure I'll find a new, bridge related way to DNF