RDRC S9 Round 4 - Rally Poland (15th March - 21st March 2021)

[EG Racing]

With RDRC's first visit to Poland, we also cross the halfway-point of the season. We will keep going from one extreme to another. After the shortest rally of the season, we will now have the longest rally of the season. Over 150km, exclusively on crazy fast roads, often with absolutely no room for error.

We got this seasons first repeat-winner in the fight for the overall title, while in RDRC-2 the standings are being topped by two winless drivers, showing that consistency is just as important as absolute top speed in the championship. We've now visited three very different rallies, tarmac&ice, snow and very slow, twisty gravel. Now we'll go to the other extreme again, extremely fast gravel roads. The need for absolute clinical precision is just as big in Poland as Argentina, but the consequences for making an error can be even bigger.
To read more about the upcoming rally, how Argentina unfolded, and much more, take a look at our Poland Rally Magazine.

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View the Poland Edition of the RDRC Rally Magazine here.
Download the Poland Edition of the RDRC Rally Magazine here (39.7mb)

RDRC Rally Magazine is designed and developed by: RACEM (Jack Hintz), Ole Marius Myrvold and Michael Nelson

Once again, fantastic job!!!
Regards,
EGV Racing

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

One thing that seems to be getting worse with each rally are the sadistic traits of @Ole Marius Myrvold , at least if I look at the schedule and the amount of service time allocated.

I blame Codemasters! As we only get 12 stages to play with in a rally, there's not much else I can change around and do to make the rallies feel somewhat different from each other I miss the "unlimited stages" from DR1. (Even though I wasn't allowed by the RDRC crew from last season to do a couple of rallies like I wanted, and that's why we ended up emulating the last real event that the rally was based on)

 

[PiorARG]

I'm loving all the magazines and the work put into them, specially because all my pictures always get featured

 

[alex2106]

Its RDRC Monday yet again which means you can follow me crashing into trees live at ~ 7:05pm CET, might be 5mins earlier or later, depending on how final preps are going. I'll once again be driving the whole event together with @Michael Springer (and with the fastest Escort in town - @Camaro735 - joining us and doing a parallel offline practice run) in the evening. Would love to see some of you join the action

 

[WhiteFox41]

I gotta say that I'm in love with the magazines from this championship, really high-quality stuff!

That being said, rally update: my game crashed before I start the fourth stage lmao. Just gonna attack the rest of the stages like usual I guess, thankfully this happens before the service area this time around

 

[Peter Roche Racing]

Time for the shakedown.

 

[Matthew Allington]

Could've been worse.
Check last seasons last rally, Rally Wales

 

[LuMue]

Good evening from Poland,

Müller Motorsports will stream the run of our driver Paul Müller in RDRC-2 class in 5 minutes.
You can watch it live here: Müller Motorsport @ Poland Pt. 1

Good luck Paul!

 

[Matthew Allington]

I despise this rally.

Oversteered on a crest and over-corrected, 190km/h impact on SS4.

Bring on New Zealand, an actually good rally with actually useful pacenotes.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

ouch!

 

[Michael Springer]

I despise this rally.
Oversteered on a crest and over-corrected, 190km/h impact on SS4.
Bring on New Zealand, an actually good rally with actually useful pacenotes.

Pacenotes are utter shite in Poland, or actually in most rallies of DR2. Also, set them at their earliest and their still too late.

---

I just had a brake failure. Not ingame, but irl. My brakes were and are gone. I will see how I will be able to continue the last leg during the rest of the week. I hope I can fix the V3 for the rest of the rally.

I've literally had any product I've ever bought from them fail well within the warranty time. Fork Fanatec and their products, but this is a story for another day. Wow.

 

[LuMue]

No training for me, just directly on the track...

Watch me in one minute... Müller Motorsport @ Poland Pt. 2

Paul's run wasn't that good at all...

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

first day done, went ultra careful and was rewarded by a car fully repairable at service, never happened the last two rallies. Those first two wet stages are awful and once the sun comes out one is tempted to let fly ... resisted the temptation and got into a fun rhythm on stage4. great event so far again, thx organizers!

got properly lost in one of the villages and lost about 20 secs, still have no clue what i did wrong, lol.

 

[alex2106]

HOLY F this was fun. Had a total blast today, it went really well and I finally was able to beat Paul Müller. Full report will come tomorrow. Still shaking from the joy this highspeed stuff brought me.

 

[Spinninggenius]

It was all going brilliantly until stage 5, when I picked up a puncture crashing into the blue fencing in front of a building. Immediate front left puncture and had no choice but to change it, then had to drive cautiously for the rest of the leg as it was the only spare I'd taken.

Last 4 stages tomorrow, but unlike Argentina where my puncture only cost me 2 places, I think the field will be very closely matched and I'll ultimately have lost many more... but at least I'm still going!

 

[WhiteFox41]

Alright end of rally report: I actually finished the event this time. Apart from the DNF in the 4th stage (thanks Codemasters) everything else went okay to the end. The middle stages were tough, and the fact that we only get 15 minutes in the service area made me choose between fixing the engine or the wheel geometry that I might've borked after hitting one of the banks. Safe to say I don't want to drive with a broken wheel geometry ever again.

The goal isn't to look pretty, right?

Going into the third part of the rally was fun, and in the end I ended up in 2nd on the leaderboards. This might be the only time I get to say this before I get my times obliterated by the faster guys

Off to New Zealand for practice then

 

[alex2106]

So, here comes the report

While I am not that familiar with Poland as I haven't driven much there before, I knew what I was getting into when I saw the magazine: Plenty of fast action through forests and fields which needs absolute precision on the input.

SS1 went mostly fine, I just had those stupid graphical artifacts return. Already had them in Argentina, so they must have hidden in one of the shipping containers. Funnily enough, @Michael Springer had the exact same time as I had - a 03:22.508. Restarted the game afterwards to make sure that those glitches are gone, however....

....come SS2, that didn't stop me from rolling the car. Luckily enough I could escape mostly without damage - and more importantly - time loss. Finished the stage just fine afterwards tho.

After that the rally was a blast - I was running against Paul Müllers times and finally was able to match and even beat him on outright pace at one point. Everything turned into a blur as I flew over jumps at what must have been 200kph at times, so I sadly am not even able to dissect this report into the stages. I'll just drop a few screenshots here and write a few words to each of them, plus a final word at the end:

The low standing sun made everything look very nice - but I did my best so I don't get caught out by the beauty of the countryside!

Also, the wet mud made everything a bit harder. You WANT that grip when landing the car.

Did I just say landing the car? Sometimes I figured it is best to brake before lifting off, just to make sure that I would land on the road and not alongside it. But wow, flying through the air at 160kph and countersteering in the air while anticipating into which direction the car will try to go when landing, boy, that was fun!

And that feeling when you are already on the revlimiter and remember that there is yet another gear in that box down there to make you go even faster - feels like igniting an afterburner.

On SS11 or SS12 - not sure which it was - I made the biggest mistake in the whole event: Going right instead of left. LISTEN TO MY CALLS, ALEX! (Tanja Geilhausen, as she was confused and annoyed by me going the wrong way)

I am so happy with how the rally went. After Argentina this was a very welcome change of pace, I was driving at what feels like my very best and the car rewarded me with being an absolute joy to drive. That feeling of zen when you are just totally in your zone, just driving, being one with the car, not even thinking about the act itself, but rather just doing it. Thats a feeling not much is able to replicate. Looking at the timing sheets now others are yet again faster than I was, but I will leave Poland with my head held high, as I gave it everything I had in store.

¡vamos a España!

 

[James Barrington]

Three punctures on Stage 4, only one spare, so that was fun! Might have to be the first DNF of the season as it looks like there's too much damage to repair.

 

[Rawbear]

Welllll... a big gratuitous accident (easy curve) in stage 5 broke pretty much everything on the car, wheel symmetry and all. Then I hit a tree in an other easy curve. A flat in stage 8 (an 8-flip accident) cost me a minute and 11 seconds (time to repair). And just 15 minutes to repair all this is not enough. Most of it will stay broken, except wheel symmetry. It's going to be put-put-put-put to the end. Not ratata-ta-ta-ta as expected! Snif.

 

[Spinninggenius]

Welllll... a big gratuitous accident (easy curve) in stage 5 broke pretty much everything on the car, wheel symmetry and all. Then I hit a tree in an other easy curve. A flat in stage 8 (an 8-flip accident) cost me a minute and 11 seconds (time to repair). And just 15 minutes to repair all this is not enough. Most of it will stay broken, except wheel symmetry. It's going to be put-put-put-put to the end. Not ratata-ta-ta-ta as expected! Snif.

I noticed you seemed to drop back on stage 8. I think it's the sort of rally where accidents are far less common than in Argentina, but the effect of a single crash is likely to be much larger here due to the faster speeds. The retirement rate may well be very similar.

I managed to complete the final 4 stages relatively unscathed, but did manage to wreck the front of my car crashing into the finishing boards at the end of stage 12! I think my favourite stage was definitely 11, it's a real blast through the Polish countryside, not ruined by any technical sections around disused buildings! I went a bit cautiously in places, which probably saved me from an 'octoflip' roll of my own at about 2'26 in this video! Race Department JRDRC season 9 - Poland SS11 - YouTube