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

“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 did excellent practice times inPoland. The 6:30 in your video beats my best by 3 secs. The rally is better suited for my slowing reflexes! But the nerves got to me in stage 5 with consequences for the rest. Poland is not a place to loose your concentration! I will practice the last 4 stages like crazy, but slower. Anyway, my car is so damaged that it will be slow till the end. Better for me, I guess...
 
My team is a bunch of complete idiots... I asked them to polish the wheels of the Mitsubishi for the event... Technically they did it right, but this was not what I had in mind :ninja:

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What a cruel rally this is! Gotta go flat out with no fear in the forest and very short services.

I had to retire on SS7. No terminal but basically everything was broken in my car. A lot of small hits and bumps.
For example I hit twice the same annoying goal markers to break my radiator.

Again great battle with my nemesis spinninggenius (and rawbear)! It's so satisfying to drive against opponents with same skill level. :)
 
Went into this feeling good that I'd finish with little damage and soon as i start SS1 it goes Tits up soon as my anxiety kicks in and im making mistakes allover the place, car was screwed by stage 6 but carried on as I do, like too test my engines capability to crawl too the end, dunno if my car has a weaker engine than others but it likes too lose power a lot, anyway, forgetting this mess of a rally and looking forward too the next round.
 
Done! Thanks to @WhiteFox41, I fixed the wheel symmetry first (quick fix) and the radiator (quick fix to prevent more engine damage) and then took a 25 seconds penalty to quick fix the engine. Hesitated a lot choosing the right combination of fixes but my priorities were right. Beside the 25 seconds penalty, I did decent times on the last 3 stages, with the car acting up most of the time (loosing top speed and with a very noisy muffler!).

I'm tired again, but this rally is easy on the shoulders (I also cranked down the force on my Accuforce steering).

This was FUN again! Thanks to the organizers!
 
Man, I honestly didn't expect this rally to be filled with retirements. I know day 2 is long with little service, but I didn't think it would cause more issues than worn tyres and some iffy engine/gearbox.
 
Hmm.. seems I'm fashionably late to the party, again. But.....
on the good news side, totally unexpectedly, I managed to secure a one-event only sponsorship deal with well-known Polish toy manufacturer COBI..:)
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However, applying all the decals took them a full day, which also meant a whole day less time to practice. But hey, just like all racing teams, we surely could use the sponsorship money!

So I decided to just recce the first 4 stages for now, then run them, and should we survive, then we'll see when and how to tackle the remaining stages.

Things started out not too bad, but we hadn't accounted for the wet stages to make the car this dirty this quickly! So very early on, our precious sponsorship decals had turned into dark brown blobs..

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during the stages, we had our share of highs...
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and lows...
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It's remarkable how clean the underside of the car was in all this mud!:laugh:
Anyway.. we survived the first day (minus a passenger door - not in the pictures as I'm afraid the sponsor wants his money back..:D) so on to day 2.. and some more stages I've never driven before.:cautious:
 
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Since Poland is so full of big bad cuts, thought I would post my footage this week for the sake of showing that I resisted any temptation: full twitch stream.

And also a couple of close calls here and here... very intense event :poop: Fun times
Those poor course workers at the stage ends. You can see the terror in their eyes as the car keeps accelerating past the finish line. :confused::confused::confused:
 
Damn this rally scares me. Been putting off starting it since I know it most probably will end with terminal damage against a tree. "Do or do not. There is no try" - as (rally) Master Yoda would say :)

Good luck to all!

Oh, and superb job on the magazines! Really makes you feel like part of a big event. Tusen takk!
 
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