RDRC S9 Round 6 - Rally New Zealand (12th April - 18th April 2021)

This is normal for championships, we've seen disappointingly big drop-offs in leagues were only premium members can participate as well.
Previously, before premium membership, it was "licensed member", if you lost the license you wouldn't be able to race on any RD servers. Even then we've experienced seasons with 50-60 sign-ups and 16-20 drivers driving the second to last rally (which somehow often is the rally with fewest competitors). In fact, last season we had about the same amount of drivers in the 6th rally as Rally NZ this season, but we had almost 100 more sign-ups in total.
We know it will happen, and it is a choice we make, to open it up for everyone, which does make it easier for people to sign up and "forget" about it.

I'm sure there are things we could've done better as well, to keep interest higher and/or people to not forget about this.

Hi, what you've done so far is great.
That reminds me of the old RBR times. A championship as well organized as this is definitely an exception.

Maybe you can expand the scoring. When I notice that I can hardly get out of 30th place and thus never get on the board .....
But if they are listed overall and can also fight for 41st place, some may stay on the ball.

By the way: 20th place in New Zealand Yihaaaaa :D:D

And a great fight with Aaron and Robert. THX :thumbsup:
 
Hi, what you've done so far is great.
That reminds me of the old RBR times. A championship as well organized as this is definitely an exception.

Thanks! :) We certainly do what we can! :)

Maybe you can expand the scoring. When I notice that I can hardly get out of 30th place and thus never get on the board .....
But if they are listed overall and can also fight for 41st place, some may stay on the ball.

By the way: 20th place in New Zealand Yihaaaaa :D:D

That 20th place wouldn't tasted as good if top 30 had scored? ;)

A bit more seriously though. There is several things we consider when making a points system. One thing is the balance between the achievement it should be to score points, and not alienating too many drivers from not scoring. If let's say top 30 had scored, then from Poland and on, all you'd have to do in RDRC-2 would be to finish the rally to score points, and almost the same in J-RDRC.
I know, it's a bit rich coming from me in RDRC-3, where all drivers have scored the whole season (and the drop-off have been minimal), but managing to score should be a bit more of an achievement than "just" finishing.
Then we have to decide on the emphasis of the point system, we know we can't follow the real life system, so we need to come up with something else. For us, we put extra emphasis on getting on the podium, with the points difference between 3rd and 4th being bigger than between 2nd and 3rd. Percentage-wise, the gap between 1st and 2nd are smaller than in real life.
In addition, due to the half-points rules we wanted all points to be possible to divide on two, without getting 0.5 points.

I don't think our points system is perfect though, but it's certainly not terrible, so that's something! :)
 
Most inconsistent rally driver have short report about New Zealand! :D It was very inconsistent...
Started very good, full of hopes, as always... Huge mistake at SS02, no damage, but massive penalty for knocking down few spectators... Sorry!
Then my average driving til PS, where I decided to push a bit - few barrel rolls, two punctures, reset back to track, only one spare, few more times reset back to track!
 
Time is not my friend at the moment, so had no chance to prepare any screens but atleast i can give a short summary.
New Zealand brought both ups and downs in terms of pace, punctured in the first corners of stage 3 so decided to stop and change the wheel which we managed with just 1 minute timeloss, practicing pays off :cool:

Otherwise steady pace within top ten stage times pretty much all rally, picked up another puncture close to the finish on one of the later stages (don´t remember which). Gave it a big push for powerstage that rewarded us with second and sneaked just outside top ten overall, so still i'm quite happy with my result :thumbsup:
 
While others might have little time for screenshots and long posts. I'll do my usual 10-picture rally-report-pic-dump-with-loads-of-hyphens-in-a-sentence-post! or something. Like Mario says: So Long King Bowser! Uhm.. I meant; Let's-a Go!

The rally started out in the damp darkness in the land of the non-flying bird!
MEvET5A.png


And with an all black car, it was basically just some lights and sponsors that showed in the dark for the team of O.Myrvold and C.O.Driver!
IUgKEqR.png


Luckily it didn't take too long time before the sun was getting up, the roads dried up, and it was possible to drive more like I wanted, except I struggled with understeering. Or at least that's the excuse. The reality was that I didn't get into the rhythm I felt I needed, which caused me to understeer!
0uvUy7Q.png


After getting a service on the car... well, not much to service needed, so we also spent some time cleaning it, it was time to go out on the last loop of Day 1. Looking awesome!
OaZNh0z.png

Depending on... circumstances you might've said or heard this comment before. But... Nice "bush"!
N0KgaPw.png


Then the media-team spotted a bit of irony in the footage. Here we see a drone, from a helicopter. No cool drone shots are within budget, but a massive helicopter is! Sounds like the priorities are perfect here!

zDyuD5n.png


During the second day I was able to get into the rhythm I wanted, throwing the car around and having loads of fun on roads that are amazing to drive on!
tecFwtu.png


When I say throwing the car around I mean it! I am a Scandinavian, so it's obligatory to do at least one Scandinavian Flick during a rally. So while it may look like I am going to make a huge mistake here, very shortly after the picture was taken, the car flicks around into a lovely power-drift through the corner! Wrooom! Control! :cool:
SOc6mYt.png


Then a lack of control. Being a bit too confident, ending up like a bad copy of Austin Powers!
b9WzQH4.png


In the end the rally was really fun to drive, but I didn't get the result I wanted, and have dropped down from 3rd in the class. In reality I had hoped to either secure 2nd or 3rd in class before Scotland, which would've made me change to RDRC-2 for Scotland, as I really dislike that rally, and it doesn't fit my love of driving sideways. However, that didn't happen!

Ending NZ with a picture of one of those bridges that I luckily didn't fail to navigate at all during the rally! Phew!
pMQYYrJ.jpg


Now it's time to figure out a livery for Scotland!
It could've been blue and orange, but it won't be. No Irn-Bru for me!

- Pinky Out!
 
Finally taking the time to write a short summary about my... experiences in NZ :D Will keep it a bit short than usual tho.

The beginnings of the rally went pretty nice, SS1 to SS5 went without any issues. Not with fantastic pace, but with the usual pace I've got, so I was happy with how things went. Solid would be the right way to describe it.

20210418192930_1.jpg


Really nice colors and landscapes along the ride - but better focus on the road, and not on the beauty of it.

20210418200757_1.jpg


Come SS6 I missed the hairpin by the river and went downwards right next to it. With DR2 being the game it is I wasn't able to reset right away and needed to drive into the water, not knowing if that would DNF or reset me onto the road. Luckily the only thing I lost was a bit of time:

20210418203114_1.jpg


After this, I went back to my normal pace and looked to truck safely through the remaining stages.

20210418204206_1.jpg


20210418204229_1.jpg


20210418204257_1.jpg


The next service made the car shiny once again, lookin' fresh!

20210418205035_1.jpg


On SS9 however, when @Roy Magnes who I was racing in the Rally for times was watching my stream concentration lapsed for just one second and off I went into one of those stupid fences. Car was pretty broken afterwards, I had the least amount of power and probably coolant possible afterwards. Still one stage to go to the next service. Yikes.

20210418210309_1.jpg


Not the best way to start a stage:

20210418210946_1.jpg


Comparing my times to @Camaro735 was a bit suprising, as I didn't lose that much time on SS11, at least not as much as I was expecting to lose. The car didn't even manage to accelerate out of fourth gear however...

After SS11 the car went into the final service and the only thing out of a big list of orange to red items I was able to quick fix was the engine - starting the (out of) power stage with a car looking like this didn't feel all that great:

20210418212200_1.jpg


First half of the stage was suprisingly okayish / quick. Come the second half however the turbo didn't hold the pressure again, I had funny engine noises and as the mechanics forgot to pour at least a bit of water into the radiator (or it lost it all again, which is the more likely option) the car was down on power big time once more. I was still able to finish a solid 12th place, but lost a bunch of points due to one very tiny lapse of concentration. Argh. Not sure if I should be angry with myself for the error, or be happy that despite the car being in the condition it was in I was still able to finish the rally.

20210418213259_1.jpg


As Scotland and therefore our final round is coming up I just want to thank you all who are still participating, especially in RDRC-2, but also in all the other classes. Its been a pleasure sharing these moments with you and I can imagine scrolling through the magazines in some years time and remembering this championship with a smile. And a bit of annoyance, but thats due to the game we are using. :p

See ye efter! (As scots say, according to some random webpage).
 
I use this to get the free camera in replays:

And then I edit the screenshots in Photoshop and Snapseed.
Fun-bump of this thread & post!

Thanks for the link. Used this for some vital clips in the video I posted in the Rally World thread! :)
 
Wellp....just completed my run of Scotland. I could rip my own eyes out, I'm so disappointed! Lol.

I somehow managed to flip my car near the beginning of Stage 6, right after the Service Station. Not sure what I did, but popped a tire off in the process and lost 1 minute there.

Stage 7, again managed to spin myself and almost careen off a cliff, first gear, full throttle wheel all the way to the right managed to save me! Then spent the next few stages sliding into ditches and spending I dunno how long getting to know their families and friends, you can imagine how much time I lost there! And don't think for a second all that ditch work and flipping like a dolphin didn't damage my poor Delta. Car was all but trashed by stage 7 after all the work we did digging ditches for our friends.

STILL...I did manage to finish, second place for now. Large gap from first to second so I'm sure someone will claim it soon enough! However, my saving grace is somehow managing to keep the car alive, finishing 2nd, and I set, iirc, a total of 6 of the fastest segments! And when I wasn't busy doing litter patrol in the ditches and tossing pieces of my car in the process, I was actually keeping up decently.

I fricken love rally.
 
Wellp....just completed my run of Scotland. I could rip my own eyes out, I'm so disappointed! Lol.

I somehow managed to flip my car near the beginning of Stage 6, right after the Service Station. Not sure what I did, but popped a tire off in the process and lost 1 minute there.

Stage 7, again managed to spin myself and almost careen off a cliff, first gear, full throttle wheel all the way to the right managed to save me! Then spent the next few stages sliding into ditches and spending I dunno how long getting to know their families and friends, you can imagine how much time I lost there! And don't think for a second all that ditch work and flipping like a dolphin didn't damage my poor Delta. Car was all but trashed by stage 7 after all the work we did digging ditches for our friends.

STILL...I did manage to finish, second place for now. Large gap from first to second so I'm sure someone will claim it soon enough! However, my saving grace is somehow managing to keep the car alive, finishing 2nd, and I set, iirc, a total of 6 of the fastest segments! And when I wasn't busy doing litter patrol in the ditches and tossing pieces of my car in the process, I was actually keeping up decently.

I fricken love rally.

So, should copy this post over to the Scotland thread then? :whistling:
 
Back
Top