PoR Week 31 Recap – Maximum Points and Improvised Advertising Devices

[spspears]

Well, this week we saw both the normal and abnormal (or perhaps paranormal) in the RSRBR championships.



Bryan provided the normal, blistering the tarmac on the Mont Dore hillclimb. But, for the second French Hillclimb Cup event in a row, he was narrowly denied the top spot in Group N and Class 4 by the Hungarian heat seeking missle known as Kikiny. Kikiny is a bit like David Anderson's friend the Dos Equis guy. He once tasted defeat, just to find out how bitter it was. Joking aside, this was the first time that any PoR driver earned maximum stable points in an event – congrats Bryan.



The rest of the team found itself in Portugal for the IRC Rali Vinho de Madeira and the Rali da Madeira of the Portuguese Championship. Aaron competed in the Portuguese championship, where he finally debuted his Citroën C2 R2Max. He was very satisfied with the car, pushing hard with a big grin until SS7 when he encountered the first big yump of the rally. He bounced, spun and whacked a tree, ending leg 1 a few stages early.

Of the IRC crowd, Steven was first to hit the stages and he had a decent first leg, though a silly mistake on SS12 left him with two wheels in the ditch and a considerable time loss. Justin and Rick also had very solid runs in their Prodrive Imprezas, but they were also just a couple mistakes away from a completely clean leg. At the end of the day, all three were within 38 seconds of each other.

At dinner that evening, Steven, who often runs the C2 R2Max, caught up with Aaron. “Hey Smokee! Meant to tell you this morning you might want to soften up the suspension on the C2 for those bumps. That thing pogos all over the place!” “Yeah, thanks a lot, I'll make sure to do that.” replied Aaron sarcastically, shifting the icepack on his knee. He then muttered something that no one could quite make out.

Belated information in hand, Aaron set out on leg 2. He had a couple of anxious moments, but made it through relatively unscathed en route to 8th place in class A6 and 58th overall. Unfortunately, things weren't quite as straightforward for the IRC guys. The main feature of this leg was Frazier Wells II, which is ultra fast and downright scary at points – definitely a stage that can ruin a rally. And it did just that for Justin. He smacked a tree at high speed on SS18 and had to retire with transmission damage. Rick nearly suffered the same fate with a high speed spin on the same stage, but he survived that incident and fought on to a very nice 57th place overall.

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About this time, Steven's rally got a little bizarre. 2km into the third stage of the leg, the rear of the car suddenly hopped into the air on a slow left hander and it half-spun, leaving the front wheels hanging over the edge of an embankment. He freed the car by moving forward, but got stuck off track and lost about a minute and several places in the standings. At service he spoke with Rick: “I think is was an advertizing sign,” he said with a puzzled look. “I know there's a sign there – what else could it have been? But I wasn't cutting the corner at all – I swear!” Rick just smiled and shrugged, knowing Steven loves to cut whenever he can. Steven drove a bit angry after that, which worked until the last stage of the rally, where he spun off and maimed a bystander, costing him more time. Despite all of this, he managed 27th in the 2WD class and 61st overall.

After the rally, a spectator provided us with a somewhat grainy cellphone video he had made of the incident. It clearly shows that Steven's 207 was hit by an Improvised Advertising Device – an IAD – that sprung out into the road as Steven passed, striking the rear wheel and sending the car into a spin. The video also appears to show at least one and possibly two shadowy figures at the sign location. One looks to be wearing some kind of hat. “But who would do something like that? And why?” asked Rick incredulously. “Rick,” said Steven. “I've done some things...before you joined the team...I don't like to talk about it, but...” “What kinds of things?” asked Rick nervously. “Well, Justin remembers,” mumbled Steven, “ Circuit des Ardennes...Alex T. and I must have maimed 50 spectators up there – looked like a battlefield again...maybe someone wanted revenge.” “I see...” said Rick, trailing off as he turned away.

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After loading everything up, we all piled into the Wagoneer for the long trip back to our home base in Belgium. Aaron asked to be taken to the train station, saying he wanted to get over to Catalunya early to check out the stages for this week's rally. We dropped him off, and had a good laugh about the IAD incident on the way home – though it took a bit of time to for Steven to see the humor in it. When we got back and unpacked everything, Steven found a camo jungle hat stuffed under the back seat – size 7 1/2. Neither Justin nor Rick had ever seen it before...

And so ends this week's rather silly recap. I promise something more straightforward next time. Good luck to all in Week 32.