Ronde du Centre

[Nknow]

Just finished it in a wheel of the Evo X. The rally was nice, all tarmac stages with different weather conditions. My goal was to finish and see if I can pick up the pace on asphalt. I achieved the first goal but the second not so much. At times I felt I could push but on some times I didn't dare to drive fast and just tried to keep the car on the road. Result wise I am not expecting much because I lost a lot of time on the first day and made a few mistakes on the second day.

Day 1
I used dry tarmac tires on the whole day.
SS1 - Fraizer Wells - Tarmac Mod - Good conditions - Dusk - 02:18.98
I tried to push but the lack of visibility in the high speed section caused me to slow down. I know I could have gone a lot faster but my brain was telling me to slow the s*** down.
SS2 - Diamond Creek II - Tarmac Mod - Good conditions - Night - 03:45.57
The headlights of the car illuminated about 30 meters so it was very dark for me and it was very scary stage in those circumstances. At first I tried to push, so came the first off, ok I thought I need to concentrate a little more. So came the second off and after that I just cruised to the finish. I lost lots of time on this stage.
SS3 - Mineshaft II - Tarmac Mod - Good conditions - Night - 05:21.50
Weirdly enough the visibility was actually very good on this stage. I tried to keep the car on the road and go as fast as I dared.

Day 2
First two loops I used dry tarmac tires and on the last loop wet ones.
SS4 - Greenhills - Tarmac Mod - Cloudy 'dry' - 03:32.77
SS5 - Sipirkakim - Tarmac Mod - Cloudy 'dry' - 04:47.19
SS6 - Pirka Menoko II - Tarmac Mod - Covered 'damp' - 05:07.19
I thought it would be a lot more slippier than it really was. A few times I felt that I had lost the grip but most of the stage the grip level was very high. I managed to spun on the stage though, lost maybe 5-10 seconds.

SS7 - Chirdonhead - Tarmac Mod - Cloudy 'dry' - 03:25.67
SS8 - Fraizer Wells - Tarmac Mod - Cloudy 'dry' - 02:04.91
SS9 - Diamond Creek II - Tarmac Mod - Cloudy 'dry' - 03:15.92
This stage was little tricky. In some places the ground was very bright and in some places the ground was very dark so I had to slow down to see where I was going.

SS10 - Shepherds Shield II - Tarmac Mod - Bad conditions - 02:54.50
SS11 - Sipirkakim - Tarmac Mod - Bad conditions - 04:56.60
I didn't make any mistakes on this one until the final 2 corners of the stage. At the long left hander I got little too much speed and my right side tires went on the grass which resulted a very high speed spin and the car did 180 degrees. So I was doing 100+km/h in reverse and just waited for the crash but nothing happened. The car went up the hill some distance, crossed the finish line and came back to the road about 20m after the finish marker. So I did 180 turn and went to the time control. I was very lucky that the incident ended like it did.

Early results are in the 'box.
Me 17th/ 5th N4
James 37th/ 7th R3

[tannat]

I did this rally in the R3 Punto, Am finding it a bit twitchy with the wheel-and I am a bit disappointed there isn't more room for adjustment in the suspension.

Nonetheless, still a peppy little car-and a fun drive...