Race Report by Steve Carman
Images by CMS Members Discord Various
February 5th, 2022 – The second event in the 2022 CMS RWD Rally Championship was held in Värmland Sweden. 19 Drivers started what would prove to be a treacherous rally. With cold weather at the start and the forecast of heavy snow, The first stage sorted out the competitors, with Marvin Warthöfe in his Datsun 240 Z stepping out to an early lead which he never relinquished. Philipp Janssen chased hard in his 240 throughout the first stage but ended up 6 seconds back. Aleksander Saetre in his BMW E3 came in 3rd on the stage by just a hair. Lutz Müller came in 4th by 3 seconds in his Opel and rounding out the top five was Paul Müller in his 240Z 18 seconds behind Lutz. The second stage saw Marvin Warthöfe extend his lead to 16 seconds over second place. Lutz Müller put on an epic drive to move up to 2nd position displacing Philipp Janssen to 3rd by 3 seconds. Aleksander Saetre met with misfortune on the course and could not finish the stage or the rally. Paul Müller moved up to 4th place with a blazing fast stage and Roger Jackman moved up to 5th in his BMW E3.
On stage 3 the weather started getting evil and challenging the teams. Marvin Warthöfer had some time in hand luckily from the first 2 stages because Philipp and Lutz put in a faster stage time. Philipp and Lutz swapped places with Philipp moving up to 2nd Lutz in 3rd, Paul Müller 4th and Roger Jackman maintaining 5th. Stage 4 saw Marvin get back to his blazing speed, capturing the fastest stage time, with 2nd place and 3rd place swapping again with Lutz into 2nd and Philipp into 3rd. Paul again and Roger maintained 4th and 5th. The stage 5 finishing order saw Lutz Müller finally cementing second position, the rest of the drivers positions remained the same. Paul Müller did pull back 4 seconds from 3rd place Philipp though. After the mid rally service the weather continued to be messy. For the final five stages the top 5 did not change positions. The CMS Rally Championship points for the top ten after the Sweden round are:
1) Marvin Warthöfer Datsun 240Z
2) Paul Müller* Datsun 240Z
3) Philipp Janssen* Datsun 240Z
4) Lutz Müller Opel Ascona
5) Steve Carman* BMW E3
6) Roger Jackman* BMW E3
7) Aleksander Saetre BMW E3
8) Morgan McCalister BMW E3
9) Austin Powell BMW E310) Michael Mortensen Renault R5 Turbo
* Denotes tied points