August 7, 2019 – 37 cars rolled out for the start and already 6 didn’t see the finish of stage 1! Magnar (who is freakin fast but struggles with PC problems ever since there is Dirt Rally), Xsaros & Torwith (Fast guys but wait, wasn’t there a bridge…) and RallyManic1964. Kitakaze and pearlo81 complete the list of DNF’s for stage 1.
On stage 2 only Russelcubs joined the group before the drivers calmed down until stage 6, when Huillaprima forced forum-members svt4cam and Roy Magnes to their knees. Biggest surprise was the DNF of Galvalao, member of esports team A-Sport, as he led the event by nearly 18s after the previous stage and winning the first five stages. So we should attest him that he always drove at the limits – great drive so far mate!
San Isidro saw all starters finish before Ledesma set a DNF on stage 8 and CHAM, previously placed on P4 overall, didn’t even start this stage. Ralf_mol and man-of-results enamel weren’t able to see the finish the following stage. Two more guys got lost on the 11th stage, Miraflores. Paiven from A-Sport, who had one stage win at stage 8, wasn’t able to set a time and jak2755 had a DNF caused by whatever.
As max. 20 people can score points per event, there was one unlucky guy to not score beside the ones that didn’t make it to the finish. Vracer1 finished on P21 and despite the fact that he was placed near the end of the tables throughout the whole rally, he managed to finish this challenging event and didn’t retire caused by lost motivation or whatever before the last stage was completed – respect mate!!! That’s the spirit we want to see
On P20 cypheus earns 1 point, so do Kinggene on P19, Andre1986 on P18 and CMS-admin davidantx on P17. Infected Harpy, Zekeemo and brian_paterson on positions 16 to 14 earned 2 points each and one point more went to Bleifussler, christoph1954 and that_guy.
Let’s take a look at the top 10: Crazymotors finished on a solid 10th place. His best stage seems to be stage 9 where he finished 6th on his Ford Fiesta . On P9 we see Rallye_Co_Pilot_87 on a Peugeot 208. His highest finish was a strong P5 on stage 7. He lost a possible P8 overall on the very last stage where d69_inge finishes. So Dag’s return to the DiRT series can be seen as a success as he got a P6 on stage 10 as his best result throughout the event. P7 is where Walter Röhrl finishes, as Dag driving a VW Polo, after a solid P5 on stage 11. Wolfsmind on P6 drives a Mitsubishi Space Star, which gave him an impressive P4 on the 10th stage. Overall fifth finishes Lauris_A who drove a VW Polo. Lauris’ highest finish is an awesome P4 on stage 11. Glenowan on P4 finished P4 twice throughout the event (stages 9 and 12). He misses the podium by 2mins.
The top 3 get completed by Codemasters-forums bugfinder Riggs from A-Sport on P3. Just 16s behind P1 after 43mins of racing isn’t that much! Riggs got one stage win and finishes about 9s behind his team mate, Bombast1k on P2. Both drive a Fiesta which lead Bombast1k to fantastic 5 stage-wins in Argentina. And even though “only” 50% of team A-Sports saw the finish, both finishers went straight to the podium!
And all those who counted the above mentioned stage-wins so far may ask themselves, if we had more than 12 stages in the Argentinian event? Not really boys, not really! So the overall win goes to the Skoda Fabia driving guy with a very high efficiency and constant high performance without winning a single stage! He finished 2nd or 3rd on 11 of 12 stages and entered P1 overall after stage 6 where he stayed until the finish. His lead went down to 2,7s after stage 9 but he seems to have strong nerves as he build a distance of 7,28s to his following rival… Congrats 1KorteX1 !!! Well deserved win mate!
Report by Aaron DeMarre