RDRC S9 Round 1 - Rally Monte Carlo (1st February - 7th February 2021)

[ivannavi31]

Started good and than puncture at SS1 cost me 10min. Didn't gave up so happy to got all the way without retirement.

 

[Roland]

I should really stop watching these streamed runs you guys are posting, especially right before attempting this myself..
They really make me feel like I'm some tourist who got lost on a treacherous mountain so automatically I'll start pushing harder than I am capable of..
This overconfident start resulted in a small crash with a puncture near the end of SS1 so I had to limp to the finish on that one. But it was enough of a wake-up call to quickly revert to full grandma driving mode. I had packed 2 spare winter tyres for this one so with a slightly lighter car now, I finished the first 4 stages with some dented bodywork and a rattling driver door but without further big issues..
I'll save the other stages for another day though..

I probably shouldn't say it either but if it wasn't for RDRC I'd definitely never touch DR2.0 again..

I will say that if it wasn't for RDRC I might not have touched DR2.0 at all, and it might have ended as another one of those 0 hours played games in my Steam list... you know the ones you buy because they could be fun to play later when you'll have more time but that time never comes..

 

[alex2106]

Even with those streamed runs - looking at the results of RDRC-2 right now - times are still improving tenfold on what e.g. myself was able to do. Wow, and it is not even the weekend yet.

 

[Jack_W0lfen]

Started good and than puncture at SS1 cost me 10min. Didn't gave up so happy to got all the way without retirement.

I had two punctures on Stage 7 and had only one wheel for replacement. So, I made a retirement on Stage 8. Freakin' Ice and Snow of Monte-Carlo beat my car.

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

Alright, the Ascona is ready for shakedown...

... oh my. Came back from testing the stages on the first loop with the good feeling of finally managing a clean stage after countless attemps, only to realise I was more than twenty seconds off the pace but no excuses, it's time to hit the road and get going.

Good luck to those who have yet to start, see you at the first service break

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

... oh my. Came back from testing the stages on the first loop with the good feeling of finally managing a clean stage after countless attemps, only to realise I was more than twenty seconds off the pace but no excuses, it's time to hit the road and get going.

Better to be off the pace and finish, than on the pace but retiring! Steady does it!

Not that Richard Burns was slow, but there is a reason why he took a title and Latvala didn't And it's not only because of the name "Sébastian"

 

[Mathieu Labbé]

Well, there haven't been many other names on top since there was the OG Sébastien was it

Wanted to say thank you to everyone involved in this championship, having a blast on my first rally event.

For newbies in J-RDRC, would you say setups have a big impacts on the ultimate speed/grip available? I keep messing with my setup every now and then based on my knowledge from circuit racing sims, but Im not feeling huge change on behaviour.

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

Alright, shameless driving time. I'm streaming for the very first time, if anybody wants to watch some slow sideways driving and a high probability of spins and maybe crashes, this is the place:

twitch.tv/dani_l_monteiro

Starting in a few minutes

 

[MartinVRS]

Just finished all the stages, got to the end in one piece, so mission accomplished. I'm not gonna lie, I was nervous as hell, this being my first online championship in years. I rarely do online races, and only done one championship, with the original Dirt Rally.
Anyway I still need to learn how to calm myself down and relax. Right in the first stage around 1km in I had a spin, and after that scare I was driving way too carefully. Maybe it didn't help, that I done most of my practice with the default set, then decided to dial in a few things on the Impreza at the first service. Understeer caught me off guard and clipped the concrete barriers, and went in to a 360°. Luckily the only incident in the 12 stages. Also damage was cosmetic only, but I left about 8 seconds right at the start. I managed to get away with only minor things, like body, wheel geometry and radiator damages during the rally, so there weren't to many things to do at service. But then again, at the end I was 7 minutes behind the top runners in RDRC-2, so... (Jeeesus guys, what the hell?)
Also had problems with the hairpins today, for some reason. Stalling the car at them quite a few times, which I don't normally do. I'll write that up to the pressure of having no restarts (and maybe the longer first gear ratio?).
I started to get my confidence back at the last leg, there weren't too many mistakes on those stages, and my pace has improved a lot, but it wasn't really enough to catch up to anyone at the end. Anyway finished in one piece, now I'll wait for the results.
Congratulations to those who had already finished the rally, especially to the madlads at the top of the leaderboards! Those who are still at the service or just arrived to Monte Carlo, good luck out in the stages!

 

[vORBIS]

Well, there haven't been many other names on top since there was the OG Sébastien was it

Wanted to say thank you to everyone involved in this championship, having a blast on my first rally event.

For newbies in J-RDRC, would you say setups have a big impacts on the ultimate speed/grip available? I keep messing with my setup every now and then based on my knowledge from circuit racing sims, but Im not feeling huge change on behaviour.

There is a youtube channel named rally technical. The car feels much safer whith his setups

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Personally I just go with whatever the car has as default setup! Wroom Wroom!

 

[Spinninggenius]

Pleased to have reached the finish line in one piece in my first rally, and top of the PS4 runners in the junior class. And not quite top of the non PS4 class, there’s some seriously quick runners amongst you!
I don’t think I’ve ever done a stage on tyres as old as what I finished SS12 on! I did try and upload stages 3 and 4, but the upload failed, I’ll see if I can have another go later this week.

 

[Matthew Allington]

I survived - by my standards that's an achievement! Aside from a puncture in SS5 (good thing that it didn't blow entirely and that I had a spare) I didn't have too much eventfulness, just the occasional scratch and a couple of spins. Driving SS4 with tarmac tyres was a bit dodgy though

 

[Fleskebacon]

Personally I just go with whatever the car has as default setup! Wroom Wroom!

The default setups also suit me good enough - except that all 4wd cars in the world always need a more rear biased diff for more power oversteer. It's impossible to achieve too much oversteer!

 

[Roland]

I run default setup as well, but mainly because I have no clue what at least half of the settings will do
and I lack the spare time to find out the obvious way.

Even with default, I survived the middle 4 stages without big incidents today by being quite careful, except for SS8, where I had two spins (both in not-too-harmful places for the car, luckily) and a freaking puncture on the third-to-last corner. Lost quite a bit of time on that stage and dropped a few places in the standings, but at least I'm still here..

Last season I had to retire from the Monte Carlo Rally on SS9 IIRC, so I'm already close to my personal goal of improving from that But to increase my odds of even finishing this Rally, I'll leave the final 4 stages for the weekend, and get some good nights' sleep first

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

The default setups also suit me good enough - except that all 4wd cars in the world always need a more rear biased diff for more power oversteer. It's impossible to achieve too much oversteer!

Eh. I'm not sure if the default stuff suits me or not. I just... Never test I just drive

 

[Spinninggenius]

Pleased to have reached the finish line in one piece in my first rally, and top of the PS4 runners in the junior class. And not quite top of the non PS4 class, there’s some seriously quick runners amongst you!
I don’t think I’ve ever done a stage on tyres as old as what I finished SS12 on! I did try and upload stages 3 and 4, but the upload failed, I’ll see if I can have another go later this week.

Looks like it did upload! Glad I took winter tyres for stage 4!

 

[Mario Peixoto]

I managed to finish the rally, which in Monte-Carlo is always a good reward! The first half went pretty well, with no major mistakes and almost no damage to the Subaru. First service area took only 4 minutes of repairs and that was mostly minor body damage. So, I was happy!

Everything went terribly wrong in SS7, though. A rear puncture in the early part of the stage made me lost 1 minute to change the tire. That in itself was not a huuuuge deal, although disappointing. After that, I somehow lost my focus and ended up crashing heavily on SS8 - basically I forgot the co-driver's note and turned the wrong way straight into the mountain. Stupid me, front of the car suffered a lot with a broken radiator. I also managed yet another rear puncture near the end of SS8, fortunately the tire kept in the rim until the finish line. Some luck there, at least.

The last 4 stages were very difficult, as I could not fix the car as much as I needed in just 30 minutes. SS11 saw engine power massively decrease and then SS12 was just limping uphill hoping the car would make it. A bad ending to a rally that started quite well, but that is Monte-Carlo! A true challenge.

Hopefully Sweden will go better. Still had quite some fun with the Subaru 1995, great car.

 

[Y-Man]

Hello guys,

A power outage occurred when I had just finished stage No3. When the power returned, I was able to complete stage No4 and get to the service area. But it looks like my time for stage 3 was not uploaded :-(. I know there are no restarts allowed, but in a situation like this, is there something I can do to run the third stage again or something ? Thanks

 

[Roy Magnes]

The second loop of stages did turn out to be a disaster for me. Ss5 went fairly ok for me, but after the flying finish I got caught on the snow on the outside and I crashed into a stone wall head on, getting a puncture. Nothing special to report from ss6, the one was steady in the middle of the road.

But any chance of points really left me on ss7... One thing is that I did not have any light pod on the car from the start of the stage, but when I did not get the car to turn in on a 4 left over a crest and whacked the right side of the car into a wall. Double puncture, and well over half of this satge left to run, aswell as another long one after that... Yay...

I don't really know if I will bother driving the final loop of stages. On one side I would like to finish the rally, but I have absolutely nothing to gain from it as I am by far not fast enough to steal any points from the power stage...


The crash produced some good looking photos, though...