Think I should have stiffened up my suspension but the terrain was also so jumpy that I dunno if it would have helped. But what do I know about tuning lol
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lol my suspension was stuff along with the damping. It helps keep contact with the surface and felt stable. My biggest issue was the edges of the road surface was made from nightmares, if you touch that, welcome to destination fked.
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Eish decided to catch the early worm because I’m about to have a suuper busy week. And I had some time today. Smashed my lights early on the second stage and had to drive pretty much blind the rest of the race… I do no advise.
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“No lights” is the mood in South Africa right now.
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A quick (and belated, sorry, #ThanksEskom) recap of the Polish Rally that ended on the weekend…
Eight drivers managed to find their way to the Czarny Las Start Line in Leczna County. (Presumably the others couldn’t read the Polish signs and settled for a night in the pub and DNS listings.)
As predicted, and as @Aldyr mentioned, Alien 1 and Alien 2 did their back and forth throughout the event again. @Aldyr’s nerve (and his new wheel) held out the longest and he claims the 
P1 by an insanely close 3 seconds!! How he and P2 placed 
@Boogey manage to be so well matched and close every event still amazes me. Three seconds after 12 stages and nearly an hour of rallying?! How?!
Just as well matched this season, but not quite as close this time round P3s 
@LazyDemoni and P4s @the9avenger9 continued their battle for third place in the Championship again. This time it was @LazyDemoni’s turn to climb the podium step and taste the champagne in Poland, with @the9avenger9 looking on from 30 seconds away.
Only two other classified finishers this time around. P5 points to @Dragonic, who was also the last to complete all 12 stages. @Beo goes P6 after making it to the halfway stage before crashing out on Stage 7. Participation points for myself with 3 stages done, and for @murfle with his traditional Stage 1 scenic drive.
That leaves just two events to go and the Championship title and podium places couldn’t be any closer still!
@Boogey and @Aldyr tie at the top, @LazyDemoni and @the9avenger9 separated by just 4 points for the podium, and just 3 points separating myself, @Dragonic, @Beo, and @WarRack101 for that final Top 5 spot in the Championship.
Going to ping all of the drivers who’ve done a stage this season to try and do the last two events just to get as many points into play at the end of the season as possible. (I really don’t want to have to go work out tie-breakers
) The more drivers who at least start the rally the bigger the points pool for that event, the more important it becomes for the Aliens and Semi-Aliens to be super-fast and error-free in the last two events.
So @Boogey @aldyr @LazyDemoni @the9avenger9 @GregRedd @Dragonic @Beo @WarRack101 @Munage @murfle @czc @TheeAlekai @oltman @jaydogg86 @Deadlypinecone @SlinX
If you can, come get a little Dirty just once or twice more to help make things a little more interesting.
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MEWRL 2022.1 Rally Championship
Round 11: Rally America| New England, USA 
Event Period
2022-09-17T22:15:00Z → 2022-10-01T21:59:00Z
- Starts: 00:15 - Sunday, 18 September
- Ends: 23:59 - Saturday, 1 October
Eligible Cars
We’re Modern Rallying in the R2 class this time around. A trio of choice junior class rally cars to select from as an intro to the final round’s R5 big boys.
Modern Rally R2 cars:
- Ford Fiesta R2
- Opel Adam R2
- Peugeot 208 R2
Rally Route
The rally opens with two back-to-back long stages just to help you get quickly acclimatised to the Autumn colours of the New England landscape. And, as @Dragonic has already discovered, both those stages and Stage 3 all have horrible Surface Degradation. You know, the fun stuff. 
ToD alternates between Daytime and Dusk each stage, so, again as @Dragonic has discovered, protecting your headlights is going to be important throughout the event. GLHF!
New England is not quite the Wild West, but… Yeeha Cowboys!! Go get Dirty USA style y’all!
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It’s nice to drive a modestly powered, FWD car again. I like the USA stages too.
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Only did 3 stages, but it was actually good. My hate for FWD was tied and gagged in the back seat. Excellent car, the Fiesta is
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I made this quite exciting for myself by forgetting to change tyres between stages. Then I crashed into a rock at night, making every turn an “unseen”. Ah well 
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So, my Stage 1 went well. Until about the half way point. Then took a big jump at the wrong angle, came down hard on a low embankment with the left side of the car, and…
Two punctures which quickly turned into driving on two rims. Limped to the end of the stage in 10+ minutes, then had to run (long!) Stage 2 and Stage 3 with only three working wheels because I only had the one spare. A definite “Do Not Try This At Home!” situation. After wrestling the little Ford over the Stage 3 Finish Line, I’m already 8 minutes down on the leader 
I quit at that point, so I’ll only find out how much of the damage can be repaired at the Service Stop before starting Stage 4.
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Damn son, that sucks man! As long as you’re still in the running.
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Finished up this afternoon. Had a few mishaps but overall I was quite happy with my results, though many still have to partake so I imagine my standing will drop. Albeit I think this is the closest I’ve been to the top three leaders.
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That’s a good point. Just over a day left to get your R2 rolling through the autumn leaves of New England.
Grumpier now about my double punctures than I was when they happened! Rushed through my remaining stages this morning to avoid load shedding now and stuff this evening. Took a couple of stages to get into it, but by Stage 8 I was flying (relatively for me of course). Posted times in the last five stages that were almost on the @LazyDemoni / @the9avenger9 level.
You two should thank your lucky stars that I waited until the second half of the second last event to work out how to drive else you’d be the ones fighting to stay in the Top 5 and I’d be the one standing on the podium.* 
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* Yeah, not really, but it is nice to have dreams 
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Jump, rock, wheel, over.
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Sounds familiar…
Also not something I ever thought I’d hear coming from you. Sorry mate.
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Well that was fun. For some. For others, not so much. USA! USA! USA! Fuck yeah!
With punctures galore and smashed headlights for many, the seemingly placid autumnal leaves and glorious sunsets of the New England countryside turned into a bit of horror show.
Seven drivers made the trek over the Atlantic to take the Stage 1 start at Beaver Creek. And from the very start things started going pear-shaped. I lost over 3 minutes to the leaders on Stage 1. Another 3 minutes dropped on Stage 2 with @Dragonic even worse off without lights. Stage 6 hobbled @Dragonic’s charge back by another 2:43. Stage 7 was the undoing of Championship contender @aldyr leaving him with Terminal Damage and a big dent in his challenge to take the title from @Boogey.
@Beo’s struggles came on Stage 8 where it was his turn to drop 2 minutes to the leader. And the troubles continued all the way to the final Stage with @Beo losing another 1:07, @LazyDemoni slipping 1:26, and another 2:48 loss for @Dragonic which was enough to have him slip behind me, despite my shocking 10 minute loss in the early stages.
Hell is trying to drive a R2 rally car in New England it seems.
At the end of the day, it was another comfortable win for @Boogey and with @aldyr’s DNF our perennial P3ers @the9avenger9 and @LazyDemoni both get to stand on the podium this time around.
@Beo is best of the rest in P4 with me in P5. @Dragonic picks up points for being the last to cross the line in P6, with @aldyr having to saddle the P7 participation point this time around.
It’s a little easier for @Boogey at the top of the Championship now with just one round left and a 6 point gap to @aldyr. But, as we’ve just seen, anything can happen and often does in rally. Despite the lead, the champion-elect can’t make any mistakes in Scotland.
The @LazyDemoni vs. @the9avenger9 battle for P3 is still very much alive for the same reasons - anything can happen in Scotland, and 3 points is definitely not a safe gap. The Top 5 race is also still wide open with still just 2 points in it between myself, @Beo and @Dragonic. Plenty to play for through the forests in Scotland.
With that done we’re down to just one more rally in this season - Scotland is calling you and your R5.
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MEWRL 2022.1 Rally Championship
Round 12: Rally Scotland | Perth and Kinross | Modern Rally R5
We’re off to the spiritual heart of Dirt Rally for the final event in this years’ MEW Racing League Dirt Rally Championship. The narrow, twisty forest tracks that the legendary Colin McRae called home await your arrival in a shiny new R5 rally car that will very quickly disappear under a layer of mud. Can you hear the bagpipes? Can you smell the haggis? Can you taste the whiskey?*
Event Period
2022-10-01T22:15:00Z → 2022-10-15T21:59:00Z
- Starts: 00:15 - Sunday, 2 October
- Ends: 23:59 - Saturday, 15 October
Eligible Cars
The last of the cars that we’ll be using this Championship are the six 280bhp beasts in the R5 Modern Rally class.
Modern Rally R5 cars
- Citroen C3 R5
- Ford Fiesta R5
- Mitsubishi Space Star R5
- Peugeot 208 T16 R5
- Skoda Fabia R5
- Volkswagen Polo GTI R5
The Rally Route
The now standard split of 8 short and 4 long stages for you again. The challenge is that I’ve kept 3 of the long stages for the final three stages of the rally and the Championship.
Surface deg is not too bad this time around with just one stage set to Maximum degradation and only three others at High.
It looks like there’s only two different times of day in Scotland: Daytime and Sunset. That’s because the sky is generally a uniform grey and no one can really tell the difference between morning and afternoon. And “sunset” is just an indicator that day is changing to night.
That’s it chaps - the last hurrah, the final chapter, the end of the road. Go get absolutely filthy dirty one last time!
* Only one of these three things is actually enjoyable. The Scottish clearly are a nation of self-loathing masochists.
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Lovely writeup again Greg. I’ve started on this already as our loadshedding was done. I forgot how fast and dangerous Scotland was! But it is fun
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