This was our 21st season at the Winter Rally School, and our 10th year at Dagali and Bardøla Høyfjellshotel in Geilo.

 

No major accidents, a Peugeot 206 rolled over with me as passenger, but with little damage.

Very good winter conditions, below 0 degrees all the time from when we started in the end of November, until we finished the last course in the beginning of March.

What happened to global warming ?  For the last 3 years, the ice on the lake is thick enough to use, earlier and earlier. This winter it was thick enough 25th November, and we started the first course 29th.  We went home for Christmas on 19th December.

 

Started up again 10th January and had courses all the time through until 3rd March.

 

The spring is coming, and the sun is warming, so to give the drivers optimal conditions without water-puddles, it is time to stop. It would have been possible to run for another one or two weeks, but most of our drivers come from far away, and they are difficult to turn around if the conditions are not good enough. We want to give our drivers quality, optimal conditions, and then we stop before we can no longer supply that.                                                                                                                                        

 

This year we had drivers from 13 different nations. We have also had a lot of sunshine as usual. Temperature mostly around minus 10, and the lowest has been minus 30. Not very much snow this winter, but enough, around 50 cm.

 

The most interesting cars:

Fiesta S2000 with Dennis Kuipers and Craig Breen.

Very well handling competition-car, with excellent suspension and brakes, and very easy and nice to drive. Good power until 4th gear, but typical S2000, a bit lazy in 5th and 6th

Also impressed by Fiesta R2 with Molly Taylor and Alastair Fisher. Also nice car to drive, with nice suspension, but of course with a lot less power than the S2000 car.

 

Most fun week:

First week in February with Alex Herrman from Germany and his mad BMW drivers.

They were with us for the 3rd  time, and they brought 5 BMWs 318 on a transporter from Mosel in Germany where they are based. They are more interested in learning to drive as sideways as possible. Big slides, and we towed them up from the snow banks 64 times, which is a record. Their car control is improving, but not the speed ! But they have a lot of fun, and we do as well.

 

Who was fastest:

Craig Breen in the Fiesta S2000 with a lap-time of 1,49 on the 3 km long race-track. We are changing and adjusting the track a bit during the season, because of tear and wear, so the times can not be exactly compared, but still I am sure Craig was the fastest. He was with us practising for the Swedish Rally, where he did very well. He was with us for the 3rd time, and I am happy to see his improvements.

He is very good, can go far, and is a very nice person to work with.

          

Who else improved the most:

Alastair Fisher who was with us for the first time. Made great improvements in the R2 Fiesta, was very quick in the end, and also a very nice person to work with,  listens and takes notes a lot. Also a driver that can go far.

Hubert Ptaszek from Poland. Young and very good. Learned quick and improved a lot.

Sindre Furuseth from Norway. Very young, only 17, and doing the Youth class in Norwegian Rallies. Superb car-control and reactions with very good improvements.

 

Norway is in a very good position now with up and coming rally drivers after Petter Solberg. Andreas Mikkelsen and Mads Østberg are there, in IRC and WRC with top cars and teams.

Anders Grøndal and Eyvind Brynildsen are in the WRC as well, in the  PWRC and SWRC.

Other drivers coming after them, first of all Marius Aasen, who is doing very well in Gr. N Impreza from the Subaru Cup.  Then Frank Tore Larsen and Petter Kristiansen, and hopefully Sindre Furuseth after them.

 

Other interesting drivers:

Daniel Oliveira from Brazil. Very good driver, with very good improvements and who will be the first driver in the new Mini in the WRC. In RallyPortugal. It will be very interesting to follow his progress.

 

Previous years customers we are most proud of :

Eric van Loon was with us for the 3rd time first week of March. Last years Dutch Rally Champion, and  11th  in this years Dakar.

Nassar Al-Attyah who has been with us 2 times before, and won this years Dakar.

Edoardo Mortara that won Macau F3 for the second time last year.

Ha has also been with us 2 times.

 

Who made me have the best laugh:

Lars Ivar Øie, rally cross driver from Norway. Told me on the intercom to shut up talking,

so he could go on driving…..

 

The most fun, but difficult car to drive:

Porsche 911 that we used on a course with Rachid Bouzouba from Hong Kong.

Rachid hired the car from Tuthill. The day before we had used the track with modern rally cars, and the track was a little bit worn, but still perfect for the modern rally car.

I could not believe the behaviour of the Porsche. Ok - It was from 1974 with Bilstein suspension, but it was all over the place, and here we could really feel what has happened over 30 years with rally car suspension. It was so bad that we had to make a new track for the next day. But when Rachid and I got the hang of it after some practice on a pristine surface, it was really great fun to drive.

 

I have had 22 years in rear-engine rally cars, but still needed a good lot of practise to get the hang of it again. But when it came, it was great. Made me 10 years younger.

 

Now we are going to Portugal to have holiday in warm weather, and see several drivers that have been with us this year:

Molly Taylor, Craig Breen, Alastair Fisher, Eric van Loon, Daniel Oliveira, Dennis Kuipers, and Eduardo Veiga.

 

 

 

After that I will do different 1 to 1 courses and testing in different countries.

I will also do some Historic Circuit Races in England in a 1963 Lotus Cortina, together with the owner, Arne Berg. Starting at Donington last week-end of April.

Third week-end of June, I will join a reunion with ex-motorsport competitors from the Czech Republic at Rally Krkonose together with my 4 co-drivers, Monica Eckardt, Jan Olof Bohlin, Arild Antonsen and Petter Vegel.

I am also invited by Skoda UK to be at the Goodwood Festival of Speed first week-end of July, to celebrate the Skoda 110 years in Motorsport Jubilee. Probably driving a Skoda 130 LR Gr. B Rallycar.

 

Booking for the next season has already started.

First out was Alex Herrman and his BMW drivers who have booked two weeks.

Bookings are normally coming in over the Summer, and by end of September we are normally about 80 % booked. The remaining bookings come during October. By November we are normally fully booked for the season. So if you want to come to take part in the Winter Rally School, and will choose your own days or week, the earlier booking, the easier to get the dates you want.

 

And a big thank you to Sean, Adrian and Cathal from Shaun Gallagher Motorsport, that have been looking after Shaun Gallagher’s hire Rally cars.

We had 3 Impreza Cup cars, 3 Evos and 2 Peugeot 206 available for hire.

They have been used a lot and worked very well, have been very reliable, thanks to very good work by the mechanics. The cars do a lot of kilometres, normally up to 200 km per day flat out, and need a lot of looking after. The most popular have been the Imprezas, who were new for this season.

 

Then we wish you a nice summer, and we are looking forward to see some of you with us next winter.                                                                                                       

 

Best regards

John Haugland.