22.02.2008 WINTER RALLY SCHOOL NEWSLETTER FROM JOHN HAUGLAND |
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| NEWSLETTER AFTER COURSE # 3 Up to now, we have had a very good season. On course one, Pavel Dytko from Poland was with us to practise for the first round of the Polish Rally Championship, which runs on snow. Pavel has been with us two times before, but have had a off for two years, and is starting again. He is very good on car control, and finished 7th overall in the Rally. Andis Grinberg from Latvia was also with us for the second time. Had a very good week in Per Gulbrandsens Subaru Impreza. Now he has got a new N14, and he did the first Rally with a good result. The following week was a week with 1 to 1 courses. Euroseries F3 top driver Edoardo Mortara from Italy was with us for 3 days, practising sliding rear wheel drive on the race-track in a BMW 3 series. He found it very helpful practising balance with left-foot brake and throttle. We also had Bernardo Sousa from Portugal with us for two days. Funnily enough, Edoardo and Bernardo knew each other from Go-cart racing. Bernardo did very well in the Swedish Rally, which pleased us a lot. From the 21st of January we had Tomek Kouchar with us from Poland, also practising for the Polish Championship Rally, and he brought with him 12 sponsors for the week. This was the 8th. time Tomek was with us, and I am very impressed with his driving. He set some excellent times on one stage, with small Monte 13 mm. spikes and loose surface. His times was just a few seconds slower than the quickest Norwegian Gr. N drivers on big 20 mm. spikes. Tomek went on to finish 6th overall in the rally, which he won last year after wrong tyre-choices and some bad luck. From the 28th January we ran course 2, with Scottish, English and a American driver. Rory Young and Niki Cleland from Scotland drove very well. This week we could not drive on the Race-track, due to too much snow on the ice, and water coming up, but we drove even more on the stages and everything worked very well. The following week-end we had two drivers practising for the Swedish rally, Nassar Al-Attiayh in a new N14 Subaru from Prodrive, and Tony Jardine in a Fiesta from Prospeed. Next week we had a different week, Skoda / VW doing engine-testing in cold conditions. Different work for us, but very interesting. On course 3 we had 5 drivers, and two very good ones. Stevie Brown and Kyle Orr are two names we will see on the top of results in the future. This week we had fantastic nice weather, blue sky and sunshine every day, and the race-track was in excellent condition. Minus 15 in the mornings, minus 5 mid-day. We have a lot of snow this winter, more than 1 meter. When I am writing this, we have two more weeks to run. Course 4 with 5 drivers from the 25th. February, and one week with 1 to 1 courses from the 3rd. march. After that we will go to Goodwood for the Revival test-day in September, where Arne Berg and I will test a Tatra 603.
Best
regards |
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