Unofficial British Rally Championship League: RD7 Cambrian Rally (Finale)

[Morbid65]

I've actually done Finland before so felt a little more confident with this one, and that maybe bit me a little as both of my Paijala runs had 1 silly but fairly significant mistake that cost me a bit.

First leg started off okay, but first trip through Paijala saw one of those really annoying minor misjudgements that turned into a big thing, captured poorly in pictures:


Landing wasn't hard as it barely touched the ground while flipping, so I got lucky with only minor damage that wasn't noticeable. Had a minor off a few corners later trying to push to make up for it that reminded me to calm down a little, rest was pretty uneventful.

First run at Leustu I brushed the fence about 20 seconds in and it bounced me off into some mailboxes, felt lucky to avoid a puncture but probably didn't lose too much.

Second run through Paijala I lost focus while feeling like I was moving pretty good and overshot the bridge with a big lock up. When I realized I was in trouble I tried to turn it in anyways to use the guardrail to save it but I hit it too early on the sloped part and caught some air, landed with my front end up in the air against a tree but I guess it saved me from going into the river. Again got lucky with no obvious significant damage but it was a big hit, and lost a lot of time reversing back up to the road and getting going again. Hurt my confidence a little for the rest of the stage but no other incidents I can remember.


Used up all the repair time and wasn't able to fully repair the car but nothing was too bad considering what happened, so the second run through Leustu was a little timid but uneventful... Came out the other side placed better than I expected though.

I don't think I've ever even run a Central European stage and I normally don't like tarmac much, so next one will certainly be an adventure.

 

[Dreadmed]

Solid run for me, slid off the road a couple of times but thankfully not a repeat of Modern Classics (headfirst into a tree + hidden boulder in the verge). I'll need to get my specs next time, for some reason I thought there was only one service so I skipped shakedown entirely...

 

[bozian]

Bit of a bittersweet effort this time. Picked up a very unfortunate puncture on stage 2 and got handed a 90sec penalty for changing the tire. Seeing that, in the end, i finished 1:29min behind P2 is quite annoying. At least the pace seems to have been okay for the first gravel rally in the i20. On the upside: few things match getting a finland stage right. Positioning the car into a drift before a blind crest and nailing the exit is pure joy.

Tinkered a bit more with the livery as well and made it nicer to look at :-)

 

[Ali]

Päijälä is, to me, the most difficult stage in the game, so I didn't exactly expect to finish this rally. I just find it incredibly difficult to drive here without going absolutely flat out. To my surprise I completed the first two stages without any notable mistakes. Then, on stage 3 I half-rolled my car, but didn't really lose much time (nor damage my car too much!). Stage 4 I ran wide and hit some logs head-on, resulting in some damage that I wasn't able to fully repair, but nothing too bad. On stage 5 I just wasn't paying attention and instead of turning left I tried to go right

 

[Tool1312]

Nice. Just sat down and completed the CER stages.

AND...........

No interruptions from the missus lol.

Had a few silly spins but nothing too bad. Weirdly at the end of stage 6 I had a lot of wear on multiple parts, suppose it's to be expected, plus I gambled on a worn set of sorts so they'd gone off quite a bit towards the end. Good job the service halt before the longest stage was a long one.
Nice touch for the last two stages to be dry/wet, so the wets have to run on a dry stage first meaning they're a bit worn from the actual wet stage and are a bit lairy.

Currently first overall but only two full runs on the board up to now so I don't expect to be there for long lol

 

[Speedster502]

Love seeing everyone's write-ups and photos, genuinely brings a smile to my face to see so much engagement with this!

Have kept meaning to type up my run from Carlisle (Finland), but have been away with work for the past week or so. Will make sure that I do the results and Jim Clark preview once I’m back in the UK!

Leg 1: SS1-SS3
I felt like I made a relatively decent start to my run through the fast roads of Finland, I’d managed to dial the Hyundai in on gravel to feel pretty controllable on the limit without making it too safe. Somehow ended up trailing the leaders by over 50 seconds by SS2 though!

Leg 2: SS4
Unfortunately this where my run started falling apart a bit, as I was busy preparing for this work trip I ended up leaving the rally for a few days. Once I hopped back on I never quite felt that same early confidence that I once had and started making little mistakes here and there. So much so that by the end of the first sector I was already missing a door - this actually made making out the co-driver calls somewhat tricky which definitely knocked my confidence to fully-commit.

Around midway into the stage I hit the final nail into the coffin, as I took a slightly optimistic cut and hit a huge rock on the inside which instantly punctured. I felt conflicted at this stage as I couldn’t decide whether to push on or change - I elected to push on.

Leg 3: SS5
I was keen really keen to make-up lost time from SS4 and see if I could claw back some of the lead that @Hasnain282 had built over me after SS4’s calamities. I was some 30 seconds back though so it’d require something pretty special…alas I wasn’t able to make a dent really 😅

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A frustrating rally, as it definitely felt like this could have been a case of what could have been. I certainly won’t be leaving runs so far apart next time around and will try and do it all in one sitting…that said Jim Clark is going to be a challenge and a half!

 

[TypeRDC5]

I think I need to adjust the picture settings on my tv, I couldn't really see where the road was or where I was going on stages 1 to 3, this resulted in multiple offs, a corner cutting penalty and a roll on the first stage which damaged my car quite a bit.

Stages 3 to 6 being at night meant I could actually see where I was going and did much better, made some time up, no major offs and no damage to the car.

Back to day time stages now, hopefully i can see where im going after changing the picture settings, Now to tackle the big one...

 

[Hasnain282]

Safely through Jim Clark and it was a pretty clean run all things considered. A few mistakes here and there but that's to be expected with such a long rally
I could match Sharky on some stages but my pace wasn't great on worn tyres but overall no complaints from me

 

[SharkyOB]

I'll make sure I do some screenshots for the next round, really easy to miss when you're in VR!

A pretty much clean run for me. Slid off the road a couple of times but didn't hit anything, so no major damage done there, to the car or my stage times. Managed to pick up a stupid 10 second penalty for pushing my luck with repairs and being late out of service though, oh well.

 

[Tool1312]

I'll have to do more screenshots but the photomode is still a bit sensitive, a lot of times it freezes the game and you have to reload it, consequently you lose the replay.

 

[Morbid65]

Mixed bag for this one. For my first time through this rally, was actually kinda digging it even though I don't normally like tarmac, particularly the evening/night with the village sections are quite pretty, and it flows pretty well.

First leg was clumsy with a few awkward mistakes that cost time and sapped some confidence but no damage. Most of them came in stage 3 where I kept dropping a rear loaded tire just into the grass and going for a spin, 3 times in that stage alone.

Second leg was uneventful except misjudging the haybale chicane in the night. Not that I have a clue what I'm doing with photography anyways but I wish I had got some photos in the village sections at night as the "vibe" with the street lights and houses and stuff was nice.

Third leg was where things started to go wrong. On stage 7, I clipped the edge of an embankment and went for a big ride early on and hit the front end pretty good sliding to a stop. I'm not sure if it was just mental at that point but the front end seemed unhappy in mid to low speed corners and felt like it would kinda suddenly lose grip and start understeering, so was pretty timid for the rest of the stage.

Stage 8 was just a clumsy mess of minor things, but stage 9 was where it really started going downhill. I had a silly spin early and tried pushing too hard to make up for it, misjudged a corner and splattered a poor photographer standing on a mound, then tried pushing too hard afterwards to make up for it and made more minor mistakes.

(Also I feel kinda stupid but this photo was where I realized I could turn off the watermark things, I thought that it was just a PC mod or something.)

It would get worse though. The final leg started okay with stage 10, the wet tires in the dry felt okay, was a little cautious but no mistakes and felt smooth again. Stage 11 was a spectacular disaster though, I lost focus and got a little lazy and wandered too close to an embankment and went for a massive ride. It felt like it would never end as it was happening live, but on review with slow motion I counted 12 rolls before the auto-reset.


When I got going again I knew there was no salvaging anything at that point so I just decided to send it, which to be fair I think at my skill level is never going to actually be faster but I was frustrated, and later in the stage again had a minor touch of the right side grass that sent me flying off into the left side forest for another 3 flips, totaling 15 flips which is a new PB for me in club events by big amount as I think my previous record was 5 flips total.

Overall not a total loss though, I learned about the watermark thing for photos (now I just need to learn anything about photography), and will definitely be revisiting some of these stages in the future.

 

[Speedster502]

Bit late on this, but life has got busy again! Round 2 results;

A dominant victory by @Ali in Carlisle (Finland)! Congratulations!​

Position	User	Car	Overall Time	Difference To First
1	Almu89	Toyota GR Yaris Rally2	00:34:52	00:00:00
2	Dreadmed	Ford Fiesta Rally2	00:36:24	00:01:32
3	Cabelmania	ŠKODA Fabia RS Rally2	00:37:17	00:02:25
4	Ix_Morbid_xI	Toyota GR Yaris Rally2	00:37:38	00:02:46
5	Hasnain282	Ford Fiesta Rally2	00:37:42	00:02:50
6	Speedster502	Hyundai i20 N Rally2	00:37:58	00:03:06
7	magpieracer48	Volkswagen Polo GTI R5	00:38:28	00:03:36
8	miljan426	ŠKODA Fabia RS Rally2	00:38:31	00:03:39
9	NebuCD	ŠKODA Fabia RS Rally2	00:38:35	00:03:43
10	maxfriedhoff	Hyundai i20 N Rally2	00:38:45	00:03:53

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Round 3. Jim Clark Rally (Central European Rally)
After the quick flash of the Carlisle Stages the Jim Clark will prove to be a much more unforgiving challenge for drivers. The Central European Rally replicates the Scottish lanes with some fast and challenging stages. The first leg of stages sees us running into the night for even more jeopardy.

After the short 72km of Carlisle, this round comes in at a monster 147km to tackle!

Day 1
Afternoon Service (Long)
SS1 - Brusné 1 - 8.8km
SS2 - Rusava 1 - 14.6km
SS3 - Osíčko 1 - 9km
Evening Service (Medium)
SS4 - Brusné 2 - 8.8km
SS5 - Rusava 2 - 14.6km
SS6 - Osíčko 2 - 9km

Day 2
Morning Service (Long)
SS7 - Rouské - 32.4km
SS8 - Příkazy - 8.6km
SS9 - Provodovice - 17km
Midday Service (Long)
SS10 - Vítová - 8.8km
SS11 - Žabárna - 15.4km
Finish

Runs from 30 March till the 9 April 2025
Sign-up link: https://racenet.com/ea_sports_wrc/clubs/26940

Photo credit: BRC x Spacesuit Media​

 

[Dreadmed]

Not a flawless run for me by any stretch either, some rather icky understeer on stages 8 + 9 lead to a couple silly moments but the standout "D'oh" mistake was getting sucked into the verge at the start of stage 4 (i.e right after service) and slamming into a signpost. Coming back a couple days later that damage ended up being a big 'ol dent to the turbo... All in all I'm happy with that run, I've had occasions doing CER before when I've flown off the road completely due to locked brakes so I'm glad I kept it mostly on the straight and narrow for this one.

 

[RYAN]

My Finland ended like the expected. With a very poorly Yaris. I hope to at least finish and enjoy the rally this time. I can't compete with the top guys (Especially with no recce) So I just want to feel what its like to finish a clean rally again. 😄

 

[Speedster502]

Not a great start to my Jim Clark / CER attempt, managed to spin off the stage in the dark and subsequently get lost trying to find the stage again 🤦‍♂️

 

[tomo 427 S/C]

After a massively long absence from this, I've finally got a setup again and am very much looking forward to joining back in
Was last in it partway through the 2002 season then life got in the way - I'm not too late to join now am I?

 

[Speedster502]

@tomo 427 S/C Never too late! This is a different series to the Modern Classics one ran by @MagpieRacer - but you're welcome all the same!

 

[tomo 427 S/C]

@tomo 427 S/C Never too late! This is a different series to the Modern Classics one ran by @MagpieRacer - but you're welcome all the same!

Hahah sorry I meant from EA WRC in general I've not played it since then, will defo get dipping my toes into this on Wednesday

Cheers!!

 

[tomo 427 S/C]

Well, I booted up the game for the first time in probably about half a year last night and thought right, I'll just get stuck in to this championship. Had to buy the DLC and drove a car I've never driven before. Baptism by fire!

I'm not optimistic about results, but I finished the stage and broke the back of playing again so I'm happy

Also was the first to do the round - I thought I'd be the last person of the previous round but it had already changed to Poland!

 

[Hasnain282]

Poland is one of my weaker rallies since DR2.0 so happy just to get through this one with no major dramas

 

[bozian]

Better late than never: A short report on my CER / Jim Clark Rally

The first outing under the flag of my new main sponsor was successful on the one hand, but on the other I fell short of my potential. The times on the stages where I didn't have any spins show that the speed was very promising - but unfortunately there were too many spins. Nevertheless: 2 best times make me feel very positive and I'm looking forward to the next event!

Congrats to @Dreadmed for the strong performance again!

 

[MagpieRacer]

My run through SS4. Had a chance at a stage win if it wasn't for the incident near the end of the stage.

 

[SharkyOB]

My run through SS5 (I think). Had a chance at a stage win if it wasn't for the incident near the end of the stage.

That's stage 4; we're all really close through that one!

 

[Speedster502]

Catching up again as per usual! First up results from the Jim Clark;

A great performance from @Dreadmed see's him take the win at the challenging Jim Clark Rally, with a sizeable gap back to second place of over a minute! This performance means he now leads the championship by a chunky 16 points 🙌

Position	User	Car	Overall Time	Difference to First
1	Dreadmed	Ford Fiesta Rally2	01:10:33	00:00:00
2	maxfriedhoff	Hyundai i20 N Rally2	01:12:00	00:01:26
3	SharkyOB	Toyota GR Yaris Rally2	01:13:35	00:03:01
4	Hasnain282	Ford Fiesta Rally2	01:13:54	00:03:21
5	NebuCD	ŠKODA Fabia RS Rally2	01:14:02	00:03:28
6	widdler	Volkswagen Polo GTI R5	01:15:25	00:04:51
7	miljan426	ŠKODA Fabia RS Rally2	01:15:46	00:05:12
8	Ix_Morbid_xI	Toyota GR Yaris Rally2	01:16:03	00:05:30
9	SM_Marti	Citroën C3 Rally2	01:16:42	00:06:08
10	WRC Player	ŠKODA Fabia RS Rally2	01:18:14	00:07:41

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Round 4. Grampian Forest Rally
This is one of my all-time favourite rallies as part of the British Championship, the Grampian Forest Rally takes place in August and is usually dry, fast and flowing. To replicate that (as best as I could) we're heading to Poland for some high speed thrills. A short evening leg kicks things off before the main day of competition

The total competitive distance for this round is 96.1km.

Leg 1
Afternoon Service (Long)
SS1 - Gajrowskie 1 10km
SS2 - Dybowo 1 8.5km

Leg 2
Morning Service (Long)
SS3 - Mikolajki 9.4km
SS4 - Probark 4.6km
Midday Service (Long)
SS5 - Jelonek 18.1km
SS6 - Chełchy 8.5km
Afternoon Service (Long)
SS7 - Gajrowskie 2 10km
SS8 - Dybowo 2 8.5km
SS9 - Swietajno 18.5km
Finish

Runs from 9 April till the 19 April 2025
Sign-up link: https://racenet.com/ea_sports_wrc/clubs/26940

Really frustratingly, I may need to sit out of this one as I've had a leg injury whilst covering the real BRC! Shame as I was looking forward to blasting through the Polish countryside.

Photo credit: BRC x Spacesuit Media​

 

[Cabelmania]

Guess who's back doing another round ?

Unfortunately for me I made a big mistake on stage 3, which resulted me driving the second part of the stage without a tyre It killed all of my focus for the rest of the rally

 

[CapnScrub]

Hello guys. Wont be a regular but will jump in for the occasional round. Rounds look great!

 

[Morbid65]

First time through Poland for me, some pretty fun stages in there. Made a bunch of dumb minor mistakes that added up though. Stage 5 was the worst with the only big mistake I think, I had a "wait, what?" moment with a pace note and went over a jump and landed half on a fence and got insta-reset, then in frustration had another pair of clumsy spins. It got a little less bad for the last few stages though.

Sometimes I think "hey, I'm kinda getting better" and then nights like this I'm reminded I'm not and it was probably just a fluke.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Decent run for me, some big errors on the first 18km stage but unfortunately the Polo just isn't that quick on the faster rallies. So any time I lose for skill reasons is amplified in the pace of the car. It's better on the tighter stuff.

Onto the next!

 

[TypeRDC5]

Sometimes I think "hey, I'm kinda getting better" and then nights like this I'm reminded I'm not and it was probably just a fluke.

This is basically how I've felt since the original DIRT Rally was released 😅

 

[Tool1312]

Decent run for me, some big errors on the first 18km stage but unfortunately the Polo just isn't that quick on the faster rallies. So any time I lose for skill reasons is amplified in the pace of the car. It's better on the tighter stuff.

Onto the next!

I know what you mean about the Polo ( though I'm not as fast as you ), when I thought I'd done a decent stage that felt quick, I was brought back down to earth when I saw the splits. Though tbf some stages were pretty close in terms of overall times.

Quite enjoyed this one. The service stop after the middle 11 mile stage brought on a lot of lightly damaged parts, thankfully the halt was a long one. Didn't make any major mistakes but was a bit slow