Tag: Twinspark Racing

What a beautiful day we just finished! It had all the ingredients you look for in a historic rally in wintertime. Several tough regularities that seemed easier than they turned out to be: we fell for at least two traps the organisers had set for us, and the police and beginners did the rest!

Several competitors were stopped by concealed policemen and we got trapped behind a rookie car which cost us 4 minutes, but that’s all part of events like these. I just learned that the leaders in the trial class were held up by a lower classed car that decided it needed to put on snow chains: there will allegedly be a red- haired scalp dangling from the front door of the hotel in the morning!

We passed through Germany into Austria, finishing in Schladming at the [...]

Under grey skies we entered the Black Forest, where we encountered the first heavy snow cover.

Gorgeous landscape and great driving roads. Somewhat icy remnants on the road made for fingertip handling of the steering wheel to nurse Silverado downhill. We ran three regularities today and had a few misses which were partly recovered. The field was very close after yesterday, but today the last regularity seems to be keeping many people busy, as it’s somewhat quiet in the bar. Here’s a link to some video:

Winter Trial 2012 Test 1

We took off in 24th position, due to my mistake on the first test, but because the first day was not very challenging, the field was very close together. We had 5 minutes between number 1 and ourselves. In this rally damage is usually measured in hours in the end, so we plod away and hope to make fewer mistakes than others.

To avoid [...]

We have just arrived at our hotel in Valkenburg, The Netherlands, starting point of Winter Trial 2012. After a send off by local retailer The English Hatter in Laren, who sponsored our group with sweaters, we sped off towards the southern most tip of The Netherlands.

This year our group of friends is fielding a very diverse set of cars, including a Lancia Beta Monte Carlo, driven by Rene Middelweerd and Cooper Goei. Always like playing with an un-pinned hand grenade, the maintenance crew is already checking out the first niggles on the Lancia…. And we only done a 40 second test just now! I’m probably going to get T-boned by our friends for writing this, but it’s too nice an opportunity for a tease to pass up!

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