Dear all,
I navigated a two day rally again, the Limburgia Trophaeum, mostly in the Eiffel / Mosel area of Germany, this weekend, with my driver. Because we have been pretty successful recently in the Tour-class (for rally drivers with not too much experience) with repeated places on the podium, we have had to move up to what is called the Sports, Expert or Masters class. Mostly filled with people who've been at this game for many years, in fixed teams and who take part in up to 10 rallies a year.
My driver and I really don't have that much time, so we expected to end pretty low down the ladder in our first foray into Sports class rallying: the navigation is more difficult, the time alloted is shorter (so you have no room for navigational errors and immediately get hit with penalty points for delays) and there are more time-trials where you have to finish on the exact second.
We did pretty well in finishing up at 17th, well above the middle of the 50 contestants in the Sports class... leaving behind many seasoned teams. However, progress up the ranks will be of diminishing returns... so we don't expect to be holding up trophies any time soon!
Enclosed some pictures of rally cars and the vicintiy. Great, tiny country roads, hairpin bends and Indian summer foliage.
Then on the webmaster thing. As of the 5th of november I am unable to oversee the site for a period of three weeks. I am confident that the site will be much more stable with the new hoster (where it's now been operational for 5 days with, as far as I can determine, no hiccup). Since I am actually in places with no internet whatsoever (or telephone, for that matter), I hope to come back to a fully functioning site!
Peter