We got a proper treat this year with the Circuit of Ireland being included as the 3rd round of the IRC. It's easy to get sucked into thinking that our local drivers are some of the best in the world and that our stages are so specialised that our local guys would be able to match the professionals but that idea was totally blown out of the water over the weekend. The top IRC drivers are truly a level above our home grown experts. The total time for Hanninen in the S2000 Fabia over the 15 stages was 1:58:21.9 and the total time for Gass in the Impreza WRC was 2:01:59.5. So Hanninen was 3:37.6 quicker in a lower class of car, that it totally amazing. Our local men don't hang about and their in car footage is very impressive but the in car from Hanninen and Mikkelsen over the weekend was like nothing I've ever seen before. It's was terrifying to watch, they looked completely out of control, all of the time! I don't know how anyone can drive that fast. It looks like corners are coming up faster than it is possible to react to them, mind blowing.
The Circuit did a great job of promoting itself this year and the whole country seemed to know about it. I hope that other events will now see the benefit of more promotion and rallying can come back to the levels of popularity it enjoyed in the 70's and 80's.
Eurosport Coverage, Day 1, Circuit of Ireland 2012
Eurosport Coverage, Day 2, Circuit of Ireland 2012
Circuit of Ireland 2012 International Results
Circuit of Ireland 2012 national Results
Karen Swanston helped Rachel and I helped out with our passage control at the end of the Lisburn Powerstage on Saturday. It's pretty handy as it's all over in a couple of hours but it is crazy hectic for those 2 hours. They were trying to streamline things this year by having us working directly beside the stop control but it didn't really work out because we just ended up getting in each others way, but we made it through without too many problems. The biggest drama of the day was Mikkelsens crash which cost him 40 seconds, a perforated ear drum and any chance of winning the rally.
No comments:
Post a Comment