Mid season review
The Wales Rally GB marked the first round of the URS championship season. The rally started with drama as Jody Cleenwerck, the previous winner, faced technical issues causing his game to crash during Super Special Stage 1. Tommi Makinen emerged as the leader after Day 1, while Jesse Turunen finished third. However, Cleenwerck made a strong comeback in Days 2 and 3, winning five out of six stages. In the end, Bruno Kruger won with Tommi Makinen coming in 2nd overall and Aleksi Paakkinen finishing 3rd overall. A challenging start to the URS season in Wales showcased challenging conditions and great competition.
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Round two was Austria, where Tommi Makinen took his first rally win URS overall and Aleksi taking his first class win in WRC. With Jesse Turunen coming in third overall.
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Round three was rally Oceania, and it was the championships first attempt of doing 1 rally in 2 different countries. The rally turned out extremely successful, organizers and competitors being happy with the roadbook and conditions. The rally saw Jody Cleenwerck and Tommi Makinen battle it out with Bruno Kruger silently battling in third with Jesse Turunen. The battle between Cleenwerck and Makinen came to an abrupt end after Makinen made a mistake on SS3. Later on in the rally Cleenwerck made a huge mistake in the latter part of the rally, bumping him down to third. Tommi then made yet another mistake pushing hard on the last leg loosing him 20+ seconds handing the lead to Bruno Kruger. Cleenwerck gave it his all in the morning and afternoon loop making him take the win by 7 seconds. Tommi Makinen made a humungous comeback drive in Australia's afternoon loop and got pipped by Bruno Kruger on the Spectator stage by just 7 tenths of a second.
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Round 4 saw the championships second trip to tarmac in Ireland. This rally was done in the memory of the late and great Craig Breen. After the ceremony start drivers made their way to the start of the first stage of the rally. Jody Cleenwerck set an absolutely blistering pace in the first and second day's action with Jesse Turunen chasing him with the Subaru Impreza. With the returning Hubert Markowitz coming in third. Positions stayed stale for the rest of the rally with Cleenwerck claiming an amazing rally victory in the South African built and developed Fiesta S2000. Jesse Turunen chasing behind came in 2nd overall with a good bunch of points for the championship. The returning Hubert Markowitz finishing in a fine third place, although be it a minute off the 2 leading drivers, it was more of an experienced and calculated drive for the Polish man.
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Rounds 5 and 6 saw Jesse Turunen dominante the timing sheets as his closest rivals were getting ready for the next round of the SWRC season, although the championship did see Cleenwerck compete in round 6 Michigan, but he ultimately retired after engine issues, but it didn't mean anything towards his SWRC title chase. Jesse Turunen won both Cyprus and Michigan in what other terms to be an absolute pleasure to watch. Jesse won rally Cyprus by 19 seconds over experienced Italian Marco Piardi.
Mr Turunen came out next round in Michigan taking absolutely no prisoners to take the win by a minute and 22 seconds, clearly the largest gap of the season so far. And we do need to take a moment to congratulate Eetu Kortelainen on his amazing 2nd place in Round 6, beating much more powerful and newer machinery, the closest car behind was Libor Tomeck who finished 54 seconds behind him, what a performance he had put in, arguably embarrassing the faster cars like he always does.
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Now, we move onto the biggest and most anticipated rally of the season. Welcome, to rally Finland.
Moving into the seventh round of the season, the championship saw a huge number of cars entering the rally, a total of 166 competitors, with the biggest class being the almighty S2000's.
The rally as usual started in the town of Jyväskylä at the now infamous Harju Super Special. Home hero Aleksi Paakkinen drew first blood taking the stage win, but only by 3 tenths of a second over South African Jody Cleenwerck. With Polishman Mateusz Wojda coming third position.
Stage 2 saw Paakkinen extend his lead on Cleenwerck by a further 2.1 seconds. Stage 3 saw the rally's fastest stage Humalamaki. If anything everyone was expecting Paakkinen to extend his lead over Cleenwerck, but the South African had other ideas, to the shock of the entire rally Cleenwerck somehow managed to win the terrifying stage 3 by just 4 tenths over the flying Fin. However stage 4 was back to business for the young Fun, taking the stage win by 1.8 seconds over his younger rival Cleenwerck to extend his lead to 3.9 seconds. Moving onto the end of day 1's action we headed to the fast and unforgiving stage Makkola. Us the organisation and probably the rest of the competitors are still in awe of what Cleenwerck had done. Jody set a blistering first split with Aleksi languishing only 0.004 behind the South African. Cleenwerck then came with all guns blazing by the end of split 2, extending the gap to a further 2.1 seconds, by the time he got to the end of split 3 he finished the stage 5 seconds quicker, which not only made him win the stage, but take the overall lead overnight by just a tiny 1.102 seconds and he done this in an S2000!!!
Moving onto day 3's first stage we saw the mystro Aleksi Paakkinen back in business taking the stage win by 3.6s over Cleenwerck, and a pleasant surprise of Roni Nyhlom finishing the stage in an amazing third position with his privately entered Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X. Moving further into the Finish forests we headed to the legendary Kuohu stage. Cleenwerck clearly wasn't happy with his performance in the previous stage, frustrated with himself he had decided to really give it a push. Cleenwerck won the stage with an astonishing time finishing the stage ahead of Paakkinen by 3.5 seconds regaining the lead by a slim margin of 1.022 seconds. But unfortunately for the next 2 stages there was nothing much the South African could've done with Paakkinen winning the next 2 stages by very slim margins which handed him the lead by just 6 tenths at the penultimate stage of day 2. However, Cleenwerck seems to have adopted a habit from his father, winning the last stage of the day AGAIN, to put him back in the lead by only 1.171 seconds over the home hero.
And all of that leads us to the last days action, with Jody Cleenwerck leading the way with Aleksi Paakkinen right behind him and really wanting this win, because if he does, it will not only be his fourth win in a row at his home rally, but it will also put him in championship contention.
Now let's move onto Sundays morning loop.
Stage 11 saw Paakkinen open the road with a very good time for the youngster to aim for. The first 2 splits saw these 2 at the absolute best, the most they were seperated by was only 6 tenths of a second, to put that in perspective, that is less than a tenth of a second a kilometre. Cleenwerck pushed on towards the end of the stage to take the stage win by 0.060, that is the amount of time it takes for you to blink your eyes 6 times in a row. This did very little for the lead as the mystro Aleksi Paakkinen claiming another stage win by 2.8 seconds making him storm into the lead by 1.6 seconds before lunchtimes service.
Jody Cleenwerck commented that he was on the limit of the Fiesta S2000 and is just not able to keep up with the World Rally Cars in that stage. Moving onto arguably the most difficult and stressful stage of the rally, we saw once again Paakkinen opening up the stage. Paakkinen finished the stage with no issues and patiently waiting for Cleenwerck to finish. Jody Cleenwerck on the stage was looking fast, leading the splits by well over a second until drama....... Cleenwerck makes a huge mistake careering into the trees and loosing 7 seconds that could possibly end his charge of victory with one stage to go. Onto the longest and last stage of the rally, we were set up for a nail biting last stage that could decide the outcome of the rally.
Paakkinen came to the start of Special Stage 14 with a win on his mind. He had decided to give the last stage an all mighty go - and so he did, but not without its challenges, Paakkinen lost 4 seconds in split 2 due to an uncharacteristic mistake, but swiftly and safely made it to the end.
Cleenwerck on the other had no choice but to win this stage by over 7 seconds in able to win. He tried as he must, the splits were looking really good for the young South African winning the stage by 3.5 seconds, but it was all in vain.
This not only meant that Aleksi Paakkinen won the rally, it meant the home hero won his home rally for a staggering 4th time in a row and propelled him up to second in the championship behind Jesse Turunen.
But we must commend Jody Cleenwerck on his exceptional performance throughout the rally, setting unbelievable times and taking the fight to the more experienced Aleksi Paakkinen who was driving the World Rally Car. This performance by the championships youngest winner really did show how much potential he has, as he now leads by 30 points over the absent Bruno Kruger.
We also have to congratulate Roni Nyhlom on his performance as well, putting him into 5th position overall in his privately entered Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X. Showing that the driver matters more than the car.
We also have to take note of the brilliant battle for third position overall with the 2 Finish occupants Jesse Turunen and Henri Haikka. After a mistake in the final day Haikka set out with impressive times beating the experienced Turunen, bit ultimately lost out by just 7 tenths of a second.
That's it for the middle part of the season, we as an organisation would like to congratulate all competitors and everyone behind the scenes.
Thank you and see next time.
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