(Insert stupid Blog name here)

Here's a 76-car wrap-up for the Geneva Motor Show, including an article on the Toyota FT-86. They shouldn't have painted it black though. It makes it impossible to really see the lines of the car.

 

 

There's nothing on the Subaru version, mainly because at this point, it's still vaporware. Just a few vague proof-of-concept renders.

 

 

Here's a video of the Impreza concept, which makes that car look a little bit better, but I think it still needs some work.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls5ktzkRums

Finally - Discovery HD has posted the schedule for this season's WRC coverage.

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't begin until April, and we're already two races into the season. But hey, I'll take it.

 

 

In other TV car show news...

 

Next Monday is the season finale of Top Gear.

 

What... already?!? That's like... six episodes! I guess I'll have to start watching reruns again.

 

 

Elsewhere, on the Speed network, there's a new series called American Trucker. For their first episode, they re-enacted the Smokey & The Bandit beer run from Atlanta to Texarkana and back, to see if it could be done or not. Because in the

, you know, they sing, "We gonna do what they say can't be done."

 

And so, they did it.

 

With a few stops for sight-seeing.

 

And time to spare.

 

Guess it wasn't that hard.

 

But it was still cool to watch.

That's a 2002 SUBARU Impreza you have there, right?

 

But why not an WRX STi?

Correct - it's an '02 2.5 RS.

 

I couldn't afford a WRX, and the STi didn't come to the U.S. until 2004.

 

My car ended up being quite the bargain. I was planning to buy one near the end of '02, but in August my old car was at the end of its rope. It wouldn't pass its emissions tests without a lot of expensive repairs, so I had to look at buying a couple of months earlier than I'd budgeted for.

 

I found this car online at a Subaru dealership, and it not only had the options I wanted, but was even the color I wanted, and more importantly - it was used. But just barely. The previous owner bought it in February, drove it a few months, and decided to upgrade to a WRX. So I basically got a brand new car for a couple of thousand dollars off! That was really astonishing because at the time, Subarus really hadn't caught on in Southern California yet, so there were almost no used ones available. Much less brand-new used ones that matched what I wanted to buy! I had the only Subaru at work for a couple of years, but now you can't walk through the parking lot without tripping over a dozen of 'em.

 

I think they're breeding.

I've got my DVR to start recording WRC highlights next month (repeatedly searching for "Rally" was starting to get old - but it paid off).

 

Meanwhile, why not watch this?

 

It's an unaired pilot for a proposed re-make of Wacky Races. Too bad they didn't go through with it... it's pretty good.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nKKbXuilg4

wow - that's too bad that they didn't go thru with it.

They finally ran highlights from February's Rally in Sweden yesterday.

 

3 1/2 hours of rallying goodness!

 

A one hour of a preview of the WRC season, three half-hours of daily coverage, and an hour of the new Power Stage event!

 

Unfortunately, due to my stupid DVR not understanding the word "Rally" I missed out on the one-hour review/wrap-up. I only found out that it aired at all because the end of the last recording included the opening credits for it. But it doesn't look like they're going to repeat it, so that's an hour's worth of rallying goodness robbed from my life! What am I paying these AT&T clowns for, anyway?

 

Well, next time I'll just be sure to skim the listings, rather than relying on "search" to set recordings. (And next time will be March's Mexico Rally highlights, on April 17.)

 

But back to Sweden.

 

This is the one winter rally of the season, so they have to bust out the studded tires, carve through snow and ice, and bounce their cars off of snow banks as they careen down the roads. Meanwhile, hearty, frost-bitten Scandinavians (both Swedes and Norwegians, as the rally passed into Norway briefly), huddled around camping stoves and small fires, taking in the sub-freezing temperatures and racing action. It was so cold (below -20° C/-4° F) that the helicopter used for filming had to be grounded on the last day. Now those are some committed racing fans.

 

Even though I'd seen the results already, I'd basically forgotten them, since it had been so long since the rally actually happened. So that was a good thing, because it was a close race.

 

This year - all of the specs for the cars have changed. Smaller cars, shorter wheelbases, smaller engines (which means higher revs and more gear changes), manual gear shifting (no more paddle shifters) and no hydraulic center differentials or clutches (which means the driver has to do more work to control the grip and handling). None of the WRC cars from last year can be used, so Ford and Citroën (and later this year - Mini) have had to build new rally cars from the ground up. This should level the playing field out nicely, although Ford cars outnumbered the Citroëns 9 to 4 in the opening rally. Ford seems pretty committed to winning that manufacturer's championship.

 

There were some changes in the teams this year, among them Citroën promoting Sebastien Ogier over Daniel Sordo. So now the main Citroën team is all guys named Sebastien (Loeb being the other).

 

Sordo, meanwhile, will be one of the drivers for the new Mini team. They're still sorting out their cars, so they aren't competing yet, but will show up later in the season.

 

Ford stuck with their two drivers: Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala, and both are considered equals now, rather than Mikko being #1 and Jari-Matti being #2 (since Jari-Matti did so much better last year). Citroën also claims the two Sebastiens are on equal footing, but since Loeb is the umpteen-time world champion, I doubt that's really the case (unless he's planning to retire, and they're grooming Ogier to take his place).

 

Mikko ended up winning the rally by the slimmest of margins (a mere 6.5 seconds), and Jarri-Matti placed third, so it was a really good start for Ford. But the surprise of the weekend was Mads Ostberg. Remember him? Well, he hooked up with one of the other factory Ford teams during the off-season, and dominated on opening day, finishing well-ahead of everyone else. Over the course of the weekend, the other drivers ate away at his lead (since as the first driver on the road, he had to deal with plowing fresh snow out of the way), but he still finished second place. Here's hoping he can continue his good run.

 

Petter Solberg is back with his privately run team, although I understand he has a little more backing from Citroën this year. He was in a solid fourth place until the final stage of the rally, when he had to let his co-driver drive the stage for him, dropping him to fifth. It was a bizarre situation - apparently Solberg had been busted for speeding on a previous night, then 48 hours later the Swedish police revoked his license, so he wasn't allowed to drive the last stage.

 

Speaking of the final stage, that's another change to the season this year: The Power Stage. This will be a short stage in each rally where the fastest three times each gain extra points towards the driver's championship. So there will be some all-out racing for those in the championship hunt, to squeak out those valuable few extra points. But the trick is, that stage still counts towards the rest of the weekend's rally, so that will play a part in it as well. I think it's a good addition, and they're bringing the coverage of that stage live (well, it was shot live, but I don't get to see it until weeks/months later), so that means a whole extra hour of Rally coverage each month. Plus, it's cool being able to follow each car all of the way through an entire stage.

 

Next time, I'll be sure to set my DVR for all 4 1/2 hours of coverage.

This weekend, they showed the highlights from Rally Mexico.

 

First though, they re-capped the coverage of the PWRC (Production World Rally Car) results from Sweden. The PRWC is about as close as you get to actual production cars, and there was plenty of gratuitous Subaru action.

 

That is, until they either got disqualified or their engines blew up.

 

Then it was all about a bunch of Mitsubishis. Eh... whatever.

 

So, onto Mexico then.

 

The first stage was a short rally underground! Yep, there are tight, twisty underground tunnels in Guanajuato, and they raced through them.

 

 

How cool was that? Talk about blind corners! Plus it was night, so it was even-more-dark, and then you have camera flashes going off all the time...!!

 

I think I'd drive about 2 MPH through that thing.

 

Petter Solberg had an engine problem that cost him seven minutes. What's interesting about that though, is that he finished just about seven minutes out of first place. So if he didn't have that problem... would he have won?

 

Sebastien Ogier mangled his front end (and you know how painful that can be) on the last day, costing him what otherwise might have been first place, but certainly second, and unfortunately for him, finishing the rally at all.

 

Sebastien Loeb won (again), but Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala finished second and third respectively, with Mikko winning the Power Stage (and bonus championship points). Mads Ostberg finished a very respectable fifth (despite getting a flat tire earlier), just behind Solberg (Petter, not Henning... yes, there are two).

 

This was a completely different rally than Sweden, being all gravel and dust, and at very high altitudes (which robs the cars of 20% - 30% of their power). While the Citroëns traditionally have had an advantage over the Fords at higher elevations, the difference didn't seem as pronounced with the new cars this year.

 

It ended up being a pretty unpredictable race in the end because of cars losing time to mechanical problems, flat tires, and so forth. That's just "part of racing".

 

Speaking of being just "part of racing", the Subaru disqualification in PWRC was for using the wrong wheels (leftovers from last year which were 1 kg too light), and there was another DQ in the SWRC (Super-2000 class, which have larger, but normally aspirated engines), for having something wrong with the fuel tank. In the first case, it happened during the rally, costing the driver the lead. In the second, it was after the rally was completely over, costing the driver the victory he'd already earned. While I agree with the need for enforcing rules and regulations, if something doesn't really give someone a clear advantage, wouldn't a time penalty serve just as well, rather than obviating their whole weekend? Admittedly, after the race is over you can't do much about it. But if the rally is in progress, send them to the back of the pack, make them fix the problem but let them keep racing. Give them a chance to, if not earn championship points, at least get some more time in behind the wheel. And why couldn't the officials catch these issues before the race?

 

Anyway, I still have two more hours of Mexico coverage to watch - the live Power Stage coverage, and the "WRC All Access Review" which I missed last time (I guess because "rally" was only mentioned in the description, not the title... but I still blame AT&T).

 

Next up, Portugal highlights on May 1st.

 

It's like watching a travelogue!

 

A really, really fast one.

And then there was Portugal.

 

The operative word of the weekend seemed to be "punctures", as several drivers had big problems with their tires being brutalized by gravel and rocks of Portugal's rally stages. Petter Solberg picked up four on the first day, taking him out of contention for the weekend (although he managed to battle back up to fifth).

 

Mads Ostberg punctured the entire front of his car by slamming it into a barrier during the opening Super Special stage in the streets of Lisbon. The time lost to that plus other mechanical problems later effectively ruined his chances for the weekend as well.

 

But at least both of those drivers got to finish the rally. Ken Block punctured his entire car during one of the pre-race shakedown stages, by clipping a corner at 100+ Kph, flipping his car into the air, barrel-rolling it mid-air three times, and turning it into a large, very punctured mess of scrap metal. But he and his co-driver walked away. During the All Access re-cap, they broke down the accident in greater detail, and also discussed the psychology of getting back into a car after having an incident like that. But that will have to wait for the next rally, since Ken doesn't have a car at the moment, as much as he has a roll cage, with a bunch of debris hanging off it.

 

Ford's drivers were doing really well early in the rally, but yet-another puncture, a broken driveshaft and broken suspension relegated them to 3rd and 4th place. Not bad though, considering.

 

Mikko Hirvonen's puncture was probably the most interesting story of the weekend though. It happened on day two, and occurred in front of Sebastien Loeb. They start rally cars two minutes apart, and it took Mikko less than two minutes to change his tire and get back on the road. When he did, Loeb was still out of sight behind him, and the Ford team management didn't give Mikko any heads-up on Loeb's position. Of course, he knew Loeb was behind him somewhere, and could have pulled over to let him pass. But he was perfectly within the rules not to do so.

 

What ended up happening, was that Mikko's dust was still hanging in the air as Loeb came through, which slowed him down and cost him a lot of time (and ultimately, first place). Literally, "eat my dust". Loeb was not happy.

 

But the interesting thing to take away from all of this, is that Loeb placed himself in that position intentionally. At the end of day one, he slowed down to ensure he'd be behind Mikko, so that Mikko would be clearing loose gravel on the roads, and Loeb would have better grip (it's called "road order tactics"). Sometimes it pays off. Sometimes it doesn't.

 

The All Access re-cap also had a couple of other interesting segments, with a behind-the-scenes look at converting the streets of Lisbon into a rally stage, and a head-to-head Q&A between the two Sebastiens, asking tough questions about their rivalry, and being on the same team. The vetran vs. the up and coming star-of-the-future. One of the Sebastiens looks a little nervous.

 

They also ran a feature on the new WRC Academy, in which young drivers can participate in races, get training and experience, and work their way up to the bigger teams. Pretty cool. If I was a couple of decades younger...

 

Portugal also saw the debut of Mini's return to rallying, albeit in the S-2000 class. The WRC return won't happen until Italy.

 

Meanwhile though, the next rally (which ran two weeks ago) will (did) take place in Jordan. Coverage for that airs in two weeks.

At the NY Auto Show the other week, Subaru finally took the wraps off the actual new Impreza:

 

 

Much better! I like the return of a more aggressive-looking front grille (borrowed from the current Legacy), instead of the squinty-smiley-face of the current Impreza.

 

It's basically like what I'd envisioned when I suggested they needed to clean up the front end of the concept Impreza. Remove the extraneous flourishes, and retain the overall shape. The back-end didn't fare nearly as well. It's a bit too bland now, whereas in the concept the lines reflected the front end better.

 

Still, it's a major improvement over the current Impreza (although there are plenty of people out there who already hate it - but whatever).

 

The new Impreza takes a step back in engine size and horsepower, from a 2.5 liter 170 HP boxer, to a 2.0 liter 148 HP one. But, the engine is more advanced, and coupled with a CVT transmission and less weight, is supposedly more responsive. This really wouldn't surprise me, as the one gripe I have about my Impreza is the gutless low-end torque. Actually, I have two gripes - the mediocre gas mileage being the other. The new engine addresses that too, with up to 37 MPG highway. That's impressive for AWD. I don't think I've ever even come close to 30. (Usually, since I mostly drive in-town, I'm lucky to get 20.) Supposedly, they're also upgrading the quality of the interior materials, to make them feel less cheap and plasticky.

 

Now this is all for the base Impreza. The WRX and STi apparently won't be announced for another year. (And Subaru have yet to announce their version of the Toyota/Subaru joint effort.) So to get the performance version, you'd be stuck with the existing body style. But that's not who Subaru is targeting here, they're targeting average car buyers, looking for an alternative to the Toyota Corolla, and Honda Civic (or maybe the Camry and Accord, although that's more along the lines of the Legacy).

 

I'm not ready to replace my Impreza anytime soon, but it's nice to know that should I choose to, there looks to be a viable option on the horizon.

ESPN ran highlights from the Global RallyCross Championship today, from Snoqualmie, Washington.

 

Y'know, if I was still living in Seattle, I could've gone to see that. But I'm not, so I didn't.

 

Anyway, it's a whole different feel than the WRC. The GRC runs multiple cars at the same time, over several laps on much shorter tracks (like Motocross, but with cars). This track was on a combination of mud, tarmac, and went through the middle of a really long building. But unlike the lousy course they had set up at the last X-Games, this one was actually pretty well laid-out. There are qualifying heats and then a final heat to determine the overall winner.

 

The side-by-side aspect adds a whole different feel to the race, and makes for quite a bit of contact between the cars, and in several cases they literally drove the wheels off 'em. There's also what they call a "joker" lap, where for one lap of the race you have to take a slightly different course and go over a jump.

 

Mitsubishis, apparently, don't jump very well. Two of them nosed head-first into the landing ramp, with one of them flipping end-over-end.

 

There are a lot of different manufacturers present, unlike the relatively limited scope of the WRC. There were Hondas, Mitsubishis, Subarus, a Porsche, a Skoda, Fords, and probably a few others, ranging from brand new to several years old. It makes for a nice mix, and of course, I'm always glad to see Subarus in there mixing it up.

 

Unfortunately, they did rather poorly. But it was still pretty good racing.

 

The GRC's next stop is Pikes Peak, Colorado, then the season (which is only four races long) concludes at the X-Games, in Los Angeles.

 

But tomorrow morning, HD Theater runs the highlights from the WRC race in Jordan. Mmmmm... fresh rallying!

Two-tenths of a second.

 

2/10

 

.2

 

Two-tenths.

 

That was the margin of victory in Jordan. The closest one ever in the WRC.

 

Pretty incredible.

 

The rally got off to a bumpy start, because the ship carrying all of the cars and support equipment for the rally had to be routed away from Syria, and then had engine and weather troubles. The drivers had to rent cars in order to do the pre-race reconnoitering. By the time the ship finally docked in Israel and the convoy got to Jordan, it was 1:30 AM of the morning the rally was supposed to start. So the first day ended up being canceled, and was used instead for scrutineering (yes... that's a word) and the shakedown stages (which are just used to evaluate the cars, and don't count towards the race). It actually made for an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the parts of rallying we usually don't get to see.

 

Then, the rally itself. With only two days' worth of stages to run, this changed everybody's tactics. Mikko Hirvonen was stuck with road sweeping duties, so that plus wonky power steering effectively took him out of the rally on the first day.

 

That left the two Sebastiens, Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg all ending the day within about 30 seconds of each other. Loeb, then Latvala, then Solberg all decided to back off at the end of the last stage, in order to try and force someone else ahead of them to be stuck with road sweeping duties on the second and final day. Sebastien Ogier took the bait, and stretched out a 30+ second lead, hoping that it would hold up.

 

On the final day, Ogier started losing time to the others right out of the gate. Loeb made a mistake that cost him any real chance, and Solberg nearly went over a cliff, ending his weekend early. But Latvala put the pedal to the metal and with just one stage to go, passed Ogier to take a .5 second lead.

 

Petter Solberg failed the "parking on a hill" portion of his driver's test

 

That just left the Power Stage. So not only were bonus championship points up for grab, but the rally itself was as well.

 

Apparently, for the Power Stage, they run in reverse order. I guess I hadn't noticed that before. So the cars at the top of the leader board no longer have to do any road sweeping. That meant Ogier would be last. Latvala went out and set the second-fastest time after Hirvonen, but then was beaten by mere tenths of a second by Loeb. But that didn't matter. All that mattered, was what Ogier would do. He ended up turning in a time mere hundredths of a second faster than Hirvonen, taking the Power Stage and the overall rally win by two-tenths of a second. I felt bad for Latvala. He'd really worked hard to claw his way up to the lead, only to lose by the smallest margin in WRC history. Sure, he's in the record books, but as he pointed out after the race, at the moment he was a little too disappointed to appreciate it.

 

Overall it made for some awesome racing. (Pirelli had sorted out the tire problems too, so there were hardly any punctures, unlike Portugal.)

 

This also tightens up the championship standings, with four drivers all within eight points of the top spot. Ford and Citroën are now tied for the manufacturer's championship.

 

They also showed extended highlights from the Portugal WRC Academy and PWRC races, both of which were pretty cool. Especially the PWRC, because a Subaru won. But the WRC Academy is also pretty cool because you get to see some of the sport's possible future stars (although at the moment, they seem to have a bit of trouble keeping their cars right-side-up. )

 

Next up - Italy highlights on May 29th, with the return of Mini!

Two tenths, pshaw. The NASCAR race at Talledega this year was decided by two thousandths of a second. The top 8 cars all crossed the finish line in two tenths. Eight cars in a four wide, three car length pack.

 

And I'd say that Ogier deserved to win. Racing is about going as fast as you can, not sandbagging to gain a tactical advantage. (Hmm... although a few of those top 8 cars at 'dega spent most of the time at the back of the field, which could be considered a similar strategy.)

Yeah, but NASCAR cars don't drive over rocks, have to avoid cliffs or trees, or turn right. So I'd expect them to be closer.

 

I agree about the sandbagging - it's definitely one of the weirder aspects of rallying. Still, it wasn't as bad as last year in Jordan. After that brouhaha, they actually changed the rules. I'd certainly rather see everyone just go flat-out like Ogier did. Sometimes that happens and it pays off, but the whole road-sweeping thing is part of the strategy of the sport. Like pit stops in NASCAR. Do they try to stretch their fuel and tires farther than everyone else by hanging back, then pick up spots when the race leaders pit? Can they afford to wait for a yellow, or risk taking a pit stop under green? Can they beat the pace car as they exit the pits so they don't lose a lap? All drivers are looking for tactical advantages within the rules.

This. Looks. Fun.

Yeah, comparing NASCAR and WRC is like comparing apples and kumquats. But whether it be NASCAR, WRC, the Dakar, or even things like the Tour d'France, it's amazing how close the top racers are after such great distances.

 

And yes, in NASCAR there are tactics which mean the racers aren't going flat-out. Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don't. At the most recent race there was a late caution and the leaders (who had been there for most of the race) took four tires. However, some of the midfield cars decided to only take two tires to gain a better position (and Mark Martin went to the front by not pitting). The ex-leaders discovered that the advantage of fresh rubber wasn't enough to get back to the front in the remaining laps. (And Mark Martin managed to hold on to second place.)

MotorWeek had a special on HD Theater about the NY Auto Show. So of course, I watched, hoping to glimpse the new Impreza.

 

Which turned out to be the last thing on the show. Figures.

 

But, they did also show the joint Toyota/Subaru Scion FT-S Toyota FT-86 Scion FR-S.

 

I wish they'd make up their mind.

 

Anyway... it's seriously sweet looking. I hope the Subaru version of it looks cool too. But this might just convince me to buy a Scion.

 

 

Not sure though that I want to buy a mid-life-crisis-mobile.

And yesterday brought the highlights from the WRC Rally in Italy.

 

Another close race, although nothing like Jordan. Still, 11 seconds between 1st (Loeb) and 2nd (Hirvonen) and 12 seconds between Hirvonen and 3rd (Petter Solberg) is pretty close. Especially since both the 2nd and 3rd place cars had mechanical issues which if they hadn't occurred would have made the race a dead-heat. Petter seems right on the edge of being able to win if he can just catch a couple of breaks. Loeb just went flat-out all weekend, and either wasn't affected by road-sweeping, or was just so much faster than everyone else, it simply didn't matter. Jari-Matti Latvala crashed out on the first day, and although he eventually got back in the race, he was never back on the leader board (however, he did manage 2nd place in the Power Stage (after Hirvonen), so he picked up a few championship points). The crash was due to his co-driver mis-reading a pace note, and caused them to hit a corner too fast and roll the car. It's interesting how reliant the drivers are on the directions from their co-drivers. Since so many of the curves and hills are completely blind, and given that it would be nearly impossible to completely memorize those twisting, turning road courses, the co-drivers and their notes are critical.

 

Ogier came in 4th, after road-order tactics didn't pay off for him (he was a little slow all weekend, and also had some mechanical problems) and Mads Ostberg did well enough all weekend for 5th place, after a couple of previously difficult rallies. I didn't see any sign of Ken Block. I guess they're still putting his car back together.

 

The SWRC and WRC Academy both ran in Italy as well, although about half of the WRC Academy cars didn't even finish. I guess they still need some more schooling.

 

The big story was the return of Mini to the WRC. For their first time "driving in anger", they did pretty well. One of their cars was pulling down top-three times on the first day, until he had (altogether now) mechanical problems. But their other car, driven by Daniel Sordo (formerly of Citroën) managed 6th place. Not bad at all, especially for a car they're still working some bugs out of. The announcers were apparently delighted that Mini chose Italy as their first race to participate in, because they kept using it as an opportunity to refer to the movie The Italian Job (in which Minis were used as getaway vehicles).

 

The other news of the weekend was an announcement by VW that they will be joining the WRC in 2013, with a five year commitment. It will be nice to have another manufacturer in the mix.

 

June 12th will bring highlights from the rally in Argentina, which actually just wrapped up yesterday. Their timing is just off enough so that I can't check their website after watching the highlights from one rally, without having the results spoiled for the next.

This is a pretty funny idea. The writing and voice work need some help, but it's a clever mash-up of Star Wars and Wacky Races:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIwXVV4T3I4

Forgot to write up last week's rally highlights from Argentina.

 

It was another good, close rally, with completely predictable unpredictable results.

 

Allow me to explain.

 

You see, Sebastien Loeb had won Rally Argentina five times in a row, so it seemed it was a given he'd do so again. But then on the first day, he got nailed with a one-minute time penalty for getting to a checkpoint at the wrong time. So that effectively threw him out of contention. Plus he also made a bad choice with tire selection for some of the stages, making his times less competitive than the other racers.

 

Meanwhile, Jari-Matti Latvala was turning in amazing times, and hot on his heels was Petter Solberg. Right behind them were Sebastien Ogier and Mikko Hirvonen. Nonetheless, Loeb kept his foot to the floor, gradually chipping away at his deficit, but it was pretty clear fifth would be the best that he could do.

 

However...

 

On Day 2, Latvala broke part of his suspension dropping him out of contention, and putting Solberg in the lead. But then, his power steering went out, effectively handing the rally to Ogier. Going into day 3, it looked like Ogier had the rally in the bag with more than a 40 second lead. Meanwhile, Loeb had nearly caught up to Hirvonen, being just four seconds behind him for third place.

 

But on day 3, Ogier clipped a corner and rolled his car. However, he still kept going, and had enough of a lead to stay in first place. Meanwhile, Loeb had passed Hirvonen for second.

 

That is, until the very last stage - the Power Stage, where drivers can earn bonus championship points for winning the stage. The Power Stage has really turned into a good thing for the WRC, since even in cases where the rally isn't close, the drivers go all-out to gain those few extra points, so it helps make for an exciting finish. But this week, we had a close finish as well, since Loeb and Hirvonen both passed Ogier to claim first and second respectively, even though Solberg beat them both to win the Power Stage (and take fourth overall). Mads Ostberg finished a respectable fifth, which is pretty impressive given that this was his first time in Argentina, and Latvala managed to claw his way back up to 7th.

 

The top two PWRC Subarus managed to squeak into the top ten as well, since some of the other WRC drivers (like Ken Block, back after his huge crash a couple of rallies ago) had fallen out of contention, and still others didn't make it to Argentina for one reason or another.

 

So once again, Sebastien Loeb won Rally Argentina. Just goes to show that persistence pays off.

 

This weekend, the WRC is in Greece, with results coming up on TV on June 26th.

The Greece highlights aired a week late, but I got to watch them today.

 

This week, the road won.

 

On the first day, Petter Solberg (starting fifth on the road) worked up a 50 second lead over the pack. In part, this was due to him being just crazy fast, but also because Sebastien Loeb had to run first and sweep gravel out of the way for everyone else. Jari-Matti Latvala was right on Solberg's heels, but again ran into mechanical problems with his Ford Fiesta (front differential and turbo problems), effectively taking him out of the running.

 

On the second day, Solberg had to do road sweeping duties, and ended up losing his entire lead, and then some (in part due to a mistake where he missed a turn). At the end of the day (in a night stage), Sebastien Ogier played road order tactics by slowing down and forcing Sebastien Loeb to finish first, and therefore also forcing him to do the road sweeping on day 3. Something Loeb was none-too-happy about, given that Ogier is his Citroën teammate. Also in the night stage, Solberg's co-driver lost his place in his pace notes, costing them even more time. Although from a pace notes standpoint, nobody had a worse weekend than Mads Ostberg, whose co-driver's pace notes were stolen on the way to the rally, so they had to create a new set from scratch once they got there (and yet more mechanical problems didn't do him any good, either).

 

Loeb only started out with a 2 second lead on the third day, which was quickly overcome by Ogier. In the end, Ogier took first (and first in the Power Stage), followed by Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen. Petter Solberg never managed to regain his lost time and ended up fourth, followed by his brother Henning in fifth. Latvala ended up in ninth. (As an interesting aside, the Solbergs will be providing a couple of voices in the Norwegian dubbed version of Cars 2. Maybe that will help make it a better film. But probably not. )

 

There was plenty of good racing, although the whole road order tactics thing diminished that significantly, in my opinion. However, it looks like those sort of tactics' days are numbered.

 

Starting next season, the rules are being changed to effectively eliminate the role that road sweeping plays. The shakedown stage (which happens before the official start of the rally, and doesn't currently count towards anything) will next year be used as a sort of qualifying stage. The fastest time gets to choose their road position for the first day. Second fastest gets second choice, and so on. So this will add another level of competition to the rally, before the actual rally even begins. On subsequent days, they'll start in reverse order of how they finished, so the slowest cars from the previous days will get stuck sweeping the roads. While this may not seem all that fair to the slower cars (making them even slower still), generally they're going to be several minutes down anyway, so the difference wouldn't be as significant for them, as for the front-runners.

 

Next time - the WRC returns to Finland at the end of July with 21 WRC entrants, and possibly 124 cars in total. Should be quite the race!

 

Edit: They also showed some more highlights from the PWRC race in Argentina, as well as highlights from the Circuit of Ireland rally, both featuring some nice Subaru action.

Top Gear Series 17 started on June 26th in the UK - not sure if it has made it over there yet?

 

Chris

Having slower cars start first also leads to more excitements as the faster cars have to pass them.

Top Gear Series 17 started on June 26th in the UK - not sure if it has made it over there yet?Chris

Nope - no new Top Gear here yet. We tend to get them a few weeks late.

Having slower cars start first also leads to more excitements as the faster cars have to pass them.

But since they start two minutes apart, there likely won't be any actual passing going on (if the cars are that slow, then they're supposed to get out of the way), but it could certainly cause issues for the faster cars with lingering dust trails and deeper ruts left by slower vehicles ahead of them.

 

What I find most intriguing, is the potential for some sleepers to come out of nowhere during qualifying, and set faster times than the typical rally leaders, possibly leveling out the playing field a bit more.