Neste Rally Finland
Hi, I'm back home now and very satisfied with last event.
We arrived Finland on Wednesday morning, picked up J4MIE from his hostel in Helsinki and drove to Jyväskylä. We found a nice place for camping by a shakedown stage. Unfortunately officials of the rally found that this place wasn't safe for parking and camping and we were told to leave it before 6 a.m. next morning. Most of our mates in this camping place didn't believe that the officials were serious and didn't leave the camping, but we decided to act as they said and left there at 5 in the morning...lucky us, because the people who stayed there had still to leave and they didn't even have a time to pack their tents before leaving. We had plenty of time to find good place to spectate the shakedown. When we walked on the stage we met DonJippo, RallyBasher, Pino and Tomi.
After the shakedown we went to Paviljonki to see a promotional Rally Show where all make's drivers wrote autographs. I "attacked" Citroen's and Peugeot's team, unfortunately I couldn't get Bosse's autograph. I must admit that I don't remember this kind of struggling after the beginning of 1990-s when Estonia was a part of USSR and we all wanted to buy some food here but the shops were empty
We decided to pick SS2 - Parkkola as our first "official" stage and found a nice camping near it. On the morning we walked on the stage and I picked the place with a good view but J4MIE "El Savior" convinced me to go to another place... lucky me, the place I selected was exactly the same where spectators got hurt by a car gone off the road. My husband didn't listen him and was standing behind the guy who got the most serious injury. He left this place after WRcars and just after he found us we heard a big bang of the crash... He told me that the leaving of this place was the best part of this rally. We run to the place where the accident happened and saw an awful view. I won't ever forget the eyes of this injured spectator... this view ensured me that motorsport can be dangerous even then you don't stay in prohibited area.
The next stage we visited was Ruuhimäki, it was very spectacular to watch and the same opinion was shared by lots of rallyfans. As our crew + pino wanted to see all drivers we stayed there until the end of the stage. When we left the stage we thought first that it was a mistake to be there for a so long time, there was a huge traffic jam after the stage and we had to miss SSS Killeri which was in our plan. We decided to go to the service area to see a service. When we were leaving Paviljonki we got a worthy compensation for missing a SSS. We met Colin McRae there and he wrote his autograph to my rallypass!!! I was so grateful for the traffic jam, honestly
Anyway, if you are sure you want to see Ruuhimäki, Lankamaa and Laukaa stages then I suggest you to not hope seeing some other stages after these, the traffic jams are guaranteed.We found our next target, Ouninpohja big jump, after the midnight. We built our new Finnish home to the Finnish gravel road near to the stage. After 3-hours-slumber we went to the stage to find a better place for taking some good pics. Although it was very early in the morning we found that lots of spectators were already awake and had the same thoughts as we did. Some of them were sleeping behind the safety ribbon in their sleeping-bags to get the best places. I must admit this self-sacrifice wasn't worth it, because there came so many spectators and almost everybody lost their places. Even some Czech savages who defended with the knifes their cowpen they had built last evening found themselves from a third row finally.
I picked a good place for taking pics, it was too good place unfortunately... 15 minutes before the stage started (I had stood there for 2 hours) came 50 journalists, they all decided to stay in front of me with their big cameras...and I couldn't take any pics 
But it was still fun to see the big jumps of rallycars. Even Jari Viita managed with a impressive jump!Next stage was Himose, a very beautiful stage to spectate. Although we knew that if we would stay at Himose stage we couldn't reach SSS we were sure we don't want to see it. Even my husband who was desperate because missing Killeri 1 did't want to go there anymore. The reason were Estonian fans. There were so many drunk "rallyfans" who cheered on the streets to every Ford "Markko, Markko." We saw how drunk fan broke one Finn's cars left mirror with a bottle of beer after arguing and we really felt a shame because of our countrymen (so did most of Estonians). I don't say that all fans are hateful, but those people in hangover-coma were nasty indeed.
Anyway, you already know where we went after Himose, when we met other forumers.
Next morning we woke up 500m from last days first stages last corner
, after that we left to Paviljonki to see final service and podium ceremony.The funny part of the ceremony was that the anthems of Finland and Estonia have excactly the same melody, only the words are different. So when they started to play Finnish anthems to Marcus, the Estonians started to sing the anthems with Estonian words... The Finns looked quite confused
The most remarkable parts of this rally were meeting Colin and Skoda's good performance IMO. I bought Skoda's cap for my kiddo, I was so impresssed by the fact that all three Skodas finished the event and both Jani & Toni got some points! I think it was a good event and also it was good to see some friends I had never met before
posted by Karmen @ 12:00 pm
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