*** Now with 100% more video ! *** - http://www.mnsubaru.com/forums/showpost.php?p=604220&postcount=28 Hello, everyone. I managed to blag my way into the service park this morning, even though it is sooooooo not open to the public yet. And I don't mean I managed to sneak in under the fence; I was able to drive into the service park. I talked to a guy at Subaru Team Arai through the fence, and he said it would be OK if I went in to get some photos with them *IF* I could get past security. So, never one to pass up on a challenge, I drove round the corner, told the security guard I was with Team Arai, and drove right in. So, here is a selection of the pictures I got this morning. I don't want to overwhelm the bandwidth-challenged amongst you, so I won't post them all. If you want to see the rest, take a peek at the Flickr collection I started for this weekend: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuartpowell/collections/72157614991281611/. I'll be adding more pictures to the collection over the next few days, so feel free to keep checking back. This was going to be my April COTM entry until I managed to sneak into the service park. One of my car parked next to Toshi Arai's ride for the weekend. Here's the reigning champs car, not even stickered up for the event yet. I'm willing to bet that it won't look quite as clean and shiny in a few days time. Bye for now, Stuart.
Cool. Will you be there long enough for action shots? Find a blazing fast corner and get some inside corner slideways shots please!
I live here, so yes, I'll be here long enough. I hope. But you never know for sure when you're going to be struck by one of those pesky meteorites. I have a point and shoot camera; I'll do what I can, but please don't expect miracles. Stuart.
He's not allowed to die. That was the deal. He gets to bugger off for 4 days (including opening ceremonies), and I hold down the fort and keep the sprogs alive. Though I do have him highly insured... :biggrin: We'll be taking the boys out on Sunday in their Subie suits. He asked me what kind of merchandise I wanted. I decided to be difficult, so I asked him for Subaru earrings with matching pendant. Funnily enough, my best friend and her sister are going to the opening ceremonies with Stoooo, but they are going for a different reason. They are going to throw their underpants at the Cypriot pop star Sakis Rouvas, who is doing the concert. I doubt Stuart will be dancing with the girls in the audience... at least I hope that he's not going to throw his underpants at Sakis. He might throw them at the Arai's Subie, though. I could totally see that. --Trish
Yes, well. I'd hardly be okay with my husband going off for that kind of weekend... hence, I use the term "bugger off", not just "bugger". Ours is not an open marriage. ...but what other meaning is there to sprogs, other than children? I lived in Tasmania for a year, and I don't remember anything that was untoward about that word. Of course, that was many years ago, so I would imagine that the slang has evolved beyond what I knew it as. My favorite Aussie phrase is "sweet f.a." I still use it at least weekly. There is just no substitute for all that it can imply. By the way, we went up Mount Troodos this weekend so we could see a bit of snow. We enjoyed it for about 45 minutes, then drove down to a restaurant where we had the most amazing kebab and pork chops. That's about as much winter as we have had here. It got up into the 70s last week, and we had to put the a/c on for the kids. I LOVE winter here... but I would imagine the summer's heat might wear me down a bit. Stuart has just finished a beer, and he's got a deliriously happy look on his face. He's not been this smiley since he brought the car back from the port (before the neighbor backed into it). He keeps making happy *sigh* noises. If we did have an open marriage, I'd worry that he was in love with a younger woman. But I know Stoooo. He fawns over and lusts after machines that get you from point A to point B. It's part of his charm.:hsdance: --Trish
Everybody's tucked up in bed right now, but I'll see if I can swing by there tomorrow and see who else has set up camp. The service park opens early for foreign crews; the locals have to wait an extra day or two. Stuart.
Collection updated with pics from yesterday (not much happening, to be honest) and the shakedown stage this morning. And there's still the opening ceremony to look forward to tonight I'm just dumping them all up to Flickr right now, so there's some crap mixed in with the good stuff. Bye for now, Stuart.
you are so lucky!! I want to be there right now. Pics look awesome! Is it a tarmac/gravel mix? The cars in the service park seemed to have both kinds of tires
It's a mixed surface event, but they'll be doing the tarmac part (Friday) on the same gravel tyres they'll be using for the other two days. That's why today's shakedown was a tarmac stage, so they could get used to the grip on the less grippy tyres. Stuart.
Nope. If Mikko wants the crown, he's going to have to earn it fair and square. At least Seb blinks fairly frequently. Not like that Gronholm character. In all the years I've been following the WRC, I have seen Gronholm blink a grand total of seven times, and only two of those times were in the car. And one of those is unconfirmed because it happened pre-Tivo and pre-BitTorrent. Stuart.
Gronholm creeps me out with his lack of blinking. What kind of training must he put his eyes through? Moisture-deprivation training? Low-humidity crunches? That must be quite unnerving to his wife. EWwwwwwwwww I had to go there, didn't I. With that hideous image in mind, I'm off to bed. Yuck. --Trish
Hahaha im surprised i didnt notice. I love his interviews, im quite excited to see him back in a Subaru. Even if it is just for one race... Maybe... yeah... it was ok....
My all time favourite Gronholm moment was when his car broke down in a little mountain village, so he got out, calmly walked over to the nearest bar, and sat down with a beer to watch the rest of the cars go by. This is why I like rally drivers; they're not a bunch of pretentious snobs like the F1 guys. Stuart.
Posted pics from Leg 1. I had planned to hit three stages yesterday, but that was before I actually saw the roads I would be driving on to get out there. One of them was more narrow and twisty than the stages they were driving on. One of them actually became the new "Scariest road I have ever driven on", since it had a lot of blind bends, massive vertical drop offs, and induced more than one instance of sphincter tightening. However, the scenery was unreal. I saw parts of the island yesterday that I have never seen before, and it was spectacularly beautiful. Oh, yes, another bit about the "scariest road"; it was plenty scary during the day in bright sunshine, but it went up a whole new level of scariness on the way home in the dark, during a torrential rain storm, while it was foggy. I am so glad I managed to catch up to somebody else so I could let them be lead dog for a while. Just got done watching the EuroSport coverage of yesterday's stages, and I'm actually in it a couple of times. I'm the white blob with a blue and yellow Subaru hat behind a skinny chap in a red shirt. Here are a couple from SS3... The scenery out here is stunning. That twisty bit of road is *not* part of a stage, it's part of the least scary road that I went on between the stages. And here we are on SS5, where it rained mid way through. The guys I'm with are Marcello and Paul from Argentina, who were there cheering on their man Villagra. This hill may not look that steep, but I couldn't actually stand up straight enough to get a picture that showed how steep it was. I was not the only one putting chocks under the wheels. That should do it for now. I'm planning to hit SS9 and SS10 today. I wonder what today's trip will be like. Stuart.
OK, here we have some of the shots from Leg 2. I think I got a couple of nice shots today, but I got some real duds, too. Oh, well, it's all still a lot of fun. Here are a couple of interesting observations: 1. The Fords are much quieter than the Citroens. 2. The Fords spew much more gravel out the back than any other car. (I suspect this is due to the cutouts in the rear valence behind the wheels.) 3. The Evos make the most noise out of any of the cars on course. Especially that yellow one. Wow ! 4. I'm still amazed by how much these things smell, which is something you just don't get from television. Here we are at SS9, which was a tarmac road to hairpin left onto uphill gravel road. I still question the wisdom of standing where I did for the first few cars. And on SS10, which was a 90* right from a long straight bit of tarmac onto another gravel road. Latvala actually managed to get me in the head with a rock on this stage, even though I was well out of the way. This is what made me think about Interesting Observation #2 above. That's your lot for tonight. Just planning to hit SS13 tomorrow, then back to the Service Park/Rally HQ for the Finish ceremony. Bye for now, Stuart.
Whew, what an exhausting weekend. We left the Subaru at home today to head out into the wilderness in the Land Cruiser. And a good job, too. The road to SS13 was more of a trail than a road. I forgot to set the trip, but I think we must have done at least 150Km, and we only went to one stage. But it was the stage furthest from home. I think today has been rough on the competitors' cars, with a number of retirements due to mechanical failures, and a couple of off-road excursions. As such, there are fewer car pics to choose from today because, well, there were fewer cars. I did receive some sage panning advice last night. I don't know how much it helped since my Fisher Price camera has a mind of its own sometimes. I'll let you lot decide how successful my panning efforts were. In spite of taking a fairly liberal attitude to the speed limits on the way back for the finish, we hit a massive traffic snarl-up back at the seafront. Anyway, I still got some pics of the cars at the finish gate, a few snaps in the service park, and a special surprise photo I'll put up at the end of this post. Since I had Trish and the kids with me today, I wasn't able to dash around the stage as much as I had previously, so the action from SS13 all comes from mostly the same spot... There was such a crush at the finish line, but I took what pics I could. This was harder than it might seem, since I had Quinn perched on my shoulders at the time. I hope you guys have enjoyed looking at these pictures. I had a huge amount of fun getting them, and it's all thanks to Trish for giving me "time off to enjoy the rally" as my Christmas present last year. She's been a real trooper this weekend. Thanks, sweetheart, it's been a blast. Oh, yeah, the special surprise photo. I almost forgot... Bye for now, Stuart.
I finally got around to making a compilation of all my little video clips. [YOUTUBE]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6-K9ZTb4GsI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6-K9ZTb4GsI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE] I'd recommend picking the HQ option in the player, as the video quality is a lot less crappy with that switched on. Stuart.
Great video, thanks for sharing. Especially love the sounds of everything, it must be really cool to hear those ripping through the woods from a distance.
Yeah, the noise apparently made quite an impression on my 2yr old, whose eyes went as wide as dinner plates when the first car went blasting past about 10' away from him. We have a particular bedtime story called "What Do You Love ?" in which the question "What do you love ?" comes up a grand total of five times. So, as we read this story, we go around the room asking each of us in turn what it is we love. It's now over two weeks since the rally ended, and his answer to the question is still "Rally cars that go vrooooom!!!" (His emphasis, by the way, not mine.) Oh, speaking of things that make an impression, this self same 2yr old was significantly less enthused about getting hit in the head with a rock as one car went by. He got over it pretty quickly, though. Stuart.
I have no idea why I never saw this post, so apologies for the late reply. Nope, no DSLR, just a point and shoot Fuji Finepix E900.
