Did a small practice for Monte. Did I wreck the car? No. Did I spin out at every other hairpin? Yes.

@alesgenova notes:

1. Swiss stage is full of rocks. Just drive in the middle.
2. Leg 2 of the rally has 2 stages with heavy rain, one of which is Swiss stage. Use WET TIRES there.
3. Leg 3 is full snow, DON'T FORGET to switch to snow tires!

First legs have a bit worse notes. It's ok though. Just be careful.

@alesgenova

4. Don't lock up brakes at the entry into chicane on stage 11. Actually, it's just a 800 meter show super-stage, so you can practice the Lyon stage three-four times. Surprising amount of people in class messed up on it, and it's basically three straights.

@alesgenova

5. For me driving on snow is easier than driving on tarmac, but I can see how it may not be the case for tarmac specialists. Practice some snow stage from leg 3 with hairpins. And practice stage 10 because downhill snow is brutal.

@alesgenova https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAhP0ta1Bw0&feature=youtu.be here's my horrible driving.

@jonn It's been a busy week, haven't started practicing yet, but I will have time tonight and tomorrow during the day. I'll attempt the official run on Sunday I think.
I started watching your video, to get an idea of what to expect from the stages. I see that you were having trouble on the tarmac hairpins, and from the look of the input I assume you bound the handbrake to a digital button?

@alesgenova yes, it is.

@jonn Last year I bought an inexpensive handbrake from AliExpress, it's not amazing but at least it gives me some progression in the input. And at least on gravel, I never had to pull the handbrake all the way, but you need to hold it until the car starts pointing to where you want to go.
You could also try to bind the handbrake to a joypad analog axis, anything would be better than an on/off button :D

@alesgenova Interesting. I was thinking about transforming an H-shifter into a handbrake. The cost isn't really an issue, the size / space is, however.

Renting in London, I'm always wary of the additional cost of occupying a meter squared of the apartment.

@alesgenova the problem I also have is that I can only clip things to my desk or put things onto the floor, i.e. I don't have a dedicated rig. So that limits my options too.

@jonn I hear you! Suburban US is not the most exciting place, but at least I can waste half a room on my monstrosity of a triple monitor 80/20 rig :D
When I was living in an apartment I had a smaller rig in the livingroom, and used VR. The seat could be made to lean forward when not in use, and the total footprint wasn't too bad.

@alesgenova Just finished the rally!!! I'm so happy about it! Uploading the video with comments. Be VERY WARY of my 2s. Sometimes 2 is a "one minus", sometimes it's a "square"... Rarely it's an actual 2. :D

I will also have to fix one of the stages where notes are completely off, but other than the "tight turn conundrum", that one stage, and a bit of non-critical imprecisions in the first leg, the notes feel good.

@alesgenova I think some testing is needed about the tire choice for the final leg. The leg befrore it is clearly WET, or START DRY, CHANGE TO WET.

The final leg I went SNOW. But I didn't test the stages with TARMAC DRY at speed. Perhaps correct is simply TARMAC DRY -> TARMAC DRY. You'll have to test both options on some shorter stages in the leg.

Alternatively, test both on the 17km stage.

I strongly suggest testing *smart*, not testing *full course*. Nobody can memorise the full course, but we can test a bit of options where it really matters.

@jonn my biggest problem is getting my brain to process the notes fast enough. At some point I can't, and I just filter out anything that isn't square, one, or two. And just eyeball the rest.
Hopefully one day I'll get better at it

@alesgenova actually, I think that's how I crashed out on the first Ukrainian stage. (The one I fixed). I think my brain filtered out "three left", but it truned out to be a two. Bang bang.

@alesgenova it's stage 13 fyi

@alesgenova I'm pretty sure these will be useless for you, but I've also uploaded the replays of my participation to this Google Drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MbydC_jmBDUvHOmcAlnob1n1BGAjZaxY?usp=sharing

See Event Replays -> 992.

@alesgenova feel free to stream and share replays! I'll gladly watch your practice as well as the run!

@jonn I realized that the rally closes on early Sunday morning. There goes my plan to do the official run on Sunday!

I practiced the first leg and a half tonight, and I did the official run for the first leg.

It's not going great, the goal is definitely to just finish

Here are the replays of the official runs: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15UsQpA84wQBev-q8b8oU5lKnT4Xc3yb7?usp=share_link