In mid-January, 4 N5 class cars appeared at the opening ceremony of the Arctic Lapland Rally, located in the beautiful city of Rovaniemi. They did this after a particularly long Reece and shakedown. Those crews were Lithuanians Martynas Samsonas and Ervins Snitkas with Volkswagen Polo N5, Linas Vaškys and Laurynas Paškevičius with Škoda Fabia N5+, Vilmantas Padegimas and Ugnius Vainevičius with Renault Clio N5. There was also one Finnish crew, Tommi Jylha and Kimmo Nevampaa with a Toyota Yaris N5.
The first day of the rally was held on Friday afternoon with 5 special stages and 90 sportive kilometers, most of which took place in pitch darkness while it was snowing. The rally started quite well – after a cautious start, Lithuanian Martynas Samsonas showed Top 20 times, while Linas Vaškys got into the top 40 overall and fought for the victory in the class. Vilmantas got to know his new car and was driving in the top 60. Everything was going pretty well.
However, the fourth – Kivalo Siikakämä special stage was the beginning of the disasters. In the first turns of the stretch, Martynas Samsonas took the right turn a bit too fast and ended up stuck in the snow. It was still not possible to dig out even with the help of the locals, so the first day of the rally was over for them. A similar story happened to Finn Tommi Jylha with Toyota Yaris N5. He also failed to reach the finish of the stage. On the other hand, Linas and Vilmantas ended the day successfully. The Škoda Fabia N5+ was 38th overall and 1st in class after Friday, while Vilmantas was 56th overall and 9th in class.
The second and final day of the Arctic Lapland Rally on Saturday offered 6 stages and a huge distance of 140 kilometers through the stages. Very long 30 km special stages, heavy snow, fog, and early darkness showed once again that this rally is one of the most difficult winter rallies in the world. Martynas Samsonas and Tommi Jylha were able to get their cars out of the snow to prepare for Saturday as the Super rally rule allowed them to restart.
The very early difficult conditions affected the competitors quite strongly. Many leaders had their own problems and were stuck in the snowbanks. Some N5 class crews did not avoid problems either. Heavy snow covered Martynas Samsonas’ Polo N5 auxiliary lights, so Martynas suffered from extremely poor visibility throughout the special stage. In the next stage, there were problems with the helmet, so Martynas had to drive in emergency mode, while Ervin tried to tell the pace notes with hand gestures and signs. However, after the service area, everything was fixed and the Lithuanian rally legend started to show much better times and successfully completed the rest of the day. The main goal was to test the new Volkswagen Polo N5 and bring it to Lithuania in excellent condition for future starts. Local Finn Tommi Jylha in a Toyota Yaris N5 also managed to finish the second day, after failing on the first.
It was a completely different story with Linas Vaškys and Laurynas Paškevičius. They drove very well and stable with the Škoda Fabia N5+ and after 9 stages the crew was 34th overall and had a huge lead in their class. Everything seemed to be going really well, but in the tenth stage, their Škoda stopped due to a high-pressure fuel pump failure. The crew that stopped in the wild Arctic was taken care of by the local Finns, who welcomed the Lithuanians by the warm flame of the campfire.
Thus, only Vilmantas Padegimas with Ugnius Vainevičius and their Renault Clio N5 finished all the special stages and reached the finish line. It was their first time in the Arctic and their first start in competition with a car of this caliber. They were very happy to successfully complete the toughest winter rally in the world in 47th place out of 102 who started this journey.
So all in all it was a tough rally as ever and all the crews took away a huge amount of valuable experience from this trip.
The next stop is the Otepää talveralli in Estonia. There should be at least two crews with N5 equipment. Bye-bye!
Results:
- Vilmantas Padegimas | Ugnius Vainevičius | Renault Clio N5 — 47th overall and 9th in SM5 class
- Linas Vaškys | Laurynas Paškevičius | Škoda Fabia N5+ — Retired at SS10 due mechanical failure
- Martynas Samsonas | Ervinas Snitkas | Volkswagen Polo N5 — Retired at SS4, but restarted the next day with Super Rally rule
- Tommi Jylha | Kimmo Nevampaa | Toyota Yaris N5 – Retired at SS4, but restarted the next day with Super Rally rule
Photos: M.Kyostila, R.Nyholm, Martynas Samsonas