As the summer recently entered its second half, so did the Lithuanian Rally Championship – “CBet Rally Rokiškis” was already the fourth of six stages in the LARČ calendar. By the way, this year there were 11 rallies where Lithuanians started with N5 cars, so the season is really intense. And all this tension in such an “endurance” rally as Rokiškis really had a place to do its things. On Thursday, more than half a day was spent in the reece car, and on Friday and Saturday, there were a number of unique special stages that added up to a total of 140 kilometers. It’s a good thing it wasn’t as hot as last year. However, the rains that preceded the rally took their toll.
The sporting part of the rally began on Friday afternoon, and the gods of the rally began their chess game, where the losers were the participants. The participants of the LARČ1 class with Škoda Fabia N5+ cars had no major problems during the six Friday special stages. While the leader of the rally was slowly running away, Martynas Samsonas, as always this year, got into a fight with Giedris Notkus, only this time the latter was a bit faster. Linas Vaškys and Eugenijus Sladkevičius also had a classic fight. They were 18 seconds apart after the first day and ranked seventh and ninth overall.
At the larger LARČ5 field, events turned out to be much more difficult. Even before the rally, this class “crumbled” because Rokas Steponavičius did not show up for the competition due to back pain. Already the first special stages, which went through forests and had a very soft surface, claimed victims. Paulius Beniushis with the Citroen C3 N5 broke the wheel and the Hyundai i20 N5 of Tomas Šmagaris went only a little further that day. A little later Aurimas Eidžiūnas’ Ford Fiesta N5 after the jump landed on a tree stump hidden by the gravel, which was used to enlarge the jump. Due to those enlarged jumps, more than one car was damaged. After all these events, only two N5 cars crossed the finish line on Friday evening. While the others were not so lucky, Nedas Radišauskas and Justas Vičiūnas raced across the roads of the Rokiškis region, leaving much stronger cars behind and fighting for fifth place in the overall standings. N5 rookie Deividas Gezevičius also had some problems, from a brief stop due to other competitors’ crashes at the stage to time penalties, but Deividas drove confidently to the front and was in fifteenth place after the first day.
At dawn on Saturday, competitors were greeted by rain and 85 kilometers of special stages. Paulius Beniušis and Tomas Šmagarys returned to the competition under Rally2 rule. The fight for the second place in the overall standings was decided only at the end of the rally. Giedrius Notkus, who was leading ahead of Martynas Samsonas, damaged the radiator, so a man from Utena took another victory in the LARČ standings with extremely mature driving in such a difficult rally. One of their best races had Linas Vaškys and Laurynas Paškevičius, who drove extremely confidently and took fifth place in the absolute classification from their colleague Nedas Radišauskas on the last special stage at Rokiškis city. Eugenijus Sladkevičius after problems could not keep the pace of the main competitor of the LARČ1 and finished in seventh place.
In the group of LARČ5 or N5, again there were some dramas. Paulius Beniušis, who had just returned to the competition, had to stop after the Saturday stage. Tomas Šmagarys Hyundai i20 N5 stopped because it had its second accident in a row. But not everyone was unlucky at this rally. Nedas Radišauskas had a very entertaining battle with LARČ1 representative Linas Vaškys, where they fought for sixth place. Throughout Saturday they were on each other’s heels and swapped positions. Nedas even managed to win the Power Stage and showed the first time among the championship participants. The epilogue of this whole fight took place at Rokiškis City Special stage but the marshals intervened in this fight and imposed penalties at the end of the rally. Before the start, Nedas had the information that he was four seconds behind Linas. Enjoying the final stage of the rally and trying to make up time, Nedas made a mistake. After adding up the penalties about Nedas didin’t know, he had a 1-second lead before the start and did not have to push as hard. After all, Linas Vaškys celebrated his fifth place after finishing the final stretch 0.88 seconds ahead of the white VW Polo N5. As the rally was coming to an end, Deividas Gezevičius felt more and more comfortable in the new Ford Fiesta N5 car and started to show a very good pace. He won 4 stages in the LARČ5 classification during the rally and showed the fourth time in the overall classification in the fourteenth stage.
Now we have quite long break until the Elektrėnai Rally 🙂
| Driver | Co-driver | Car | Team | Class | Time | Overall | Class | |||
 | Martynas Samsonas | | Ervinas Snitkas |  | Škoda Fabia N5+ | Samsonas Motorsport | LARČ1 | 1:13:49.79 | 2 | 1 |
| Linas Vaškys | | Laurynas Paškevičius |  | Škoda Fabia N5+ | ORLEN Lietuva-Mažeikių ASK | LARČ1 | 1:17:05.59 | 5 | 2 |
| Nedas Radišauskas | | Justas Vičiūnas |  | VW Polo N5 | Samsonas Motorsport | LARČ5 | 1:17:06.47 | 6 | 1 |
| Eugenijus Sladkevičius | | Marius Kairys | | Škoda Fabia N5+ | Samsonas Motorsport | LARČ1 | 1:18:29.58 | 7 | 3 |
| Deividas Gezevičius | | Tomas Nenartavičius | | Ford Fiesta N5 | Nordis racing team | LARČ5 | 1:21:30.25 | 10 | 2 |
| Tomas Šmagarys | | Valdas Čiuplys |  | Hyundai i20 N5 | AUTORALIS | LARČ5 | Accident | – | – |
| Paulius Beniušis | | Kristupas Adinavičius |  | Citroen C3 N5 | ST-SPORT | LARČ5 | Tech. failure | – | – |
| Aurimas Eidžiūnas | | Justas Barysas | | Ford Fiesta N5 | 7Bet racing by RALLY4FUN | LARČ5 | Accident | – | – |
