Many eyes were on the Saaremaa Rally in Estonia last weekend. But there would have been a lot going on in Lithuania as well. In the center of the country, one of the oldest motorsport competitions took place – Kaunas Ruduo Rally. This international event was joined by the final event of the Lithuanian Mini Rally Championship, which again featured N5 car. This visit is particularly gratifying, because after a break, Vilmantas Padegimas and Edvardas Gurevičius returned to the wheel of the Renault Clio N5. The two competed in the guest class, and 9 special stages and 30 sports kilometers on gravel and asphalt awaited them. By winning three stages, Vilmantas was able to build a 9-second lead over second-place Tomás Žekonis in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX throughout the rally. Vilmantas himself says about the break this season and rally:
Rally is one thing that once you try it, you can’t stop. I’m probably not wrong when I say that all of us rally drivers, fans, have rally sickness, but at the same time, rallying requires a lot of money. I financed all this from my business, but the some problems happened at the beginning of the summer. A problem like a bolt from the blue that no one had planned or expected, so I had to pause everything and skip all the remaining stages of the LARČ. This Ukmergė rally stump was still very painful, but… Almost 3 months have passed, and the desire to race again hasn’t disappeared. Larger rallies were rejected for financial reasons, only the last event of the mini-rally “Kauno Ruduo” remained. Somehow I first thought of driving a Toyota Celica, but when I got behind the wheel of a Renault Clio again after 2.5 months, I said no – I don’t want to drive a Toyota. So Edvardas and I ended up in Kaunas in the fall.
How we did it – I don’t even know what to say. Before the rally we didn’t really have any goals, we just wanted to have a good time, but it was difficult to get back into the rhythm after a long break. We started from the back, road was already bad and 2 stages were purely in the forest, so somehow we didn’t feel like doing i mistakes all over again. Literally, as Edvard assaid, “we’re going at half throttle”. Although I managed to win the rally, I will be honest – I would have preferred to write “Ralis Ukmergė” on the trophies. It was really a great fight with the same N5 technique and strong Polish racer M. Kempa.
Vilmantas Padegimas
Besides Renault, another N5 car appeared – the Citroen C3 N5 of Paulius Beniušis, but this time it was not Paulius who drove it. At the original Kaunas Ruduo Rally, not the Mini Rally, Paulius’ father Arūnas Beniušis sat behind this car with co-driver Arūnas Šufinskas. This team finished in third place.
| Driver | Co-driver | Car | Team | Class | Time | Overall | Class | |||
 | Vilmantas Padegimas | | Edvardas Gurevičius |  | Renault Clio N5 | Svečių | 24:13,3 | 1 | 1 |