Drew84
04-23-2008, 03:28 AM
This is from the article in Driving Sports. Lets discuss how incredibly fast the Olympus rally was. Most of the competitors where traveling at over 80 mph during the rally :-o The fastest trap speed was by a Volvo 240 at 124mph!!.
Whatever that plan is, it’s working very nicely. Block won 7 of the 16 Olympus stages outright and finished second on 4 more. On the 5 remaining stages, a quirk in the Rally America championship rules created a tie with up to 17 other competitors.
As a safety measure, FIA and Rally America require event organizers to keep average stage speeds below 80 MPH. They do this by limiting the minimum possible stage score to an 80 MPH average. If any competitor exceeds the 80 MPH average on a given stage, that stage must be changed or eliminated the following year.
Because this is the first running of the Olympus Rally on new roads outside Pomeroy, Washington, the average stage speed was exceeded on 5 of the 16 total stages. Each stage of the rally was run at least twice, and on the last stage of the event, the top 18 competitors all earned the minimum stage time. The first running of that stage saw 16 of the top 17 competitors earn the minimum time.
There are two things to note about this fact – the first is that the level of competition in Rally America has never been higher. The national-level competitors have raised their game to equal any national rally series in the world. The second note is that the Olympus stages were among the fastest of the competition year – and stage speeds will have to be brought down next year.
Whatever that plan is, it’s working very nicely. Block won 7 of the 16 Olympus stages outright and finished second on 4 more. On the 5 remaining stages, a quirk in the Rally America championship rules created a tie with up to 17 other competitors.
As a safety measure, FIA and Rally America require event organizers to keep average stage speeds below 80 MPH. They do this by limiting the minimum possible stage score to an 80 MPH average. If any competitor exceeds the 80 MPH average on a given stage, that stage must be changed or eliminated the following year.
Because this is the first running of the Olympus Rally on new roads outside Pomeroy, Washington, the average stage speed was exceeded on 5 of the 16 total stages. Each stage of the rally was run at least twice, and on the last stage of the event, the top 18 competitors all earned the minimum stage time. The first running of that stage saw 16 of the top 17 competitors earn the minimum time.
There are two things to note about this fact – the first is that the level of competition in Rally America has never been higher. The national-level competitors have raised their game to equal any national rally series in the world. The second note is that the Olympus stages were among the fastest of the competition year – and stage speeds will have to be brought down next year.