If you've checked
public's Polo thread, you might have noticed we took our 1300 cc cars all the way to Lithuania. In addition to me and public we had Posampique and Posmo as co-drivers, the former for public and latter for me. The reason to travel was local rally for journalists, a fantastic event which was now held for the 22nd time. I've previously taken part in a Subaru WRX STi and Mazda MX-5 ND, but now I wanted to take my own car. For most of us the event is just about having fun, there is genuine fight for victory between top drivers. Instead of cruising around, I wanted to have my own car, my own tires. In addition to 106 Rallye and Polo our group also had a Hyundai Ioniq with us.
We took morning ferry from Helsinki to Tallin. Then it was about 600 kilometers drive to Kaunas, the starting point of the event.
Via Baltica is great way to travel, but slight delay was caused by a lorry sideways in the middle of the road. We had a quick chat with the guys driving a black Ford Fairlane, they were heading for car event in Ukraine.
We had a proper eco run to Kaunas. Despite of revving about 4 000 rpms for most of the journey the Rallye delivered a surprising 5,66 l/100 km. Not bad at all!
During short evening in Kaunas we were greeted by a beautiful sunset and great... um, local mexican food.
Stickers make all cars look like serious business. We're still quite crap at attaching them, so no close up shots of our winkled race numbers.
Local historic rally was held alongside our event. There was everything from 142 Volvo to Porsche 944, but these great Datsun Z models took my attention.
Then the rally started. We were driving from Kaunas to West towards city of Palanga. Along the route we visited special stages held on handling tracks, karting places, empty parking lots. Few laps were also driven around the Nemuno ?iedas Circuit, small and bumpy race track near Kaunas.
During the rally we didn't get much of a chance to take pictures, but for some reason public managed to keep Twitter on fire. Luckily there were couple of great photographers on the event, all obvious pictures here are taken by them. Huge thanks guys!
The great thing in the event is the variety of cars. Our tamed 1300cc beasts were in Class I, which means under 1600cc. Class to has anything between 1600 cc and 2000 cc, Class III is beyond 2000cc. Naturally there is a multiplier for turbo cars etc. Anyway, entry list consists of hobby cars like my 106 Rallye to latest models. I think that Kia Rio beat us by quite some margin...
It's no Range Rover, but quick lunch is still possible!
In the end we didn't win any prizes, but we had lots of fun. It was great to experience the 106 Rallye at it's limit, to drive it like it was designed to be driven. I used Compomotive MOs public had spotted on the web, and installed my worn Yokohama AD08R tires on them. Those made the 106 handle great: great feel, predictable behavior and oversteer always on demand. It's a superbly nimble little thing, and the revvy 1.3 liter engine suits the character really well. To make it properly quick it would need much more power, but now it makes you concentrate on your driving, because you can't come up with lost time. And best of them all our old cheap cars got us there and back with almost zero issues. I've now made a proper road trip with my car!
Oh, here is a short GIF of the 106 at the limit: