Breslau Rally 2013: Prolog

The Rallye started today with the Prolog at the Lausitzring (EuroSpeedway Lausitz). With all the recent rain, the track was slippery and the vehicles were quickly covered with mud.

We took some photos of the action, but we won’t be able to transfer them from the camera until we get home. The few pictures we took using the iPhone came out looking like double-exposures. The sky was so dark and the vehicles were moving so fast that the automatically calculated exposure times were too long.

Update July 1, 2013: This artifact seems to come from the HDR, we’ve turned it off for these types of shots.

Here are our guys, Sylvain and Gaby, in their Nissan Patrol V8 (car on the right),

Starting order for tomorrow’s special was determined by the results of the Prolog. They finished in 15th place, in part because the rear axle shaft broke during the race. They weren’t sure what had happened until the mechanics got to work once they’d returned to the bivouac after the Prolog.

We didn’t have a spare axle shaft, but fortunately, we brought a spare axle, so the mechanics were able to replace it during the afternoon.

However, the replacement axle is a different one, so the gear ratio is not the same as the front axle and the differential needs to be changed as well. The mechanics still have a few hours of work to do before the car is ready to go again.

Tomorrow is a liaison day as we go to the next camp in Poland. We’ll take the car on the trailer because tomorrow’s special is a night stage and doesn’t start until 10pm.