The fourth event of the Lithuanian Rally Championship will take place in the Rokiškis area on August 7-9. It is expected to attract almost a hundred participants from Lithuania and abroad. The Rokiškio Grand Rally competition will also feature a large line-up of Lithuanian Rally4 Trophy crews, currently led by Irmantas and Edvinas Buivydai.
Interesting that the duo of Irmantas and Edvinas Buivydas, who are leading the Rally4 Trophy championship, did not win any of the three stages of the season this year. The duo finished all three appearances by lifting the second-place cups. At that time, the positions of their opponents were not stable, so when calculating the results after three events, the Buivydas brothers are confidently moving forward in the first place of the table and have 77 points.
“Rokiškis is always one of the most difficult events in the championship. This competition is like a survival race. It is important to reach the finish line here. Usually after Rokiškis, the season table is more or less clear, so if you manage to successfully complete the Rokiškis rally, most of the work has already been done,” said Irmantas Buivydas.
In second place of the class is the crew of Markas Buteikis and Titas Čapkauskas, who have collected 69 points, won twice and didn’t finish the competition once. In third place with 56 points is the crew of Aras Kvedaras and Karolis Gedgaudas, who have two third places and one unfinished race. The duo of Klaudas Bučinskas and Povilas Gutauskas, who have one first and one fourth place and have not finished the race once, are just a point behind them.
There is also an N-1 rule in the rally championship, which means that at the end of the season, one of the worst results of each crew will be removed and the final positions are calculated by adding up the results of the five remaining stages.
This means that Markas Buteikis, Aras Kvedaras and Klaudas Bučinskas have already used up one “life” each and do not have the right to not finish another event. Otherwise, they would have to forget about the fight for the leading positions and the 80 thousand euro scholarship waiting for the winners. At the same time, the stable driving of Irmantas and Edvinas Buivydai allows them to take risks for the time being, because in case of not finishing the race, they would not complicate their situation yet.
However, Irmantas Buivydas says that he will continue following conservative tactics and will not go overboard for victory. Another thing is that the athlete is not happy with the car he is driving at all. According to the pilot, his Ford is a bit slower than the opponents’ equipment. In addition, Irmantas Buivydas still cannot forget the all-wheel drive Ford Fiesta N5 car he used before, which, as he claims, was incomparably more fun to race with.
“Since our results were bad everywhere in Ukmerge, we were looking for a problem, what was wrong. We suspect that the problem is in the car. We will take the car to the test stand and find out why it does not drive like the rival cars. After the test stand, it will be clear whether the problem is in the car or in me. After looking at the data after Ukmerge, I saw that we were losing many seconds on each straight section. For example, there was the 600-meter straight, where we lost six seconds to Klaudas Bučinskas. I did not understand why this happened. Therefore, this week we will look for where the problem lies. Anyway, this season is one of the saddest I have ever driven. Comparing how we drove last year with the N5 and how we drove this year with a car of this class, it is sad. There is definitely no smile on your face when racing with such equipment as now. It seems that we are driving fast, but when you look at the times, you understand that this is very poor. I’m thinking about how to get back to the N5 car faster,” said Irmantas Buivydas.
“Rokiškio Grand Rally” will take place on August 7-9. More information about the upcoming competition can be found on the organizers’ Facebook account and the rally website.