Already on July 25-27, the fourth event of the Lithuanian automobile rally championship “CBet Rally Rokiškis” will take place in Rokiškis and its surroundings. One of the favorites of this year’s championship, the pilot of the “Viada-Multi FX” team Giedrius Notkus, will start in this competition, for whom Dalius Strižanas will read the pacenotes. The racer hopes that this rally will go smoothly for him this year as in previous years the athlete was accompanied by incidents and even disqualifications.
Giedrius Notkus says that although this rally is taking place closest to his hometown Panevėžys, the walls of his home really do not help him. During the seven years when the “CBet Rally Rokiškis” competition was held, the racer had to swallow the bitterness of defeat more often than drink the champagne of victory.
He was disqualified at three competitions so he claims that there is an unsettled score with this rally and assures that he intends to avoid dramas this year.
“It’s always great fun going to Rokiškis, but the rally itself is never the successful enough for us and brings all kinds of adventures. Back in the days when we were here driving the Mitsubishi, we’re in the final stretch, we’ve spun a half-axle at the start and it cost us first place. Yanis Vorobyovs, who was leading, was driving with a breakdown at that time and we would have overtaken him, but we broke the car just at the start.
I can’t even count how many punctured wheels we had in Rokišky. Certainly more than one or two. However, the most memorable defeat for all of us was at Žala crest, where we lost control of the road with the Mitsubishi, ran into such a hole and turned over on its side. We punctured the oil cooler, the spectators lent oil and we managed to finish.
However, after fixing the car during the service and leaving for the final section to race, the judge said he had just received a call from the rally headquarters with instructions not to let us start. I asked them to let me go at least for the sake of the audience, not for the result, but they didn’t let me. We got disqualified.
Another story is when we hit a rock on the speedway and the rear suspension broke. We tied it with belts. Then the belts broke, we tied them again. Anyway, when he arrived at the time control, Dalius took the time card to the judges, but the car itself was not in the time control zone at that time. And in the rally there is such a rule – if you are more than 15 minutes late to the time control, you are disqualified. Dalius handed over the card on time, but I didn’t have time to arrive with the car. Even though we were already at the end of the lineup, they disqualified us again, they did not spare us.
Last year’s rally also ended with disqualification. Everything took place at the Vaidotas Žala special stage. It was Vaidotas that we strongly pressed and attacked that time. And in one place, where last year it was really possible to cross the turn, a pile of sand was graded last year. I hung that pile with the front angle. There seemed to be nothing terrible, but I punctured the radiator from that impact on the pile of sand. The coolant ran out, the engine started to heat up. We tried to drive to the finish line. Although we overheated the engine, we fought to the end and reached the finish line.
At the finish we found out that we were disqualified because the Parc Ferme rule applies between time control and the start, and we lifted the bonnet and started pouring in the coolant in a desperate attempt to save ourselves and not fry the engine. We just forgot this rule because it was really stressful back then. Now, of course, everything is understandable why we were penalized, but that time we did everything so that the engine did not burn completely and we could finish. After the finish, we got disqualified again”, said Giedrius Notkus.
Viada-Multi FX pilot Giedrius Notkus, who has earned three disqualifications in the seven years of this rally and experienced many other failures that led to a good result, hopes that he has already thrown all the bad cards from his deck and hopes that the 2024 competition with Dalius Strižanas will be much smoother.
In the “CBet Rally Rokiškis” competition, Giedrius Notkas and Dalius Strižanas were given the second starting number.
More information about the “CBet Rally Rokiškis” competition can be found on the organizers’ page and on Facebook.
