A look back at 2017.
Well, its October now, and for us in Iceland that usually means that there won't be much racing until the snow melts sometime in May next year. since I don't have access to any race cars after selling the Subaru here in Iceland it looks like I have to go abroad to fulfil my lust for exhaust-notes and anti-lag.
But until then, a look back at the year 2017.
I certainly started out very promising, I teamed up with "ESKA Racing" to go rallying in a group N car once again. It was working well, the pace-notes were very impressive and we had spent a considerable amount of time on developing them. We were all set for a good finish in the first rally of the summer "The Bílanaust Rally" but suffered a broken steering arm on the very first stage and had to retire. Not the best start of the season to say the least but we managed to restart the next day and practice the notes and build on the pace.
We kept positive despite the loss of potential championship points because the next rally on the calendar was "The Happiness rally" at Hólmavík and I knew that this was the rally were I would be at my strongest. Everything was ready and we were all set to go once again when the car decided to suddenly break down with only days to go before the event. Unfortunately we didn't manage to fix the car in time so we decided to focus on having it in 100% shape for the third round, " The Skagarfjardar-rally".
Things didn't quite work out though and "ESKA Racing" decided to pull out of the season for reasons which will remain private, so suddenly I found myself without a co-driver and spectating at one of my favourite rally event. Things would however start to get better at this point.
Ísak Guðjónsson, one of Iceland's greatest rally competitors offered to co-drive for me on the third round of the championship and what an honour it was. Ísaks professionalism and experience really made a big difference in terms of pace and on our very first stage together, in thick fog from start to finish, with a new note-system we managed to put in the quickest time. What a huge turn around! I would however turn things around again on the second stage when I rolled the car coming over a crest, it was a light one and we even managed to get out of the car, roll it back onto its wheels and finish the race in 6th place out of 26 cars. The first finish of the season was confirmed and things would only get better from here on.
The next event was "Rally Reykjavik" and me and Ísak were back in full force. This was a three day event and on the first day we managed to bend a steering arm and get caught up in someone else's dust trail. We were trailing the leaders by a minute going into the second day and immediately set to catch up with them, we overtook second place and were closing in on the leaders with a couple of stage wins throughout the day and not many holdups. But on one faithful pass through the "Hekla" stage we blew a tire and had to change it in the middle of the stage, witch cost us 3 and a half minutes and put us back into third place overnight.
On the last day we managed to win the longest stage and claw back some time but we ultimately had to settle for third, I was happy with the result though, despite being close to a first win I decided to appreciate the result considering the previous events.
It was a very shaky season for sure but I certainly learned a lot from it and of course enjoyed myself as always when I'm behind the wheel.
At the beginning of the season the car wasn't delivering as much as we wanted it to, hence the first retirements, but by the end of the season and after the mechanics had spent blood sweat and tears working on the car it was behaving better than ever, I owe everyone who helped me so much that I can't eve put it into words. From the bottom of my heart, Thank you guys so much for your efforts this season!
And a very special thanks goes out to my mom and dad, without them I would be nowhere near were I am today.