Cimbern Rallye in Süderbrarup – remembered by some as Wikinger Rallye from earlier years – had already turned out as challenging event last year. Together with Nicolai Göttig the goal was in particular about break points and (enormously important with all the blind crests) precision of the pacenotes.

Many of those things from last year were not different in this year’s edition. Although I’ve been racing with Thomas in the Skoda Fabia S2000 this year – way more performant than last year than the Opel Corsa last year – the characteristic of the event did almost not change at all… ALMOST!

This year’s edition in Germany’s very North was – opposite to 2020 – shaped by recurring rain showers and very changing conditions. After some troubles with the Skoda’s generator caught our minds and didn’t let us get into a proper flow in the first stage, a muddy pavement road turned fatal for our plans. After being able to avoid crashing into the trees, we yet found ourselves in a concrete ditch. Paired with the muddy conditions, there was no possibility to continue the event without external help.

Luckily, almost during the spin we were able to spot a bunch of not-so-unkown people who had chosen exactly this corner for spectating. The following 5 minutes were pretty undigestible from the sporty perspective, but showed in a very unique way what is actually possible when getting help by real fans. In the video shot by Zeroundersteer, you can watch the situation in a time lapse.

After this incident and a third stage which was actually almost dry, we had the possibility to change to softer tyres at the service parc. Those showed up as the exactly right choice so that we were able to set some remarkable stage times in the second half of the event. Just to mention some examples there was an 8th time overall in the power stage and a 6th time overall in the final stage 7.

Despite all those struggles, we were able to make countable progress in the S2000 so that we can immediately try to execute all we learned into actual speed at next weekend’s Rally Hinterland in Hessian village Dautphetal.

At this place, we would like to explicitely express our gratefulness to the guys who helped us out of the ditch in SS 2. Without you, our rally would have ended in this corner. THIS WAS REAL SUPPORT! THANK YOU SO MUCH!