Ouninpohja, (oon-in-poi-ya) 20.51 miles of the most famous rally stage in the world. So legendary that Colin McRae named his racehorse after it, though Peter O’Sullevan was pleased that he never had to commentate at any meeting it competed in. A place that every rally fan knows about, that rally drivers have made legendary but few outside of Finland can even pronounce.
Tunnock’s World Rally Team co-driver and the only Scot competing in the WRC this year, Stuart Loudon takes us through his experiences of this section of rally folklore to see if the legend really is all it is hyped up to be:
“Finland is such a specialist event with the number of blind crests, the wide roads and the sheer continuous high speed of the whole weekend but Ouninpohja is the highlight. Before the rally started I had watched the onboard with Petter Solberg from 2003 so many times on YouTube. Not so much for Petter’s driving but to try and understand how his co-driver, Phil Mills could manage to get so much information from the pace notes to his driver at such huge speeds. Petter’s notes system sounds really complicated, there is so much information in it. Rob and I have a fairly basic system that works well for us. The difference in Finland was that we had to grade the jumps as well as the corners. A slow jump would be a ‘Jump 3’ whilst one that was taken flat out would be ‘Jump 6’. Then we had to mix this into the corners so we could have a note going ‘5 Left over Jump 4’.” said the MSA Team UK member.
On a World Rally Championship event the competitors get to check the special stages twice before tackling them competitively. However the speed during the reconnaissance is strictly controlled to 80kph (50mph).
“During recce you are guessing at some points just where you think you may jump or not. Ouninpohja has 169 jumps in it. That’s one every 200 metres. I have to admit that we didn’t every one right. I could hear a deep breath from Rob every now and again when the car had taken off when he didn’t expect it. I was too busy with my head down reading the notes to really notice.”
“That’s the thing, I had done the stage the year before in the Fiesta R2 but now in the Fiesta R5 everything is happening SO much faster. The traction out of the corners is great but the way it lands from a jump is just phenomenal. It lands so well.”
“I tried to use the experience from 2012 to say to Rob at the start line ‘are you ready for this? Forget about your time in here, just enjoy it, all the guys around us have done this many times before, just relax.’ Seventeen minutes later all I got from him at the end was ‘wow.’ He doesn’t believe in exaggerating things. I don’t think I have ever talked so much in 20 minutes. About the longest straight in the whole stage is around 200 metres. You only get a chance to take a breath and it all starts again. I had 20 pages of notes for this one stage.”
“Some crews split long stages into sections but we looked to treat this stage as one. There is a natural split just after the Kakaristo hairpin, where Craig Breen crashed heavily last year. From here to the finish the road really narrows. It is not any slower than the bit you have just done; it’s just that the trees are a lot closer to the road. You have to be really neat and precise. The surface is so hard that there is loads of grip and the sensation of speed is incredible.”
So after all the hype, the story of legends, the tales of heroes and zeros from this one stage that everyone in the rallying world knows; is it the place of legend or a great piece of marketing from the Finns?
“It’s not folklore, it is just so special. From the milliseconds that you get to look up from the notes all the Finnish fans are there passionately pushing you on, wishing you a great result no matter what your nationality. The stage is such a rush. The speed is so high, you get no time to think, and you just have to function, to do your role in reading the notes. I have dreamed of competing over the Col du Turini stage on the Monte Carlo Rally: I’ve now done it. I have dreamed of competing over Ouininpohja: I’ve now done it twice and it is SO much better in a R5 car.”
So the legend of Ouninpohja could deserve World Heritage status just like Loch Ness. Drumnadrochit is nearly as unpronounceable, but Milnagavie (mill-guy) is probably one of the best in Scotland, or maybe Avoch (och).
Full details on Rob and Stuart’s weekend are available on www.robertbarrable.com.
The next event for the Tunnock’s World Rally Team is ADAC Rally Deutschland over the weekend of 22nd – 25th August. This event is over 225 miles on asphalt. They also have unpronounceable stage names, such as Grafschaft.
Follow Stuart on Twitter – @stu_loudon or search on Facebook for ‘Stuart Loudon.’