Hayden Paddon writes....
Hi
We have finished our two days of recce here in Japan. It has been good to get our first look at the roads, which are certainly going to be a challenge over the weekend.
The main part of the rally is made up of 5 stages ranging from 17-34 km, which are each repeated twice. These stages are generally very fast and narrow, with very long straights, which will suit us. However, a lot of the corners consist of either soft bull-dust, or fist-sized stones, and these corners have already become very rutted during recce. This will mean that, especially on the second pass, a lot of time will be spent sliding along on the sump-guard, as we bulldoze our way through.
The remaining stages are all short and quite mickey-mouse, including 8 runs of the Sapporo Dome Super Special stage. On these stages not a lot can be gained and they are included in the route mainly as spectator stages. After seeing the roads, we know we are going to have to preserve the car and are already discussing how much we are going to have to lift the ride height to reduce damage. In general, I am looking forward to the stages as they are fast, which I have always enjoyed. However, it's not often that we encounter such not so nice stages and one stagein particular on Day 3 is a case in point; a narrow goat track that is covered in mud and rocks. To put it in perspective, normally we would have around 12 pages of pace notes for a 24km stage, while for this stage we have 20 pages of pace notes for a 17km stage!! That said, there is nothing like a challenge and it will mean that the battle will not be over until the end of the rally!
The guys have been doing a great job here today, making final preparations on the car ready for shakedown tomorrow morning. After shakedown we will have a few more hours to make any last minute changes and to confirm our set-up, before two runs of the Sapporo Super Special stage tomorrow night. Otherwise, we have a few pace notes to go over this evening and then we are ready to go. I will keep you posted.
Hayden
