Rally-Revival "Liège-Brescia-Liège" 2018 (2)
2nd part of the report by Silke Wedekind and Ted Prenzel
When we arrived happily at our Ljubljana stopover after having overcome a few minor technical problems, we took one day off for recovering and sightseeing before starting our way back to Liège. Just to remind you: The original edition of the Liège-Brescia-Liège rally only included one single sleepover at Brescia. For us, the rally continued on Day 7.
Day 7 took us to Carrezza without problems. On our tour, we crossed the S. Osvaldo, Staulenza and Pordoi passes. We were in full swing, when our Giardi – 370 kilometres after the last fuel stop – complained about the insufficient fuel supply with violent jerks. A good sip from the jerry can helped to appease her.
On Day 8, we drove up high. Via Bolzano, Merano and Prato, we reached the Stelvio Pass road. Our biggest problem here were not the 48 hairpin turns or the steep ascents, but rather the cyclists and motorcyclists who made this part a hardly enjoyable affair for us. While the motorcycles easily overtook us on the straights, they almost came to a standstill in the turns so that we lost the momentum built up so painfully and occasionally even had to downshift to first gear. Apart from this, we were slowly but steadily heading to the summit (2,757m). Despite the great number of tourists, it was quite impressive. The ensuing Gavia pass (2,618m) was by far less trafficked, so we liked it much better. At Brescia, our destination of the day, we first had dinner, then it was high time to swap the tyres. The bends taken at speed had left their marks on the front tyre treads, while the rear tyres still looked quite good.
The Franciacorta race course was our first destination on Day 9. Here, another special stage was waiting for us. It consisted in driving three laps at identical times. In theory, this is not hard to do, but due to the fact that all these little cars populated the course at the same time, this task was not as easy as you might think. In daring manoeuvres, we overtook competitors at the left- and right-hand sides, earning us zero penalty points in this special stage.
Then, we return on the same way we had come along the day before. Since it was already quite late, only a few cyclists and motorcycles were moving on the Stelvio Pass, so that taking the pass this time was much more agreeable for us. Little Giardi run faultlessly as always.
Day 10 brought us back to Germany. On the way from Marlengo near Merano to the Lake Starnberg, a steep hill called Zirler Berg was the trickiest part. Some exhausted micro cars caused a traffic jam there.
On Days 10 and 11, we made our way back to Liège via the town of Bretten and another special stage on the karting track at Liedolsheim.
The final placement
One single penalty of 10 points for “excessive braking” in a time trial on the last day cost us the victory in our class – so, it was finally GB first. Our flawless navigation earned us an extra cup! Mind you, we had checked in at all 103 checkpoints (Spirit category) and met all check-in and check-out times!
The facilitators
We are really grateful to the Axel Gerstl team who supported us wholeheartedly when we had problems at the beginning and, above all, to the people at Vondrovsky car service who helped us and other participants at unusual times of the day. A big thank-you goes also to the Auto Heusel car service for their help during the preparations and to all whose thoughts were with us during the rally.
