On July 18-19, the 25th Dimitsana-Zygovisti Hillclimb took place, the third round of the Southern Greece Hillclimb Cup. After three years away, our entry was purely to test the car and the changes we'd been making all this time. Megara showed positive signs, but it's the test on the mountain that gives us the feedback we need as we get ready for our first rally sprint.
Points-wise, we weren't chasing anything, and we weren't affecting our fellow competitors in any way. Our goal was to beat the time we set in 2023. We changed the geometry and brakes, improved the engine a bit, and for the first time in years fitted new rally tires, Pirelli RK7. Dimitsana was the experiment before the real test: if the car behaved well there, I'd go into the sprint with peace of mind. If not, better to find out on a hillclimb than on a special stage.
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Saturday was practice: three timed runs, with at least one valid run required to enter Sunday's race. Between work and everything else, we hadn't managed a single run up the actual road beforehand, so we went in relying purely on video from 2023.
The first run was slow, purely a recon lap. On the second I pushed properly and the time came: a high 1:49, though watching the video back later I'd made three or four driving mistakes that cost real time. The third was going even better until the corner at "the rock," where the clutch cable snapped. It threw me off for a moment, but the time still came out good: 1:50.
That's the clearest takeaway from the weekend: the car went faster than I drove it, even with a mechanical failure in the middle of the run. The geometry and brakes worked, the Pirelli RK7s held up, and the only margin left on the table was mine alone.
The race that never happened
I had my valid run, a confirmed spot in Sunday's race, but I never made it to the start line. A protest was filed over the car's hood, claiming it didn't meet the technical specs, and the stewards decided to exclude me from the race.
I offered to swap the hood on the spot so I could race properly. It wasn't accepted. I understand the rule, it had changed and I didn't know it, and I'm not disputing that there was something to look into. What I find harder to accept is how little room the decision left for a fix on the spot, when one was right there. A hillclimb with 60 entries run over two days isn't a courtroom; I'd have expected a bit more flexibility (a time penalty, say) when the driver has no bearing on the cup standings.
What I'm taking from it
Funny enough, Dimitsana gave me exactly what I wanted before the sprint: confirmation that the work on the geometry, brakes, and Pirelli RK7s is heading in the right direction, measured in real time and not just by feel. The least important part of the weekend is that we won't find out the car's real performance...
We did get a sense of it, though...
Till next time
Photos: Racing Press
