It’s probably best to begin this blog with a quick history lesson about the country itself. Lithuania is a small country off the Baltic Sea with only about 2,800,000 people. For comparison, the small state of New Jersey, where I’m from, is 9,500,000. I could not find any direct flights to Lithuania, even from NYC. Lithuania has a long history being occupied by Russia, and has fought to successfully regain their independence twice. They were the first nation to become independent after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 and have been free since. Given this, they are extremely prideful- as they should be.

Despite their small population, they are motorsport crazy and their culture embraces it. I was told Lithuania has the highest participants in the Dakar Rally per capita in the world. This fact will come full circle later in the blog.

Sunday & Monday: Lithuania

Before the rally, my wife and I took a few extra days to explore and embrace Lithuanian culture. Whenever possible, I try to do this when going to a rally, especially one in a new country. It offers me a bit of mental relaxation before the circus of emotions begins before a rally. I suppose it also helped that Mindaugas, the owner of MV Sport, lent us his totally awesome Toyota GR Yaris to cruise around in 🙂. We toured the capital Vilnius, then Kaunas, then drove through the countryside to the resort town of Nida. Nida is located on the Curonian Spit, a thin sliver of land that has incredible sand dunes and views. It borders Kaliningrad, which is a small Russian territory that probably not many Americans know existed (I didn’t). Up on a sand dune, I got to see what I think was Russia- it was pretty fascinating. Google “Nida Lithuania”, you’ll see what I mean.

Tuesday: The First Drive

I got back to MV Sport on Tuesday at 15:00 and it was time to switch off tourist mode. It was time to get familiar with my new Hyundai “office”. We needed to adjust the seating position to my liking and meet the whole MV Sport team. This included meeting my new codriver Andris Malnieks who was driving down from neighboring Latvia. He was scheduled to arrive at 16:00, and in typical codriver fashion, Andris texted me at 15:59 “I’m here.”

Andris was recommended to me by Mindaugas, as I wanted a proficient local codriver that knew the lay of the land and who could deliver pace notes in English. I suppose this combination was quite rare. Despite our conversations via WhatsApp and me looking at his rally resume on EWRC, I somehow missed the fact that he had previously won Rally Zemaitija six times outright. Andris also warned me to not be scared when we meet, because he is a “big guy”. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t kidding.

I had wondered how a Latvian was going to communicate with a Lithuanian team, but I figured I'd just let it play out. Oddly enough Andris and Mindaugas began chatting in what seemed like Russian. I quickly found out this was quite common, as under Soviet occupation both countries were forced to learn the language.

After the seat fitting, the team is explaining to me all the buttons in the center console, knobs and buttons on the steering wheel, start-up procedure, dash displays, etc. I’m trying to be a sponge and absorb everything. There were 15 buttons on the center console PDM, 8 buttons and 2 knobs on the steering wheel. There’s nothing worse than fumbling for a button mid-stage at a rally, you really need to know what every button does.

“OK, so let’s go for a ride” said Mindaugas. I followed the correct start procedure, the car fires up, and now everyone is looking at me. Clunk, into reverse. Thankfully I did not stall it reversing out of the garage, but I can already tell the diffs were really tightly wound. Even on the side road behind the shop doing 30kph, I can feel the suspension is ultra soft and compliant. It’s much softer than the R5 and N5 cars I’ve driven in the past. Then the inevitable happened. When turning onto the main road, I didn’t give it enough gas and clunk, the car stalled. Oh well, at least it wasn’t in front of everyone. On the main road, I gave it the beans, and rowed through the gears. And yeah, the car punches you back into the seat and makes all the right noises. Man, this is going to be a fun weekend.

Now about the car. It’s pretty much a Subaru driveline mated to a 1.6L Peugeot turbo engine, in a long-travel Hyundai body. Yeah, it’s a frankenstein, but in a good way. It’s made to be competitive against modern Rally2/R5 cars, but at a fraction of the cost. Since the driveline is all Subaru (transmission, steering rack, rear diff, axles, hubs, etc), the cost to run and maintain the car is significantly cheaper than a Rally2 car. You can literally buy parts from the Subaru dealer, instead of getting special proprietary Rally2 parts from M-Sport, Skoda Motorsport, etc.

But what sets this car apart from the previous N5 and R5 cars I’ve driven is MV Sport’s double wishbone suspension on all 4 corners. It’s kind of like a side-by-side UTV. And just like a side-by-side, the suspension enables maximum traction no matter how uneven the terrain is. I was told this car is much easier to drive than a Rally2 car as well. Whereas a Rally2 car needs to be driven at 100% all the time or else it just doesn’t seem to work, the MV Sport car is very progressive with its articulating suspension.

Wednesday: Testing (and crashing)

Wednesday I woke up to some pretty dark clouds in the sky. The MV Sport team and I drove about an hour to the test road, and it poured the whole way. In some cases, the windshield wipers were on max speed. This was not ideal, as the conditions for the rally were going to be bone dry. But what can you do.

For the test session, I had recruited Egon Kaur for driver coaching. Egon is from Estonia, and I consider him one of the top drivers in the Baltic region. He has won rallies overall in the MV Sport Hyundai and helped develop the car to where it is today. So for me, he was the perfect candidate to tell me how to gain speed. I’ve never had any sort of formal coaching in my life. I’ve always just learned on the fly- even when I drove the R5 and N5 cars. Egon was equipped with his laptop, and he would analyze my onboard telemetry after each run.

We did a 2 pass recce of the test stage. It was really muddy and already getting quite rutted. One up-hill section our Volkwagen struggled to even make it to the top. The road was narrow but pretty fast, so not a lot of room for error.

By the time I got back, the team had the car ready to go. So, I strapped into the rally car, fired it up, and transited to the start of the stage. Andris seemed pretty quiet, probably not knowing how this (potentially stupid) American will perform.

Despite the conditions, I had planned to drive fast, but leaving some room for margin given everything at stake. So let’s call it 70% mode. I mean, how else will you get a feeling for the car? Andris counted down: 3-2-1-GO, and away we went.

The car got up to 6th gear pretty quickly. Then the road diverted into the forest where it got narrow and muddy. I found the car was actually soaking up the conditions quite well and I had a good feeling straight away. That was, up until this one muddy right hand corner. I pressed the brakes, the car did not slow down, and I was headed straight toward some Lithuanian bushes in 3rd gear.

Yep, I had just gone off the road and reality had just set in. Lucky, I missed the huge pile of logs right beside me. I reversed, finished the stage and headed back to service. I knew there was definitely some cosmetic damage, as I could see things flapping, but the car seemed to drive fine. I wasn’t really dejected, and Andris was quite humorous about it, but I knew the MV Sport team was going to be facepalming. It was literally my first time driving the car, and the stupid American had already gone off.

We got back to service, and a few of the MV Sport mechanics had some long faces. I got out of the car and saw that the fender and headlight were busted. Andris told me to brush it off, and to not look at it too long. The owner Mindaugas was also quite humorous about it too “You are testing the limits, don’t worry!”.

Meanwhile, Egon had already removed the SD card and was reviewing the onboard. I had braked too late, and on the dark mud. Basically, I misread the grip of the surface. He mentioned he was quite surprised at the pace I was going on my first run in a new car. I found that pretty interesting, coming from him. I also needed to be more progressive on a lot of my braking and throttle inputs, as I was too aggressive and disturbing the balance of the car. By the time our analysis was done, the MV Sport crew had patched up the fender and headlight, and we were good to go for more runs. Tautvydas, the MV Sport engineer, also suggested removing the front swaybar for a bit more grip in these conditions.

To cut a long story short, after each run, the times were getting faster and faster. We spent a few hours testing, up until the road was completely chewed up. Egon had more inputs after every run, and I felt like I was not only soaking in a lot of the information, but also implementing it. Looks like I had to unlearn some bad habits I picked up from my Subaru back home that did not translate well to a car of this caliber. I ended the day with a big smile on my face, and a good understanding of the car. And thankfully, no more unexpected visits into the Lithuanian bushes.

The Perfect Rally House

After the test, we headed towards the rally house that the team rented for the week. A few weeks prior, Mindaugas sent me the coordinates of the house and it looked a little confusing on Google maps, as it seemed like multiple buildings. He also insisted he needed to be there for the check-in process. As we pulled in, it was clear that this entire compound of multiple buildings was ours for the week and we were to share it with the owners. The owners hugged every one of us, and proceeded to give us the longest, but best AirBnb check-in known to man. They showed us several acres of beautiful Lithuanian countryside, multiple buildings, old Soviet trucks turned into campers, a garage full of interesting vehicles, and even a river that runs towards the back of their property. Their compound is not advertised online, they only rent it out to friends.

Remember when I mentioned that the Dakar would come full circle? The property owner Aurelijus, was a multiple Dakar rally competitor, and knew Mindaugas. There were amazing Dakar relics scattered across his house and garage. That evening, and every following evening, were spent on their porch overlooking the sunset and grilling family-style. It’s exactly what I needed to clear the mind before the rally.

Aurelijus’ Dakar plaques and his steering wheel from Dakar 2009.

Thursday - Friday: Getting to know the Stages

On Thursday and Friday, Andris and I completed the reconnaissance of the rally route. The route totalled to 112km of stages, and 202km of transit. By regulation, we were only allowed 2 passes of the stages, so we needed to be diligent and utilize video recce in the evenings to recheck the pacenotes. The roads in many places were very wide, you can probably fit 4 cars wide on them. Lots of undulations and blind crests, so you literally need to point the car from ditch to ditch and just trust that your pacenotes are correct. The surface was a sandy type of gravel, so guaranteed ruts on the second pass of the stages. The stages were really quite unique, I can’t compare them to anything in America. Some faint similarities to the fast parts of the Oregon Trail Rally.

I consider myself really good with recognizing and remembering the rally route. I can be somewhere once, and remember key points and get my bearings quickly. But for some reason, I just couldn’t remember shit from this rally. Everything just looked the same. Maybe because everything was super new to me and it was mental overload? Not sure, but thank god for Andris. He knew all the gotcha’s that have caught competitors out in the past.

I had learned that Rally Zemaitija was one of the longest running events on the Lithuanian calendar. The stages are mostly unchanged from year to year, so the locals know them extremely well. The organizers had seeded me 25th on the road, which was even below some 2wd cars. I guess their expectations for an American were quite low. I kind of don’t blame them. When I asked Andris what he thought about our starting position, he simply smirked and said “Don’t worry, the road will be clean by the time we start”.

In terms of the entry list, there were 65 competitors. 14 were Rally2/N5/Proto cars, followed by a handful of top-spec Evos, Rally3, Rally4, and a bunch of fast 2wd BMWs. So you get a bit of everything. At the pointy-end, the competition is at a very high level. For a non-Lithuanian to win a rally there is really difficult. Nikolay Gryazin, who I consider top 5 in the world in Rally2, came to Lithuania and was fighting tooth and nail with Lithuanian Vaidotas Zala for the lead. How do I know this? Andris was the codriver for Zala at that time and he told me all the stories.

I also had the honor of being the first American to compete in Lithuania. Although, some said an American had competed there over 10 years ago? Not sure. Either way, the rally organizers had flags that represented each competitor’s nation. They definitely needed to purchase the American one.

Friday: Shakedown

Friday evening would kick-off with the ceremonial start and the shakedown stage. All the teams had set up their service areas in the middle of the host city of Kelmes. Yes, they closed off the main drag of the city for 2 days to host the rally’s service area, regroup, start and finishing ramps. That definitely would not happen in America.

As I headed to the shakedown stage, I felt like I was in a pretty good headspace. I actually wasn’t nervous at all. In fact, I felt quite fortunate to be in this position- the sun was shining, and I was rallying a top level car. I had similar thoughts when I competed in Italy.

We made a plan with the MV Sport team to meet us on the side of the road in between our shakedown runs to try different sway bar options. Sway bars have a big effect on a car with double wishbone suspension. Our first run of shakedown was cut short, as it was red-flagged when a competitor rolled their car. The second run, we ran with no sway bars and our third run we ran with a front sway bar. I’ll admit, the roadside servicing was pretty cool, it felt like the ole Group B days. I preferred the car with the front bar, so we put on a fresh set of tires and did our last run of shakedown and set a P9 time. I was happy with my pace.

Saturday: Rally Day

I woke up early on Saturday, as I usually do before the start of a rally. Subconscious nerves maybe. So I decided to study the video recce before breakfast. The itinerary was: 4 stages repeated, then the last 2 were single passes, totalling 10 stages.

As I drove to the service area, I felt like I was still in a good headspace. The team had the car ready, and we were ready to go. The first stage was the shortest of the rally (4.5km), but really fast with only a few medium speed corners. So it’ll be a good wake up call. I went into the first stage with a bit of caution, as I wanted to build my speed up progressively. We ended the stage P13, and I felt like I left a lot of pace on the table. I had also forgotten to turn on the anti lag before the start too, whoops!

Stage 2 was 17km, the longest of the rally. It had a bit of everything, including a decent amount of flowy slow-medium speed corners. This stage was more my style. Andris was pushing me all stage, making sure I was braking at the right places and telling me to “Go” when I was a bit too cautious. P11 overall.

The next two stages were repeats of the first two, and my goal was to improve my stage times from the first pass. Being repeat stages, I was going to experience a lot of ruts. I found that you can actually go into the corner quicker than you think and use the ruts to guide you out, but too fast and you’ll go over them and off the road. The MV Sport Hyundai seemed to soak up the rough stuff without any trouble. Having improved my stage times from the first passes, we headed into the first service of the rally P11 overall.

I really wanted to break into the top 10, so I needed to push harder. The next loop were two classic Zemaitija stages, very fast and super wide. So I just needed to go for it and trust in Andris. I recall this one particular Right 6, Left 6 combo where I had drifted wide on the right-hander and just narrowly made the left-hander, all while in 6th gear. It made for a tense moment. Oh, and this one tight left-hander where the ruts threw us up onto 2 wheels. I was really close to rolling it. But at the end of the loop, we made our way up to P9 overall.

I must say, I was quite impressed that we were trading times all day with a pair of really fast Evos. I was even more impressed that they were able to keep the pace up on the 2nd pass of stages when the roads got chewed up. That was until I poked around and saw they were using MV Sport suspension kits as well. Makes sense now.

The final loop consisted of 2 single pass stages with a nice more technical flow. I always hate tapering my pace towards the end of a rally, so I continued the push until the end. On the last stage there was a bit of hanging dust in the air, and one of the Evos slid off the road and right into a boulder- they were OK. I finished the last stage with a P6 time, and ended the rally in P8 overall.

The MV Sport team was waiting for me at the last time control and sprayed the car with champagne as I came to a stop. I think the whole team was pleased with how the (potentially) slow American drove and it showed that their creation, the MV Sport Hyundai, can perform at a high level even with limited seat time.

The drive back to finish podium was memorable. I got a “I’m proud of you” text from my dad who was following the live-timing. The emotions of the week were sinking in, while the mid-summer Baltic sun was starting to dip. I’m the type that always wants more, but taking into account how new everything was- car, codriver, team, roads, I was extremely satisfied.

After a few hugs and some team photos, we all headed back to the rally house. It was time for a few drinks with my new Lithuanian family, and to enjoy the last sunset on the porch before our flight home.