{"id":28,"date":"2025-03-25T13:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T13:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/?page_id=28"},"modified":"2025-03-28T15:43:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T15:43:56","slug":"kausi-2016","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/?page_id=28","title":{"rendered":"Kausi 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kuplapaja Rally Series 2016 Season<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Eki, your spot has been asked about.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He truly is an incredible man. While others try to step in and maybe buy some tires sometime in the 2000s, Eerola still wins by two minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final, fifth round of the 2016 Kuplapaja Rally Series was held in Lammi and Tuulos, which belong to the H\u00e4meenlinna area. This race also marked the end of an era, as next year, the series will continue as part of the HRT series, and in 2018, we will evaluate how to proceed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten cars registered for Lammi! Quite an impressive number. However, competitors started dropping out quickly. Kari Aaltonen had to withdraw due to delays in car preparation, and Heikki Juutilainen’s engine began to fail on Wednesday, forcing him to skip the event as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the race began, Kimmo Raitanen only made it a kilometer before his distributor rotor broke, ending his run. This left only seven cars to actually compete on the stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stage 1:<\/strong> Erkki Eerola set an incredible pace right from the start, securing the fastest time. Juhani Jyr\u00e4nk\u00f6 came in second, with Stefan Wiik third. Matti Korpela finished fourth, followed by Jukka Laine in fifth. Mika Hannu and Timo Varis took the next positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stage 2:<\/strong> Positions remained largely the same, but Matti Korpela moved up to third. During and after the stage, Hannu’s TL lost power, with the initial diagnosis pointing to a rocker arm failure. This marked the end of his race and, in a way, the conclusion of his 2011-2016 rallying period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stage 3 (before the break):<\/strong> Jyr\u00e4nk\u00f6’s engine started making odd noises, allowing Wiik to move up to second place. The rest of the order remained unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stage 4:<\/strong> Stefan Wiik was determined to secure second place, cutting his gap to Jyr\u00e4nk\u00f6 down to just seven seconds before the final deciding stage. Timo Varis faced throttle cable issues, but he and his co-driver managed to fix the car and continue towards the finish line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stage 5 (final stage):<\/strong> This was a longer stage and the decider. Wiik delivered an impressive drive (check out the thrilling in-car footage), securing second place behind Eerola.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Standings:<\/strong> 1. Eerola, 2. Wiik, 3. Jyr\u00e4nk\u00f6, 4. Korpela, 5. Laine, 6. Varis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This meant that Erkki Eerola was crowned the 2016 Kuplapaja Rally Series Champion! Stefan Wiik claimed second place, while the consistently strong and humorous Jukka Laine secured third. Kimmo Raitanen, surely disappointed with his final ranking, placed fourth (stay strong, Kimmo, we need you!). Fifth place went to the best ”Type 3 driver,” the ever-reliable Timo Varis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congratulations to all competitors, and thank you to all active participants of the 2016 season. It was another season filled with great spirit. Thanks also to all the fans and enthusiastic spectators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An open question: Would any other rally series allow competitors and co-drivers to simply enter the race and hope they could rely on the service crew of Korpela and Lehtinen? (They serviced three cars in this race.) It worked out, and everything ran smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by Mika Hannu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Final Standings after Lammi-Tuulos 2016:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Driver<\/th>Heinola<\/th>J\u00e4ms\u00e4<\/th>M\u00e4nts\u00e4l\u00e4<\/th>Lahti<\/th>Lammi<\/th>Total<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Erkki Eerola<\/td>69<\/td>107<\/td>9<\/td>4<\/td>1<\/td>41<\/td><\/tr>
Stefan Wiik<\/td>54<\/td>86<\/td>9<\/td>3<\/td>2<\/td>32<\/td><\/tr>
Jukka Laine<\/td>45<\/td>65<\/td>6<\/td>2<\/td>6<\/td>26<\/td><\/tr>
Kimmo Raitanen<\/td>69<\/td>10<\/td>0<\/td>0<\/td>0<\/td>25<\/td><\/tr>
Timo Varis<\/td>5<\/td>7<\/td>7<\/td>1<\/td>9<\/td>19<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Co-Driver Standings 2016:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Co-Driver<\/th>Heinola<\/th>J\u00e4ms\u00e4<\/th>M\u00e4nts\u00e4l\u00e4<\/th>Lahti<\/th>Lammi<\/th>Total<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Mikko Kittel\u00e4<\/td>7<\/td>10<\/td>11<\/td>7<\/td>10<\/td>45<\/td><\/tr>
Tomi Marttelin<\/td>5<\/td>4<\/td>8<\/td>5<\/td>9<\/td>31<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

More race reports on Lahti Xerox Rally, M\u00e4nts\u00e4l\u00e4, and J\u00e4ms\u00e4 rounds are also available but omitted here for brevity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The Kuplapaja Rally Series Continues!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We look forward to the next season and hope to see even more participants joining in. Thank you to everyone who made 2016 such a fantastic year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kuplapaja Rally Series 2016 Season Eki, your spot has been asked about. He truly is an incredible man. While others try to step in and maybe buy some tires sometime in the 2000s, Eerola still wins by two minutes. The final, fifth round of the 2016 Kuplapaja Rally Series was held in Lammi and Tuulos,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-28","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vwaircooledrallyseries.fi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}