Matti Alamaki

This is a bit of news I been wanting to read for a while, ERC24 reporting Matti to return to the sport for the last 2 rounds of the Finnish series, yessss

Great news! But he has driven before, right? In Honda Integra or Supernationals I think. Still have great memories and I just loved that 205T16 E2! Nice that he is in a Peugeot again! Would be great if he liked it and will be back for more! Peugeot 207 in ERC? in red and white ofcourse!

Been a guest driver a few times yes, remember in 95 season he drove an old Celica in the Finnish ERC round embarassing some of the regulars in more modern machinery. Brilliant rallycross driver.

Been a guest driver a few times yes, remember in 95 season he drove an old Celica in the Finnish ERC round embarassing some of the regulars in more modern machinery. Brilliant rallycross driver.

In the Finnish 1991 ERC round Matti drove the spare Ford RS200 E2 of Martin Schanche to 5th place overall (behind Schanche, Holm, Kristoffersson and Wiklund). But that yellow Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD he drove to 8th place overall of Division 1 (GpA 4WD) in the Finnish 1995 ERC round was a real pile of rubbish. However, he used it to teach Pavel Koutný as well as current WRC ace Henning Solberg (both Ford Escort RS Cosworth) a lesson by then.

Just wonder how many extra kgs of weight he collected over the last couple of years… ;)

http://www.joeua.fi/main.site?action=news/view&ngid=1&id=142

So come on Guru - my knowledge of rallycross is pretty decent but I cant for the life of me think who owned the pile of rubbish!

Don't know or don't remember the owner of that Celica. Guess it was a worn out rally car.

I think Matti has also been involved in GT racing in teh last few years. I seem to remember him sharing the driving of a Dodge Viper somewhere in Benelux GT rounds or something.

I also remember that Matti was damned quick in the RS200 and qualified front row in 1991 Hameenlina!

I am hoping that if guys liek Matti Simonen who was around then are getting into it again then perhaps, Matti, Pekka get into it.

Anyone apart from Jusse Rasku of course!!

Belcar, 24h of Zolder etc.

Audi 80 Competition: http://www.audistory.24max.de/old1/dbelcar.htm

Viper GTS-R: http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/2003/Zolder-2003-08-24-004.jpg

And in 2006 Matti drove the entire Finnish "SRC – [No Mercy]" series already, but with a lousy Volvo S40 and poor results.

BTW, Jussi Rasku is a buddy-buddy of Matti. ;)

If I read the organisers website correctly Marko Jokinen won the Oulo SRC event while Matti Alamäki was in the B final only and eventually became 9th.

Lol Eddi

All I know is he batrered his way to good results in ERC 91/92. Never seen a more aggressive and simply dirty driver in rallycross!! Cant imagine what it was like lining up alongside a bloke who thougt he was dodgem car racing!

Wouldnt care if he was my Dad!! Would still call him dirty!

If I read the organisers website correctly Marko Jokinen won the Oulo SRC event while Matti Alamäki was in the B final only and eventually became 9th.

Blimey, wrong thinking! As the two first of the B final went up into the A final Matti was 7th overall of course… :doh:

http://www.superrallicross.fi/kuvagalleria/pics/2008/src_oulu_9.jpg

Picture by link to SRC website.

http://www.superrallicross.fi/kuvagalleria/pics/2008/src_oulu_1.jpg

Picture by link to SRC website.

http://www.superrallicross.fi/kuvagalleria/pics/2008/src_oulu_7.jpg

Picture by link to SRC website.

While Alamäki made it only to the B final and 7th overall Jokinen won again and is already the 2008 Finnish RX champion, although there is another round to come.

Any given reason he was only 7th?

Any given reason he was only 7th?

So far I only understood from a Swedish newspaper (http://www.karlskoga-kuriren.se/artikel.asp?intId=116986&blnLista=1) that he spun off in the first corner of one of the qualifying heats. However, he was second in the C final and, thereby, went into the B. There he was third and missed the A by one place to became 7th overall. BTW, as the old MJ 206 was not the most reliable machinery perhaps it was to some degree a question of the car…?

truly a legend in the world of rallycross

Any given reason he was only 7th?
Hi!
Before the race Matti did only few laps of testing, because of the drive axel and MAP-sensor problems. On the race weekend Friday´s free practice was cancelled because the track was so wet. On Saturday the first timed practice went ok, car worked fine and he did adjust to it more. Second timed practice ended short: in the start he hit the pedal to the metal and both throttle cables snapped.

In the first qualifying heat he leaded the first 2 laps then the drive axel snapped again and the car was only 3 wheel drive that´s why he spun off. Second heat was ok, only he took the jump start, so he got 30s penalty… On the 3th heat he took excellent start and managed to keep his first position till the end!


So the finals, Matti was on pole in C-final, but more problems did come up by the car… Power steering didn´t work and there was no time to change the pump, however he decided to try… Again excellent start and he leaded 4 laps, but when he was taking the joker lap Harri Korkeakoski passed him, anyway 2nd place and up to B. Still no time to fix the steering and he decided to just drive through the start, in one point he was already 2nd, but Keski-Korsu managed to pass him in the end, so his position was 7th overall.


Matti Alamaki said: It was great to drive type of motorsport that I really love the most of all. Now we discovered the faults of the car, and we will fix them. In Hyvinkaa we are going to show everyone what we can do, smiled the former champion!


http://www.superrallicross.fi/tulokset/

Terve, Wex! Welcome to 10 Tenths! Why did Matti get no points for the SRC? Do drivers need a certain minimum of rounds to take part in?

Terve, terve! :) You have to sign up for the Championship before the season begins, if you want to get points. Video from Oulu: http://kotisivu.suomi.net/petepee/Videot/src/src08.wmv

Great info Wex! Hope Matti get's the bug again... And budget ofcourse for more RC'ing...

Terve, terve! :) You have to sign up for the Championship before the season begins, if you want to get points. Video from Oulu: http://kotisivu.suomi.net/petepee/Videot/src/src08.wmv

Kiitos ja moi moi! ;)

@ Wex: All but easy to get "understandable" info about the SRC from Finland. Made a story about Matti at Oulo based on your info above for ERC24, thanx again! One open question remains: Why is multiple SRC champion Atro Määttä just 'an also-ran' this year?

You´re welcome rx-guru. Maybe if some foreigner person gives some kind of feedback to SRC series PR-Man, that we are interested to have RC news from Finland also in English… Don´t know if that helps but maybe…


PR-Man´s @ is: pekka.kaidesoja@pkb.fi
SRC series promoter @ is: pekka.mustakallio@aviatorgroup.fi


I don´t know the real reason for Määttä´s badly cone season, but I think it´s the result of an incomplete car. Because He is very fast when the car works, for example in Ahvenisto he won and in the first race he leaded the A final but span off. In Oulu He had some kind of start system problems, very loud “pam pam pam” but when he let loose the clutch, car almost died as you can see in the video what I linked yesterday. (Blue focus, no.111) And He has missed some races also.

@ Wex: I think the SRC website should have at least a small part with news in English in the first place. Of the northern languages I can read Swedish, Norwegian and Danish quite well, but you know that your mothertongue is impossible to understand for foreigners… ;) I know about 100 Finnish words from being plenty of times in Finland (RX at Keimola, Hyrylä, Hämeenlinna, Nummela and Suonenjoki as well as staying with my good old friend Timo K. at Kellokoski), but that does not help much. However, I know and met Pekka Mustakallio at the Eriksson/Grönholm April 2008 press conference in Stockholm. I guess these SRC people do English info on request as I saw that my colleague Frank Van Rooy at Rallycross Online had the same info used on Finnish newspaper websites on Matti’s comeback published in English. However, Frank is still in China (during and after the Olympics) and is currently not easy to reach. Will ask him in a couple of days who is his co-operating Finn.

If they would have had tyres like today,when he was racing the porsche,i think it would have been near impossible to beat him.The thing i rememberd the most about that car is,that it seemed to do many laps with at least one flat.
Where are the days when the ERC topdogs would regularly visit the belgian circuits?

I think to bhe honest the power the cars have today doesnt put as much stress on tyres as the Group B cars did.

Even with Profles Gollop used to still suffer terribly because of the weight distibution problems of the BiTurb, the car used to really sit on the back end and he was running such low profiles that it was easy to push them off.

Squibby used to have bad trouble as well on 14's

As for Matti, well does anyone really think that much power in a car even mroe rear weight biased than a 6R4 was not gonna roll tyres off teh rim all the time

Matti was hardly what you would call a "keep it in line" driver in 911 or 205!!