Tomorrow Ramona and Miriam will start their journey back to Sweden after participating in the World Rally Championship in New Zealand. For the ladies it ended up in a very unpleasant way, with the car catching fire during the last stage on Saturday. With 2/3 of the rally behind them, Ramona and Miriam was safe in second place after Argentine Marcos Ligato and about three minutes ahead of Indonesian driver Aksa. Their strategy was to drive the rest of the rally with a good margin of safety to stay in second place for the rest of the competition. But then it happened, what shouldn’t have happened. All of a sudden, while Ramona was driving, the car started burning and both Ramona and Miriam had to throw themselves out of the car. Here’s a summary of the rally with their own words about what happened.
– Friday was going to be a real challenge for the team, Miriam says. 200 kilometers of special stage and only fifteen minutes of remote service made it necessary to drive both fast and without failing. A remote service is when you’re only allowed to use what you already have in the car to repair it, Miriam explains.
The ladies put in a high tempo right from the start, and was immediately among the fastest in their group. Finally they got confirmation of their ability by getting the best time on two of the stages and remaining in top of the field on the other stages.
– It was an absolutely amazing feeling, Ramona says. The mechanichs had done an excellent job on our Mitsubishi EVO X who worked like a clock, and we managed to find just the right combination of high speed and high security in driving.
Ramona and Miriam ended in a safe second place after Friday’s competition, 1:40 minutes after Argentine Marcos Ligato, and 0:40 minutes ahead of Ukrainian Valeriy Gorban. The plan for Saturday’s event was to guard their second place, which they also managed to do. Prior to Saturday’s last stage they were about three minutes ahead of V. Gorban when he went off the road, and Indonesian Subhan Aksa climbed from fourth to third place.
– Now we knew that if we just got to the finish line and maintained a stable tempo while keeping track on Aksa, the second place would be ours! Ramona says.
But then it happened. About four kilometers along the last stage of the day, the car started to burn immensely.
-At first we just felt an enormous heat in the car, Ramona says. Miriam looked back, and saw that the entire rear of the car was in flames and she yealled at me that there was a fire. Within a second the flames was bursting into the car’s cabin and we were surrounded by fire. We had to jump out of the car whilst it was still moving. The car went by itself into a embankment and burned down.
– The seconds that passed before we saw each other again and knew that both of us were OK, felt like hours Miriam says. It was an enormous relief. When we turned around and saw the car, totally covered in flames, we were even more relieved that we had made it out of there alive and without being seriously injured. My foot was lightly sprained after being stuck in the roll bar and I was dragged along the car for a moment. Other than that I’m fine, Miriam says. Ramona had a minor burn on her face, but was otherwise unhurt given the circumstanses.
– Our Mitsubishi had the best safety equipment and our personal equipment is of the highest standard, so we did very well Ramona and Miriam says. All honor to Ricardo Trivinio and his co-driver Alex Haro that was first in place after the accident, and to the rescue personnel that immediately came in with a helicopter to help us!
The cause of the fire is yet unknown. Ramona and Miriam will be flying to Sweden tomorrow and they have already started working towards the next competition of the World Rally Championship.
– This incident won’t let us down, we will keep on going. Of course we are disappointed over being robbed of our first opportunity to be on the podium in the World Championships, but we have to focus on what’s positive in all this mess. We are truly satisfied with what we’ve accomplished, and no one can take that away from us.
Now we’ll work on solving all the practical issues. We will take it one day at a time and work very hard to get into a rally car as quick as possible again, Ramona and Miriam says.