Mother Nature has decided to throw some truly bad weather my way for the ride to work today. The wind kicked up quite a bit last night, and before I left I was looking at 30mph winds with gusts up to 45mph. The rain had held off though, so at least I would be dry.

The ride was an adventure, though not as bad as expected. The wind was typically at my back or in my face the whole way, so I wasn’t too concerned about getting blown over. There were times, however, when I would just stop moving forward. Literally. There was also the occasional moment with flying debris heading toward me. Generally it was just in the form of trash, but there was also a garbage can that threatened to take me down as well.

In other news, the WRC team rosters are beginning to take shape. Skoda announced yesterday that Armin Schwarz would drive the first Fabia, and the second factory car would be shared between four youths: Janne Tuohino, Jani Paasonen and Alex Bengue. Each showed glimpses of promise last season during limited factory programmes, so this should be a fine start to Skoda’s return to the WRC full time. Also, Peugeot has announced the signing of Markko Martin to drive the second 307 behind Marcus Gronholm. As I’ve said before, this is a curious move by Martin, given that Peugeot has only one year left in the WRC, and typically Gronholm doesn’t work well with teammates who can challenge for rally wins (as evidenced by his strained relationship with Richard Burns). As it stands now, there are two open seats for the upcoming season — one at Ford and one at Mitsubishi (assuming, of course, that Subaru will sign Mikko Hirvonen for another year). The biggest names on the market without a factory drive at the moment are Colin McRae and Harri Rovanpera. While McRae has admitted to speaking with Ford, he hasn’t confirmed that anything is in the works. Rovanpera could help either team, though Mitsubishi will probably sign either of the younger drivers who shared the second Lancer last season.

Posted on 1 December 2004