Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Olga, Maxim, and I joined a bunch of other people to celebrate the 25th birthday of Katia Georgiades. We went up to the mountains for the barbeque and the usual picnic. This was one of the most successful parties ever. Everyone were in a proper mood. There were a lot of drink and food. There was lots of music.

It’s a pity that we had leave earlier to bring Maxim back home for his feeding, change, and the rest of the daily routine. Never-the-less we did have some excellent time.

Happy birthday Katia! :)

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-05-29_Katia_Birthday

Olga, Maxim and I went to see Cyprus Rally 2005 Finish ceremony today. We came a bit earlier in hope that I could find a better place for shooting pictures, but the area was pretty crowded already. Also, the cars were delayed for about half an hour, and that allowed for yet more people to come.

Anyway, thanks to my 75-300mm lens with Image Stabilizer I managed to get a few clear shots.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-05_Cyprus_Rally/2005-05-15_Finish_ceremony

Vladimir and I went for some real rally today. We decided to watch Special Stage 4, Lagoudera - Spilia. We went for an adventurous trip to the Start of the stage. Instructions on how to find it were given from the Nicosia side, so we had to do some guessing. Luckily, we didn’t have any troubles finding the way.

Lagoudera - Spilia is one of the hardest stages of Cyprus Rally. It is the hardest one of the Leg 1 (first day). We chose to see it from the start, because it was promised that cars will pass through a number of narrow turns on the rocky grounds. And it was indeed so. Plus the usual dust.

Vladimir did the video coverage, while I tried to photodocument everything we saw. I’ve selected about 80 pictures that should give you the idea of the event.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-05_Cyprus_Rally/2005-05-13_SS4

Today was the official Start ceremony at Molos promenade. The organization was horrible. The biggest problem was the total darkness. There were a few lights covering the podium, but the the rest of the alleys were really dark. As a result, it was practically impossible for the people to see the cars in the queue and chat with drivers. Photography was out of the question, unless a powerful flash unit could be used. I didn’t have one, so I made just a few pictures and most of them screwed anyway.

Hosts were the same as previous years - loud and boring. Especially the lady. She was asking stupid questions, confusing drivers with co-drivers (!!!) and performing other nonsense. She also tried to move the crowd. For the third or so year in a row. And for the third or so year in a row the crowd stayed and laughed at her. I am puzzled with how organizers don’t notice this…

Some teams had their kiosks selling merchandise. As usual, Olga and I went to Subaru. While the products are nice, the prices were a bit too high. And the queue processing was very slow. The lady who was selling goods, was unpacking each item, showing it to the buyer, than packing it back, than bringing change all the way from the cashier machine… I was third in the queue and it took her about 20 minutes to get to me. This begs for some speedups and optimizations.

Anyway, Olga and I left the ceremony without waiting for the end. Boring. Hazard should have it mostly covered on video anyway.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-05_Cyprus_Rally/2005-05-12_Start_ceremony

Today was a good day for visiting the Service Park. All cars and drivers were in and anyone could watch them work together. There was a lot of press teams also, interviewing and recording. I took the opportunity to photograph a lot of people - some very famous, others not yet so.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-05_Cyprus_Rally/2005-05-12_Service_Park