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Oliver Simon & XRAY XB8EC European Champion B 2007
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| Last weekend the European Championship B took place at the beautiful track in Sand, Germany and it was Team XRAY driver Oliver Simon who won the race with the XRAY XB8EC and took home the victory and title of European Champion "B". The European Championship "B" is one of the most popular and highly-attended off-road races in Europe and usually the race is completely booked a very long time in advance. No wonder, as this is some of the most equal off-road races (but still VERY competitive) as most of the best off-road drivers â“ usually with no sponsors â“from all different European countries gather together to compete for the European Champion title. Despite having the appendix "B" it is still a very prestigious title as this is race of regular drivers. |
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XRAY - the principal sponsor of European Championship 2007
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| As an upstanding member of the RC community, XRAY supports the hobby and helps organizers and clubs to organize races and events and as such XRAY was the proud exclusive sponsor of this Championship and helped this race to happen. |
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Yannick Aigoing was providing technical and set-up support to all XRAY drivers
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| XRAY is not only the great supporter of the RC hobby but in the first place XRAY has been focused and determined when it comes to customer support and service, and as such, factory team driver and European Champion Yannick Aigoin was at the event to provide customer support and service. The Team XRAY Germany â“ provided by SMI, the German distributor for XRAY â“ were attending and had arranged for a complete XRAY service center with all spare parts and service to all the XB8 owners. Yannick was available to help with tech and set-up tips and provided backup to all XRAY drivers. As a result, any XRAY customers and drivers were free to visit the XRAY support service center to receive the first class help and service. XRAY drivers get the luxury touch. |
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Nice track
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| The Arrival |
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| Most drivers arrived at the track on Thursday. The track was perfectly prepared by Ralp Bauer and the MSC Sand track, who did a really excellent job preparing the whole facility at a very high level. Food and drinks were available during the entire event and the whole organization was top notch so all the drivers could enjoy the racing adrenaline. The popularity of the Euros B was also clearly shown by the huge and extensive amount of spectators that were crowded all around the track and made for an excellent atmosphere during the whole race event... making it more attractive for drivers to showcase their best skills. |
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The weather was very nice in the first days
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| Practice Day |
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Early on Friday most of the drivers utilized the practice time to work on the basic set-ups and test on the track. Team XRAY was super fast right from the very beginning and the XB8EC cars of Oliver Simon (Germany), Martin Bayer and Peter Klatovsky (Czech Republic) were setting the fastest lap times together with Martin Achter and Stefan Scheunenpflug (Germany). The XB8EC cars were working perfectly with the basic set-up and with all the out-of-the-box parts so just very minor set-up changes were performed to adapt the handling to the specific conditions of the track. With his invaluable experience and knowledge of the XRAY off-road cars and set-ups, Yannick was a very-appreciated asset to all XRAY drivers at the evnet, helping wherever possible to fine tune the set-ups. At the end of the practice day the team was very satisfied with the handling of the cars and was ready for the official qualifiers.
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XRAY service center providing luxury customers service
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| Qualifiers |
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| Qualifiers started well on Saturday with Peter Klatovsky winning some of the first rounds and with Oliver Simon who was the fastest in the fourth round of qualifiers when he 4 seconds faster than the rest of the field. At the end of the qualifiers it was Peter Klatovsky from Team XRAY Czech who claimed the overall TQ and gained the first excellent result for the XB8EC. |
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Peter Klatovsky from Team XRAY Czech who claimed the overall TQ |
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| Finals |
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In the 1/8 final A, Andreas Rauch and Rene Konig (both from Team XRAY Germany running the XB8EC) bumped up to the upper final. In the 1/8 final B it was well-known and talented Katja Brammertz â“ part of the Team XRAY womenâ™s group â“ who lead with her XB8EC but ended up with tire problems with only a few laps to go; this cost her several positions and she ended up in the unlucky 4th place, which put a stop for the XRAY women force at this Euros. It would be definitely exciting and non-traditional to have a woman in the upper or even main final, which would definitely draw attention of more spectaculars to this hobby, but it was still an excellent result for Katja.
In the 1/4A it was Mutel from France who won ahead of Andreas Rauch and Gerhard Frank both from Germany. In the 1/4B it was Florian Braun, Maximilian Cordts and Costas Agrafiotis who bumped into the semi final. |
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2007 European Championship podium
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The semi final A was dominated by Team XRAY. Oliver Simon (Germany) was the fastest and won the semi-final with 45 laps and 21 seconds, followed by Team XRAY driver Peter Klatovsky (Czech Republic) who achieved 44 laps and 5 seconds (with his teammate Martin Bayer settin 44 laps and 19 seconds). The remaining bump-up positions were filled in by Wiesner and Macek and German Team XRAY driver Andreas Rauch ended at a respectable 6th place.
In the semi final B it was Martin Karner, Martin Achter and Juan Rodriguez who were in the top 3 three, while Florian Braun and Scheunenpflug ended up the bump-up group.
The lower finals ended very well for Team XRAY by having three XB8EC cars in the final with the first starting position at the grid... looking very promising for the main final.
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Martin Bayer from Team XRAY Czech Republic
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| The weather was not friendly anymore and the final run was accompanied by rain, so the organizers decided to wait for 30 minutes. After the re-start it was again Oliver Simon who got from his first starting position on the grid into the lead and never looked back. With superb and calm driving he was able to make one less fuel stop, giving him an extra lead. With Oliverâ™s excellent performance and easy driving, the final win looked very realistic but as with any other races of this importance, lucky and fortune play a big role here... with 3 laps to go bad luck struck Oliver when one of his tires became damaged and he had to drive very carefully to finish the race. The competitors were getting closer and closer but Oliver kept a calm head and with silky-smooth driving he finished the last three laps and ended the dramatic final race with a well-deserved win â“ making the XRAY XB8EC another European Champion and gaining the winners victory. |
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Oliver Simon and his mechanics
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XRAY is very happy and proud that not only were the world's best drivers able to win the European Championship with the XB8EC, but what is probably even more important is that the XB8EC is one of the very best performing off-road cars even in the hands of regular drivers. No matter if youâ™re driving in your backyard, local club track, national race or even the European Championship "B" - XRAY is the choice of champions.
XRAY would like to thank Oliver Simon for such an impressive race. Our hearty congratulations go to him for a well-deserved win and title of European Champion. Another big thanks goes to SMI for arranging service and support. Special thanks go to XRAY's factory team driver Yannick Aigoin for providing the very best technical and set-up support for all XRAY drivers. Thank you to the organizers for preparing and organizing this event, and last but certainly not least we would like to thank all participants for making this race a memorable event.
See you again next time at the European Championship A in France. |
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Oliver Simon taking the trophy of European Champion
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| 2007 European Championship B 1/8 Off-road Final Results: |
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1. Simon, Oliver - Germany - XRAY XB8EC
2. Scheuenpflug, Stefan - Germany
3. Rodriguez, Juan Camilo - Spain
4. Y Macek, Denis - Germany
5. Karner, Martin - Austria
6. Bayer, Martin - Czech Republic - XRAY XB8EC
7. Y Braun, Florian - Germany
8. Y Wiesner, Tom - Germany
9. KlatovskĂ˝, Petr - Czech Republic - XRAY XB8EC
10. Achter, Martin - Germany |
| Race report by Oliver Simon |
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| We arrived Thursday evening, took a short look at the track and went to the hotel. The track was well prepared except one groove behind the tabletop jump where concrete was used but the track at this spot was very worn. I knew this track because I raced here a few times before and the German Championship was held there past year. |
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| Friday morning the inscription took place, I was in training heat 9 which was very good I think because there was a lot of dust on the track and the first heats removed that a little bit. We started with my setup from the local races, where I pointed out that without anti-roll bars even in long high-speed corners the car's responsiveness was much better and the stability was not very bad. |
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| We started with 5000 oil in front, 7000 in center and a bit fat in rear; using Panther Komodo Dragon tires in supersoft compound the car was twitchy but fast (must have been the lack of anti-roll bars). In the training heats we could run without problems and I got to know the track very well. After training I was in 8th position which was good for me because they took the best three laps from either the 2nd or 3rd practice heat and I was held up by slower drivers a bit in this heat so I knew I could go much faster. I don't know why but out of position 8 they put me into group 4 for qualifying. |
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| The qualifying heats did not go very well because the track became bumpy and the tyres were totally worn after 6 minutes, however it was fast enough to qualify for the semi-final. I changed the center diff oil from 7000 to 10000 before the 3rd qualifying heat but the result was worse than before due to a lot of rear wheelspin. My mechanic Florian Laux arrived on Saturday at 3PM (he wanted to be there Thursday evening) and he was of the opinion that we should at least install the rear anti-roll bar for the last qualifying heat, but I wanted to try out both anti-roll bars and that was a good decision. We changed the diff oil to 5000 in center and the front shock oil from 400 to 450 and changed the light blue springs to silver; in the rear we went from 300 oil to 350 and also changed the light blue spring to silver. We also changed the tyres from Panther Komodo Dragon supersoft compound to Proline Knuckles 2.0 M2. |
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| The car went so well that I could go without any mistakes for a 12 lap / 5:16min heat even if the track had a lots of bumps at this time; the best result from others (without bumps) was 12laps 5:20 so I knew the car was good in this condition and the tyres were like they had grip but went smooth over the bumps without traction rolling. We decided to leave the car's setup and put new oils in the shocks and diffs new, checked everything for proper condition and started the semi-final training with new Proline Knuckles 2.0 M2 to have the opportunity to reglue them if they went off at some spots. In this training heat we tried to remove the 2 screws from the rear plastic brace at the shock tower and I noticed that the car went even better over bumps. I decided to leave the car as it was and we checked everything again. |
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| In semi-final A I had the 4th starting position, made the first laps without crashing or mistakes and went to the front of the pack. I think the car went so well that I was faster than everybody else without having to push. I finished first and noticed that the best lap was very fast compared to the others. Florian checked the car and I watched semi-final B and after about 15 minutes it started to pour rain. The organizers decided to have a break due to the heavy rain after the 2nd semi-final was finished. After the rain stopped the 40+ final was started but instead of 20 minutes they shortened it to 15 minutes. The cars were very heavy but the track became free of mud. After the 40+ final they prepared the track again with small wood pieces (coming from sawing wood) and the main final started. |
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| I was on pole position made a 10sec gap in the first few laps because they had small crashes in the back field. After 8 minutes I started to overtake the last cars and after 16 minutes they had to stop the race because the timekeeping computers were down due to the heavy rain before. We went on Panther Gator supersoft tyres and didn't change that for the restart. Some other drivers were not satisfied with their tyres and changed from GRP Cubic to Proline Crime Fighter. The restart was almost the same as the first final, I could go faster in front and had a gap of around 10 seconds after the first laps again. After 5 minutes my front left tyre went loose outboard but it wasn't a handicap for me. |
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| We refueled every 7.5 minutes and due to only having 2 mistakes I had a huge gap ahead of 2nd position by the halftime point. My mechanic Florian Laux told me that the 2nd place car had to refuel once more in the end but I misunderstood him because of the loud noise and thought I had to come in to refuel again, so I decided to go slower to save fuel and reduced speed the last 5 minutes so I did not have to come in to refuel again. I noticed that the 2nd place car was pushing hard but I was still in front with around 10 seconds and I could keep that gap until the end of the race. |
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I was extremely happy with this event, and winning it just added to my joy. Everyone on the team gave great efforts and we had great camaraderie. A heartfelt "thanks" goes out to the organizers for making such a great event, to all my team members, and to all of the drivers there.
Best regards
Oliver Simon |
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Yannick Aigoin, the XRAY Factory team driver and 2006 European Champion comments the 2007 European Championship "B":
"I'm really very happy with the team performance at the European Championship B as we not only TQ'd but also won, and the XRAY XB8EC was definitely the fastest and best-handling car and Team XRAY was the team to beat. What I was really satisfied with - besides the performance of the car - was the team spirit and the friendly while professional atmosphere in the whole team. The XRAY drivers worked well together, discussed a lot and helped each other. All the service and parts support was professionally arranged so all XRAY drivers were very happy.
A big "Thanks" goes out to all those drivers, and congratulations again to Oliver for bringing us the Euro title!"
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