The opening race of the Dutch Nationals 2008 was held at the large outdoor track at the Baanbrekers in Rucphen; the track was 257m long, 5m wide with a lot of high-speed corners and 3 semi-hairpins corners. Twenty-nine Modified drivers attended the race. The first round of Dutch Nationals Stock race was cancelled because the handout motor was not available in time. Team XRAY Benelux was represented by Hugo van den Berg, Patrick Jongenelis (both of whom joined Team XRAY Benelux this year) and myself.
This being the first race since the switch of controlled tire from CS27 to LRP VTEC, we tested three days before the race to find a good setup. By good cooperation we found a setup which gave a lot of grip, good cornering speed, good run time, and not too much tire wear. The last fact is very important as we only have 1 set of tires for 3 qualifiers and 2 finals.
Qualifying
Hugo had a superb opening qualifier and set the pace with 20 laps in 5:15.1. The only driver who came close was Bart Wubben with 19 laps in 5:00.5, effectively only 1.5 seconds slower than Hugo. We decided that another qualifying run for Hugo was not necessary, because the track heated up and nobody was able to take TQ away from him anymore on used tires.
Patrick was down on power for all qualifiers even after changing all electronics, and so he ended up in 6th place in the B-final with 19 laps in 5:14.
Very astonishingly, I was faced with a difficult-handling car in the first qualifier. I blamed the tires afterwards, because the setup was spot on. So I had to set a time in the second run on used tires. In the second run I had to pass some slower drivers which effectively cost me around 5 seconds. In the third run I did not start so as to save tires for the finals. I ended up in the B final in 8th place with 19 laps in 5:17. Worth mentioning is that privateer and XRAY driver Wesley van Dijken was 4th on the grid in the A-final.
Grid after 3 qualifiers:
1 Hugo van den Berg XRAY T2â™008
2 Bart Wubben
3 Luke van Essen 4 Wesley van Dijken XRAY T2â™008
5 Tony Vredenberg
6 John Bruins
7 Raymond Tempelaars
8 Rob Janssen
9 Sven van Essen
10 Arjen Potharst
11 John Ackermans
12 Alexander Roeleveld
13 Peter Meurs
14 Stefan Jansen
15 Chris van der Hage 16 Patrick Jongenelis XRAY T2â™008
17 Benny van Oers 18 Joep Willemsen XRAY T2â™008
19 Rick Thomson
20 Richard Arts
21 Eric Bresser
22 Michel Peterse 23 Tjitte Miedema XRAY T2â™008
(click to enlarge)
B-Finals
The first B-final (with Patrick and me in it) started with a crash of several cars in front of me and Patrick. We both took a different route to avoid the other cars and hit each other immediately after the crash site! This put me in 4th place and Patrick in 10th place. It was a real unavoidable race accident. I finished without any further battle for 4th and Patrick climbed back up to 6th place.
The second race had a smooth start and gave me a nice battle with Benny van Oers. But during that battle I underestimated the corner just before the long straight and lost 6th place to Chris van der Hagen who was biding his time and waiting for âśbattle mistakesâť between me and Benny van Oers.
Final results after 2 B-finals:
1 John Ackermans
2 Stefan Jansen
3 Alexander Roeleveld 4 Patrick Jongenelis XRAY T2â™008
5 Benny van Oers 6 Joep Willemsen XRAY T2â™008
7 Chris van der Hagen
8 Rick Thomson
9 Richard Arts
10 Peter Meurs
(click to enlarge)
1st A-Final
Upfront we knew the fight for the win would be a close one between Hugo van den Berg and Bart Wubben. For 17 laps Bart was on Hugoâ™s tail but was not able to overtake him. In the last 2 laps Hugo started to pull away from Bart whose battery had faded. A backmarker almost ruined the win for Hugo in the last corner but Hugo just managed to finish ahead of Bart by a very close margin of only 0.082sec. Wesley had to give up his 4th place up to John Bruins after a short battle.
2nd A-Final
We decided to change nothing on the setup, though knowing that Bart decided to do so. The start of the 2nd final seemed to be a copy of the first one, but suddenly Bart Wubben had Tony Vredenberg on his tail. This gave Hugo some relief and Bart a new problem as Tony was really much faster than Bart. But in the end Bart kept his 2nd place and Tony finished 3rd. Wesley was suffering from worn tyres and finished in 7th place. After the race we found out that Tony started the 2nd final on brand new tyres, taking a gamble for the rest of the season having only 4 fresh sets of tires left for 5 races.
A-Final overall result:
1 Hugo van den BergXRAY T2â™008
2 Bart Wubben
3 Luke van Essen
4 Tony Vredenberg
5 John Bruins 6 Wesley van Dijken XRAY T2â™008
7 Raymond Tempelaars
8 Sven van Essen
9 Arjen Potharst
10 Rob Janssen
(click to enlarge)
In the end Hugo van den Berg took TQ and won both A-finals. The new T2â™008 combined with our new team drivers and excellent cooperation within the team gave us this win.
The whole team is already focused on the next race at the much smaller and more technical track in The Hague (HFCC) on June 1st.
We would like to thank all our sponsors and especially Team XRAY, HUDY and Ciro RC Distribution for their support.
