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| Race Report by Martin Hudy |
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| As usual, the big opening international race of the New Year is the DHI Cup. This year marked the 9th anniversary where top European drivers come together in Denmark to battle it out for the DHI Cup title in Modified and Stock classes. Team XRAY of course could not miss this race, and the best European team drivers were ready to get the best possible results in both classes. It was pleasure to see that the XRAY car was one of the most used cars in both Modified and Stock classes. The biggest team came from Germany, with more than 20 stock drivers. |
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| The race started on Friday with four rounds of free practice and one qualifying round. There were a total of five qualifiers where the best three counted. The biggest problem of the race, right from the beginning, was the carpet. The carpet was full of fibres and every driver had to spend nearly 2 hours cleaning their car after each run. The fastest guy at the track right from the beginning was Alexander Hagberg. His car was really smooth and easy to drive and thanks to this he was able to set the fastest lap times. Teemu was also really fast but his car was a little bit more difficult to drive so he was making some small errors. |
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| My car didnâ™t have enough rear traction and the front suspension was stopping too much. Therefore I decided to go to stiffer shock oils which helped with the stopping problem; I also went to 3.5° toe-in to increase rear traction. Both changes helped and car became much easier to drive. The Stock guys were doing really well with Matthias Lang, Bastian Henning, and Christoph Thiele making super-fast lap times; all of them stood a very good chance to win the race. All the German XRAY Stock drivers were really fast thanks to their great cooperation. After each race they come together and had a meeting about the car performances. Thanks to that they were able to find a very good and fast set up. |
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| The first round of qualifiers started on Friday evening and it was Alexander Hagberg who set the best result and won the opening round of qualifiers. His car was working really well with a great amount of traction and steering. Of course he was driving perfectly as well, and thanks to that he gave no chances to anyone else in the first round. XRAY driver Freddy Sudhoff from Germany also had a very good run, and he was able to set the 6th fastest time. Teemu made some errors but he was still able to finish in the Top 10. I was really unlucky when my batteries dumped in the last lap, dropping me from a possible 7th place down to 13th. |
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| The second round of qualifiers was held in the morning and again it was Team XRAY that dominated. Teemu won by 0.01sec ahead of Alexander Hagberg. The third round was not really lucky for us, as Alex made a mistake in the opening lap and he was not able to catch up but he was still able to finish in 4th place. Teemu was looking very good and had a chance to finish 2nd but he skimmed a corner dot in the last lap and finished 3rd. I hit the dot as well and lost 1sec and thanks to that I dropped from 6th to 10th position. |
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| The remaining two rounds of qualifiers were in Alexâ™s hands. He was able to win both runs and with 3-of-5 wins he set a dominating TQ. Teemu was able to secure a great 3rd place at the start. The rest of the team was really unlucky and no-one else was able to make the A-final. The most unlucky driver was Freddy who had a great chance to make A-main in the last round â“ he was really fast â“ but then he got an interference problem and hit the wall at full power. So in the end we had Freddy, Bart, Martin Hudy, and Magnuss Wassmar in the B-final. |
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Mod Qualification
1. Alexander Hagberg â“ XRAY T2â™009
2. Marc Rheinhard
3. Teemu Leino â“ XRAY T2â™009
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| Stock class was also ruled by XRAY cars. Although we did not set TQ, we had 7 cars in the main final which showed the great performance of the cars and drivers, and also the teamwork of the German XRAY guys. The fastest XRAY driver in Stock was Matthias Lang in 2nd place. |
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Stock Qualification
1. Tommy Bergfeldt
2. Matthias Lang â“ XRAY T2â™009
3. Henry Salmén
4. Bastian Hennig â“ XRAY T2â™009
5. Christoph Thiele â“ XRAY T2â™009
6. Thomas Mirke â“ XRAY T2â™009
7. Tony Streit
8. Meik Niemann â“ XRAY T2â™009
9. Marcus Horn â“ XRAY T2â™009
10. Carsten Madsen â“ XRAY T2â™009 |
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| The finals were held on Sunday and it was clear that it would be a big battle between Alexander, Marc, and Teemu. The first final was unlucky for us all. After the start, Teemu was fastest and he put enormous pressure on Marc. However, Marc is a very well-experienced driver and he was able to keep Teemu behind him, all the while pushing hard on Alex. Alex tried to keep Marc behind him but he hit a dot and made a slight mistake. Marc took a lead ahead of Teemu. Teemu tried to continue putting pressure on Marc but he made a mistake as well. At the end we were able to finish in 4th place with Alex, and 5th place with Teemu. |
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| The second final was much better for us. After the start, Marc put enormous pressure on Alex again but Alex calmed down and did not give Marc a chance to pass. Alex started to pull away slightly from Marc, and when Marc tried to push harder he made a mistake⦠only a small one and not enough to allow Teemu to pass. The order of the Top 3 stayed this way until the end, and Alexander was again in a great position to win the race. |
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| However, the last final was not lucky for us⦠again. Marc was pushing really hard behind Alex and he made a slight error which dropped him to 3rd place. Sadly, he was then crashed by a driver behind him and he dropped to last place. It was really amazing to watch Alexander driving, since this time he completely calmed down and started to push really hard. He was driving super fast without any mistakes and he was able to move up to 4th place ⓠwhich on such high-level race as the DHI Cup is almost unheard-of. Teemu tried to push Marc but Marc did not make any errors and won the last final ahead of Teemu. |
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Modified Final Results:
1. Marc Rheinard
2. Alexander Hagberg â“ XRAY T2'009
3. Teemu Leino â“ XRAY T2'009 |
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| The bad luck continued in the Stock final as well. Although most guys were really fast they had a lot of bad luck with the traffic and small mistakes, and thus lost out on a 2nd place finish. It was really unfortunate to see such bad luck, because all of them were working really hard over the weekend and were driving very well. They deserved much better results, but such is racing. Overall, there were 7 XRAY cars in the Top 10 and that is a really amazing result. |
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Stock Final Results:
1. Tommy Bergfeldt
2. Henry Salmén
3. Bastian Hennig â“ XRAY T2â™009
4. Christoph Thiele â“ XRAY T2â™009
5. Meik Niemann â“ XRAY T2â™009
6. Thomas Mirke â“ XRAY T2â™009
7. Matthias Lang â“ XRAY T2â™009
8. Tony Streit
9. Marcus Horn â“ XRAY T2â™009
10. Carsten Madsen â“ XRAY T2â™009 |
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| Although we were unlucky in both classes once again, it was a very successful weekend because the car worked great, all drivers were satisfied with the carsâ™ performances, and the team was working and cooperating better than ever. TQ and 2nd place is a very good result for Alex and I am sure that very soon he will make more TQ and will be able to keep the same pace through to the end of the race. |
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