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Remarks by Elliott Harper
Over the last weekend in January the first European Indoor TC and the annual 12th Open Modified Championships were held in Turin. I was very impressed with the location and surpised to see the track was set up inside what I learned was the largest shopping centre in Turin. Whilst this was unusual it was really good for the passers by who stopped to watch the event during the 4 days! The increased spectators helped to create a good atmosphere for the event. The down side was each evening everything had to be packed away but as the hotels were accessed from the shopping centre and some innovative use of local shopping trollies to transfer the equipment it wasn't too much of a problem. As I was competing in both the 10th and 12th scale classess, this kept me very busy thorughout the event.

Practice

Practice commenced early on the Thursday and on the new carpet the grip conditions seemed variable. There were also some bumps in the track and early on in 12th scale, I had to increase the ride height to 4.0mm to accomodate for this. Additionally, in the late practises and early qualifiers for 12th, I decreased the front additive slightly and widened the front end by 0.5mm each side to make the car easier to drive with less front traction in the high grip traction conditions. The tight and technical layout didn't provide many overtaking opportunities in either class and it was obvious that overtaking in the finals could be a challenge.

By the final round of practise I increased the front camber from 1.5 to 2.0 degrees on my T2'009 and this helped the car to flow more and stop less in the med/high speed corners. I also changed to a softer front spring which helped the car through the many hairpins as it made the car 'dive' into the corners more but it also took away some initial 'bite' which made the car less aggressive on corner entry.

Qualifying

During qualifying I moved the ackerman forward from position 2 into position 3 to make the car more responsive in direction changes and to gain a little aggression into the car. I also raised the rear camber link on the hub to gain rotation in the corners. These changes helped to decrease my laptimes even further. Track conditions seemed to change throughout the day and rarely didn't seem to stay consistent from run to run. This could be due to the sun being able to come through the glass roof of the venue which was pretty impressive!

In Touring Car I managed to qualified in 8th place and alongside 3 other XRAY team-mates. We ended up with 4 XRAY cars in the top 10 which made the T2'009 the most popular car in the 'A' final!

Finals

Both finals were fought out over 3 rounds and were very tough due to the fairly small track and very close racing. I again finished in 9th place overall in both classes which was satisfying for me to make the final in both classes. This was enough for me to secure the European Indoor 12th scale Junior Championship title and became the first European Indoor Touring Car Junior Champion.

Overall I really enjoyed this race it was set in a really nice venue! I am now looking forward to the LRP race at the end of March in Eppelheim, Germany.


Elliott's T2'009 Set-up sheet.

Elliott's XII Set-up sheet.

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Race Report by Martin Hudy
The first European 1/10 Indoor Touring Championship was held between Jan 29–Feb 1 in Torino, Italy. The race was combined with 1/12th scale so there were in total two European Championships at the same time. The race was organized in a shopping center which was really good because many people watched the event. Team XRAY was represented by its top racers in both categories.

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The race started on Thursday with free practice and continued with timed practice and two qualifying rounds on Friday. Another three rounds of qualifying were held on Saturday, and the finals were held on Sunday. Already from the first practice both XRAY cars were working very well for most of the drivers, and we felt that this race could be successful for us.

Alex Hagberg was the fastest driver on the track in both categories, and he was using exactly the same set up as in the DHI Cup where he was able to set TQ and finish in 2nd place on the podium. Alex backed up his great performance in the first round of qualifiers when he finished 2nd in touring cars, only 0.3sec behind Jilles Groskamp. Elliot Harper also had a very good start when he finished 4th overall. Steven Weiss and Teemu were also super fast but both made small mistakes which cost them important time.

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The track layout was challenging for all drivers because it was very narrow, and also with many hairpin corners where car set up needed to be very aggressive with a lot of steering; this also caused mistakes because traction was really high and many drivers had problems with traction rolling.

Alex also had an amazing start in 1/12th scale when he was able to set the fastest time and win the first round of qualifiers. Alex made some very small changes on his touring car and then he set the fastest time and won the second round of qualifiers. The set up changes that helped him to improve were 2.8 springs in the front (instead of 3.0) and 2.5° toe-in. With this set up, Alex was unbeatable in the third and fourth rounds of qualifiers.

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Steven and Teemu, who were using an almost identical set up, became very fast as well and both were able to make the A main. Elliot was able to keep his great performance from the first round of qualifiers, and was able to make A main as well. In total there were four XRAY drivers in the A main with Alex in 2nd place – he lost his TQ position in the last round of qualifiers. In 1/12th scale Alex was able to finish 3rd overall and Elliot was in 9th. Teemu was very unlucky; while he was really fast in each round he was struggling with tapes and flew off the track four times because of hitting the tapes. Moreover, he set the A main result in the third round of the qualifiers but was disqualified because he was soldering battery wires directly onto the batteries which is not allowed by EFRA. So, in the end he finished in an unpopular 11th place.

Qualifying results 1/10:
1 Groskamp Jilles
2 Hagberg Alexander XRAY T2'009
3 Rheinard Marc
4 Moore Andy
5 Weiss Steven XRAY T2'009
6 Wilck Victor
7 Ronald Volker
8 Harper Elliott XRAY T2'009
9 Leino Teemu XRAY T2'009

10 Fischer Marc

Qualifying results 1/12:
1 Honigl Hubert
2 Ahoniemi Simo
3 Hagberg Alexander XRAY XII
4 Moore Andy
5 Fischer Marc
6 Groskamp Jilles
7 Levanen Juho
8 Volkler Ronald
9 Harper Elliott XRAY XII
10 Ahoniemi Sakke

Three rounds of finals were held on Sunday and Team XRAY had a good chance to win in both classes.

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The first touring final saw a good start for Alex when he took a lead in the first lap, with Jilles hitting the pipe in front of him. However, Alex wanted to make a gap in front of Marc and by pushing too hard he traction rolled and lost many important places. Although he was driving really fast lap times, he was not able to finish better than 6th place. Elliot was the fastest XRAY driver in the first final, with him finishing 4th in front of Teemu. Steven was driving really fast lap times but he was very unlucky with traffic and finished in 7th place.

The second final was much better for us when Jilles made a mistake after the start and Alex took a lead. This time he was driving more smoothly and was able to create a gap ahead of Marc, keeping his lead until the end. Teemu finished in 4th place, Steven in 7th, and Elliot in 9th.

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Alex still had a chance to win the European Championship and it was enough for him to finish 2nd ; in that case Marc would not win because Alex made a faster overall time than Marc in the first final. Marc knew that he needed to pass Alex in order to win and because of that he put enormous pressure on Alex. However, Alex stayed calm and did not give any place for Marc to pass him. As a result Marc hit a pipe when he was trying to pass Alex from inside. This time Jilles was leading ahead of Alex and Andy. This was a good sign for us because 2nd place was enough for us. Fate had other ideas, though, and Alex hit the pipe at the end of the straight and lost many important places. After some traffic Steven was able to take 2nd place and was able to keep this place until the end of the race… finishing in front of Victor.

1/10 Final:
1 Rheinard Marc
2 Groskamp Jilles
3 Wilck Victor
4 Hagberg Alexander XRAY T2'009
5 Moore Andy
6 Weiss Steven XRAY T2'009
7 Leino Teemu XRAY T2'009

8 Voelker Ronald
9 Harper Elliott XRAY T2'009
10 Fischer Marc
11 Hudy Martin XRAY T2'009

So at the end, luck was not on our side once again but we were really close and XRAY was still the most popular and used car in the final which made us happy. Another good thing was that XRAY cars were the most popular and used cars at the entire event, and in top 30 there were 15 XRAY cars.

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In the 1/12th scale finals we were unlucky as well when Alex had some bad luck with traffic. He tried to push very hard which made for a few small mistakes. However, we were satisfied because we had two cars in the final and both Elliot and Alex showed the great potential of the new XRAY XII pancar.

1/12 Final:
1 Honigl Hubert
2 Levanen Juho
3 Groskamp Jilles
4 Ahoniemi Simo
5 Volker Ronald
6 Hagberg Alexander XRAY XII
7 Fischer Marc
8 Moore Andy
9 Harper Elliott XRAY XII
10 Ahoniemi Sakke
11 Leino Teemu XRAY XII
12 Cosgrove Ben XRAY XII

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