The first round of the Belgium Nationals! Exceptionall was held last week in the town of Noeux les Mines in the north of France.
The track was quite technical due to the last modifications done by the club during the wintertime. With a sequence of three jumps (American style) it’s now more difficult thus making a big difference between drivers and material.
There were two categories : 4x4 nitro with 55 drivers (composed by 19 Frenchies) and 4x4 Brushless with 7 drivers in demonstration.
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4x4 Nitro Qualification saw the domination of French driver Jerome Sartel (Xray, RB, Proline) who TQ’d the first two rounds. In the second round he got a time of 9 laps in 5’ 03 364 , just ahead of young French driver Jonathan Bacro (XRAY) and Robert Raphael (2008 Belgium National Champion) who took 3rd place with his Ishima car.
In the afternoon, Jerome Sartel won the 30min semi-final with 53 laps. He finished 5 laps ahead of Robert Raphael who had a mechanical problem during his race. Decamp, Bon, and Hanotiaux took the final places for the main.
In the second semi-final, Tartare won with 49 laps. Bacro (XRAY) took 2nd place, and Santacana, Villa and Ghys (XRAY) took the final places for the main.
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In the A main (45 minutes), Sartel had the best start and took the lead after the first lap. He was alone in the lead until the end of the race, taking a 1-lap advantage over 2nd place after only 1O minutes! The car was really easy to drive on the new jump part of the track, allowing me to take a comfortable lead to finish with more than a 3-lap advantage.
At the end, Jérôme Sartel won with 77 laps, ahead of Belgium racer Robert Raphael (74 laps) and French driver Laurent Tartare (73 laps) in 2nd and 3rd places, respectively.
It was a really good day for lot of drivers. The weather was incredible for this first week of March and permitted us to run on a perfectly dry track. The new track is now more technical so now the car set-up has to be perfect. Lastly, the new spotlights allowed us to finish the end of the final because the days are still very short at this time of year.
I would like to congratulate all the people of the club for there incredible job.
Thanks a lot and see you soon!
