The fourth and final round of the Slovak Nationals took place on a well-prepared off-road track in Svaty Jur near the capital city of Bratislava.
(click to enlarge)
For Buggies there was 23 racers divided into 3 groups registered, and in Truggy there were 9 racers registered from only one group. One of the Truggies was an electric XT8, so riders agreed to race together but without scoring for that particular vehicle. The majority of models were from XRAY (as expected), and all medals went to XRAY drivers. There were four qualification rounds for each category. The 20min ?-finals and 20min semi-finals were followed by the 30min main finals for each round of Buggies and just one 30min main final for Truggies.
(click to enlarge)
Both Juraj Hudy and Martin Hudy shown up in the morning and the Bggy category got nicely spiced up by the XRAY Racing Team. The weather was perfect with no clouds at all and nice temperatures considering it was the start of autumn. The only discomfort was caused by dust from some old surface parts of track; this is normally kept under control by water spraying between rounds.
(click to enlarge)
After qualifying rounds it was clear that Martin Hudy would be the one to beat as he TQed for the final. In the final round it was no surprise that Martin Hudy got gold medal after some stunning fast driving with just one minor technical issue (after which he got the best lap of the final round). Andrej Kabac took 2nd place after some remarkably fast and aggressive driving. It was clear that had he had fewer errors, this driver would be a serious contender for the lead. Third place went to Juraj Hudy.
(click to enlarge)
4th round Slovak championship results:
Buggy:
1. Martin Hudy XRAY
2. Andrej Kabac XRAY
3. Juraj Hudy XRAY
4. Tomas Juriga 5. Denis Kubik XRAY
6. Patrik Borgula XRAY
7. Igor Krivek 8. Mark Zilinsky XRAY
The Truggy category followed past races. The unscored electric truggy driven by Jiri Humpolec (starting from pole position) started to build up a lead which they hoped would give him more time for a battery change. The real race was on between Martin Latecka, Tibor Dobis, and Eduard Metke. At the beginning Latecka was in 3rd place but both Dobis and Metke made mistakes and Latecka took the lead and held it until the end of race. Metke ended his race on lap #21 due to servo problems. After the second battery change and last tank refill, Humpolec and Latecka were on the same lap about two laps ahead of 3rd-place Dobis.
(click to enlarge)
Finally Latecka could start racing without risking a gold medal⦠Game on!!! One mistake was enough for Humpolec to take the lead and despite losing a front body mount, the electric truggy was able to finish in 1st place even though he was not scored.
(click to enlarge)
The race and overall 1/8 IC Truggy Slovak championship series results:
1. Martin Latecka XRAY XT8
2. Tibor Dobis XRAY XT8
3. Eduard Metke XRAY XT8
4. Ivan Zahon
5. Matus Omelka
6. Adam Sulgan
7. Milan Moravcik
8. Gabor Czvelder
(click to enlarge)
The entire race was, as usual, a great racing atmosphere. The perfectly-prepared track took a bad beating, but the new hard surface has proven itself and new parts of track were mostly intact. Everybody liked shape and changes of the track, with the only drawback of the day being the dust that was simply everywhere. www.dirtracing.sk had a detached shop for anybody who needed XRAY parts.
