The 2010 Cyprus Championship was organized by the RCO Team. There were 5 races for this series, and the point system was very close⦠only 1 point difference for all places so competition was immense. Of the 5 races, 4 counted. There were 3 tracks used for the events, and there were 35-45 competitors in each event.
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One track is in Nicosia and is only a few months old; it has a technical layout with ups and downs and some jumps. The other track is in the Lemesos area, again with a technical layout but with a slippery surface with some hard corners so if you make a mistake you lose a lot of time. The third track is one of the best in Cyprus (Larnaca area): fast and flowing with a fantastic surface and great technical jumps. This year again Costas chose the XRAY 808 2009 and tried to become 3x (in a row) National Champion to enjoy himself and thank his sponsors.
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The first race was held at the fantastic Larnaca track. There were many drivers, lots of brands, and 8 XRAY cars in the final! There was a DJ, good music, nice promotion, and finally after some fantastic racing action there was a 1-2 result for Team XRAY with Agrafiotis getting the first place.
The second race was held in Nicosia with some slight rain the day before at the brand new track. So the dirt was damp which resulted in fantastic traction. There was a record entry of drivers and a very good level of competition. There was even a TV crew there to cover the event! Costas Agrafiotis took 1st place in the final after some very close times in the qualifiers with only a few seconds separating the top 3 drivers. XRAY was 1-2 in the main final and also took 1st place in the Junior category.
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The third race was held in the Lemesos area, up in the mountains. It was a small track and difficult conditions. Car preparation was not really great and the XRAY had some mystery issues discovered after it was heavily abused the week before at the Nitromania international race in Belgium. There were some huge jumps in Belgium and Costas decided to take it easy because he needed to get some points for the championship, as the point system was a little bit unfair for the first-placed drivers.
But in the final a crash resulted in a popped-out shock part and the race was difficult after that. So after the two races won and one with not so many points in the basket, things were difficult as the 2nd place driver in the championship was now leading despite not winning! The nice thing was that this race was also won by an XRAY (Christoforou) so all was good for the team.
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The fourth race of the year was held at the Dirt Paradise track in Nicosia and it was one of the most important races in Cyprus as it would probably decide the Championship. Costas just had to win if he wanted to keep his chances to win his third championship in a row. Things started nicely in the qualifiers as the 808 was really working smoothly and it was very easy to drive directly with no major setup changes.
The track is located near the capital and many people had spent lots of time practicing so the competition was very close. In the final, things were not easy and it was just steady driving that was needed to finish 1st as any extreme jumps could result in a catastrophe. The XRAY is one of the most (if not THE most) reliable cars today, so if only 2-3 points were the difference it all came down to driving. We again had 1st place this time and it was happiest face of the year on Agrafiotis. So everything would be decided in the last race of the year and the championship was open for 3-4 drivers in theory, all with different brands of cars!
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The deciding race â“ as it was announced from the organisers â“ was again held at the dreaded track at Lemesos. Car preparation was the best possible, even for Agrafiotisâ™ standards of preparation (...) and it was really tense as it would be a shame to loose the championship with 3 wins out of 4 races. But at the end things turned out to be easier than expected. By saving the car in the qualifiers and driving calmly with no mistakes in the final and with trust in the never-breaking-down XRAY, the team and Agrafiotis had another win and the 2010 Cyprus Championship title!
