|
(click to enlarge) |
|
| Race report by Renaud Savoya |
|
Last weekend, I attended my first race at the top Euro level. It was very exciting, allowing me to judge if the feelings of speed that I had during my practice sessions where right! The race was organised by the CARCA, the famous racing facility in northern France. Many top French and UK drivers attended the race. The format was a bit different than usual, with practices on Friday, 3 rounds of 10 minutes qualifying on Saturday morning, and then finals on Saturday night and Sunday. All three 1/8 scale categories were allowed: Buggy, Truggy and Electric. I built my truggy on Thursday and Friday morning in order to attend 2 classes!!
Since the first round of practices, the feeling was awesome! The truggy was probably the most impressive, fast and easy to drive! With the buggy, the handling was impressive and I could place the car wherever I wanted. The best feeling that I had was on the jumps, taking off and landing perfectly. A lot of cars were slapping really badly after the big jumps, but not mine! I had a lot of fun driving, and was getting more and more confident on my lines and feelings so much that I was getting faster in each round.
Buggy Qualifying:
Unfortunately, I lost the battery pack in the first round, as I didn't secure it well enough in the stone guard. I pushed hard in the other 2 rounds, ending up 2nd overall. I didn't change anything on the car during the whole weekend. The quality of the parts is amazing, and the design of the car also. The set-up that I was previously using was perfect for this track, confirming that the car is really easy and forgiving. I tried to make the front shocks harder in oil and springs for the last rounds of qualifications as the grip was getting higher, but the car was a bit too aggressive. So, I went back to my standard set-up. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
Truggy Qualifying:
Out of the box, the XT8 was amazing! I could push the car to the limit to be even faster than with the buggy. We had a great battle with Yannick Aigoin for TQ in the first round, and as he crashed in the last minute I took it with a 2 second lead. In the second round, I changed the tires and TQed by 18 seconds. The rain affected the last round, and as I had already TQed in two rounds, I decided not to damage my car in the mud. As I was fully satisfied with the set-up that I had, I just changed the tires during the race in order to adapt the pin size to the grip level.
Sunday:
On Sunday, the weather was really cold and rainy. We ran the truggy main in the morning. I was clearly the fastest on the track. Unfortunately, the final was set for 20 minutes (it was announced 30), and I made a wrong tyre choice. I made a clear start and lead for a few minutes. Then, the slippery sections made me lose a lot of time, and the other cars pulled back. A few crashes when I was lapping other cars made me lose the top spot. I pushed hard at the end to come back, but as the main was 20 minutes, even with the fastest laptimes it wasn't enough to win.
Due to the rain, the final result was set on the qualifiers, plus the drivers bumped up from the semis (ran in really bad conditions). |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
| Final buggy results: |
|
1. Neil Cragg
2. Renaud Savoya XRAY XB808'11
3. Elliott Boots
|
|
