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News  Racing
XB9 at EC Warm-up in Fehring, Austria |
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| Race report by Reno Savoya |
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April and now the offroad season is fully on! This time about 100 drivers travelled to Fehring, Austria, in order to get ready as much as possible for this summer European championship. Many Xray drivers attended the race, and Chief engineer Juraj Hudy himself was also here to assist Xray drivers and customers.
On my side, it was my second time in Austria, last time was in 2009 for the Euros, my 2nd title, so I have very good souvenirs!
Everything started great as I set the TQ time in the first practice! Then I tested different tires with a harder compound for P2 and they were too hard for the track conditions. As the track was pretty grippy and super high speed will long straight and high speed corners, I directly changed my basic set-up to :
- 14T clutch bell
- Thicker sway bars (From 2,2 and 2,4 to 2,3 and 2,6)
- Thicker diffs (From 5-7-3 to 10-10-5)
- Fully lay down the shocks for maximum traction and corner speed. |
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Then, my car was ready to rock the qualifications!
I was a bit lucky in Q1 as the club suffered from computer setting problems. I had extra practice time to adjust my camber and ride heigth before the start and get a TQ run! I changed a few things on tires during the qualifications and worked on shocks in order to get ready for the mains.
I opted for 6 holes 1,2mm pistons and they were great on the grippy conditions. Unfortunately I should TQ the last round of qualifications, and so the overall, but I crashed in the last corner! Bad luck for teammate Martin Bayer who suffered some traffic problems during his qualifications and had to bump from the quarters. |
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The weather was still really critical but no rain untill then!
All the Xray team did a great job bumping up from their races untill the quarters were Martin and I were the only 2 left. I had really bad and incredible luck in my semi. The tuning of my engine was perfect all week end long, but unfortunately my engine got super rich on the starting grid and flamed out directly when I pressed the trigger on the start! Then I had to start my 20minutes race against time! Something like here is your mission: 20minutes, 20seconds gap in order to get 6th spot for the main!
Manu, my mechanic couldn't push me more, and as the team did an awesome job to pit me as quick as possible, I managed to close the gap when the rain started to fall! The track didn't change a lot except the paved section before the bridge and the plastic after it which became super slippery! As I opted for a softer compound than anyone in my semi, I was closing the gap even faster on the lead and in the last laps I was 1,5s per lap faster than the top 5! |
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Luckily, I took the 6th spot 30s before the end of the race, giving me an extra lap to breath! Incredible race, I realised the best laptime of my semi and was really confident for the main!
At this point, Martin was crusing between 2nd and 4th place!
The rain continued to devastate the track as we got ready for the final. Carlos Gomez from Efra-Ifmar asked all the drivers up to the driver stand to vote for stopping the race or letting it go. Most of the drivers voted for stopping, but as the euros would run in such conditions, the organizers decided to give the start for 30minutes. |
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| After 9minutes, many of the cars were already out, Martin was 2nd and I was 4th! Then, the organisers decided to stop the race as the condition were crazy. I've seen worth in Charlotte, and didn't really understand why going through all this to stop the race! All this for nothing! As the main final was raced less then 10minutes, the result had to be held on the semis. As the semis were not ran in the same conditions, the result would be every spot from the 2 semis would be equal! So, Martin ended up 7th equal and me 11th equal! |
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| Final results: |
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1. Robert Battle
2. Davide Tortorici
3. Elliott Boots
4. Neil Craig
5. David Ronnefalk
6. Alex Zanchettin
7. Miguel Matias
7. Martin Bayer XRAY XB9
8. Daniel Reckward
9. Yannick Aigoin
10. Hernandez Cordoba
11. Reno Savoya XRAY XB9
Once again, it was a great time for me to be part of the team and share tips and set-up all week end long! I'm really looking forward to the euros, as I'm really confident in my package! Every run is another step forward into setting the XB9 for my driving style, and I love it! |
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As usual, my set-up sheet for the event:
XB9 |
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