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Race report by Alexander Hagberg
The Swedish Nationals of 2013 was held at the relatively newly built facility of Lidköping RCK, located towards the south-western part of Sweden. The track is a fairly big one, with both sweeping and technical parts. The event was unfortunately struck by bad weather, with rain and very cold conditions, already from the start on Friday. The entry count reached 60, divided on three classes: 1/10 nitro on-road, 1/8 on-road, and 1/10 electric touring cars. I had decided to race in the electric class, as this is the most competitive one in Sweden.

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The rain continued on Saturday, but with 2 qualifiers on schedule on Sunday, I decided to sit out those runs which were in heavy rain conditions, as I was confident to perform well in the dry conditions. In the end, I scored 2 x 2nd places in the last two qualifiers. However, it would only put me 3rd on the grid as Jonas Andersson (who has come back to racing this year) had one TQ run from the wet conditions. I was not leading the pace, but close behind the TQ times of Viktor Wilck. I still knew that I had a fairly good chance from position 3 on the grid. The finals would not go entirely to plan as I would score 3 x 2nd places which awarded me with the runner-up title. I did not have a perfect feeling with the car this time.

The very cold temperatures made it very difficult with tire prep as for warming and tire additive. I never figured out the right method as my car would either be good at the start, and too slidy at the end, or slow at the start and picking up the traction only in the end. In my opinion, the Sorex 36 controlled tires are a bit too hard for these cold conditions that we experienced here, making the car handling quite inconsistent. I was hoping to fight for the win but I was never close enough to challenge Viktor Wilck this time, even though, the gap was fairly small. Magnus Vässmar and Niclas Nilsson also made the final event, finishing 4th and 5th respectively with their T4 cars.

In the 1/8 category, we saw a late entry from the star of this year’s Swedish Cup in the 1/10 class – Markus Hellquist. In a controlled and blistering fast performance, he managed to snatch the overall win in front of many experienced 1/8 drivers. His RX8 2013 looked really well sorted on the track. We look forward to seeing Markus in this category in the future as well.


Markus showed a good pace also in the 1/10 nitro class, but had too many small problems in the main final, to be able to challenge for the win.

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1/10 electric results:
1. Viktor Wilck
2. Alexander Hagberg – XRAY T4 2014
3. Jonas Andersson
4. Niclas Nilsson – XRAY T4
5. Magnus Vässmar – XRAY T4 2014

6. Mattias Johansson
7. Eddie Lundin
8. Morgan Flodin
9. Tobias Markert – XRAY T4
10. Lukas Knutsson – XRAY T3

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1/10 nitro results:
1. Roland Ström
2. Andreas Husman
3. Markus Hellquist – XRAY NT1 2013
4. Mikael Fransson
5. Per-Ola Hard
6. Andreas Böök
7. Mickael Brandt – XRAY NT1 2013
8. José Castro
9. Nikolaj Hviid
10. Erika Hellquist – XRAY NT1 2013

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1/8 results:
1. Markus Hellquist – XRAY RX8 2013
2. Mikael Fransson
3. Patrick Sahlin
4. Niklas Johansson – XRAY RX8 2013
5. Per-Ola Hard
6. Sören Olander
7. Bengt Andersson
8. Björn Ohlson
9. Hans Lyxell – XRAY RX8 2013
10. Magnus Bengtsson

Set-up sheet
Mario Rigert