Fourth and last round of Finnish Championship series was driven in Vantaa on 3 and 4 of September. Totally 47 drivers took part on this race. 7 of them was driving Xray. Track is situated next to Helsinki-Vantaa international airport on Vantaan Vauhtikeskus. Track is about 285m long and surface is clay.
Before last race track was rebuild and it was changed a little and one jump was added and old jumps were fixed. So basically track was new to everybody. New changes made the track fun to drive and track hold up well for the whole race.
It's always little risky to arrange race on September in Finland because at this time of the year it usually rains a lot. Luckily this time weather gods were on our side.
Sun shined all weekend and temp was around 20 degrees of Celsius. So perfect conditions for excellent race.
Race didn't started took good for Timo Jalas. On first heat his engine broke down. Rear bearing said no more. Timo decided to change the bearing for his engine. When engine was out of the car and disassebled Timo notice that crankcase of the engine was also broken.
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So new engine was needed. Timo had already missed second heat and now it looked like that Timo would also miss the third heat. Luckily Timo managed to install new engine in his car and was able to start running-in the engine on third heat. Result wouldn't bee too good but the main thing was to get the engine ready for next dayâ™s finals. On fourth heat Timo was able to lean his engine little bit and drive fast enough to get over all fourth place on that round.
Next morning started with fifth round and Timo went mental because his car was mostly doing donuts on the track.
He was doing some spectacular jumps from new jump. So now it was clear that Timo had to start from the bottom. Timo was on the pole of 1/8A final. So it was going to be long day for Timo and lots of driving to do. Well thatâ™s nothing new to Timo he is get used to bump up from the lower finals.
Another Xray driver Jouko Näätänen was again doing good and steady job with his XB8 even he had some problems with his engine. Engine didnâ™t had too good bottom end. On Saturday Jouko drive on every round with in top 10. Sunday started bad for Jouko. He broke his front turnbuckle already on warm up laps of the heat. Turnbuckle was old model. So he didnâ™t get any result from fifth round. Over all Jouko qualified 12th and was able to get directly into 1/2B final Good job!
So it was Timoâ™s turn to start the show from 1/8A final. 1/8 final was easy for Timo. After couple of laps he already had half lap lead. So then Timo just cruised to the end and taking things easy. Timo won the 1/8 final and bumped into ¼ final. ¼ final was little bit more difficult for Timo. Starting from 8th spot it was some clime up to do. Things got even more harder on first lap when Timo hit a car pile in front of him and was left last. Little by little Timo clime up. Timoâ™s car was also looking really nervous. Rear end was looking really loose. In the end Timo was still able to get the win of the ¼ final. After the final Timoâ™s cars rear differential was feeling little sticky. So it was time to open it and check it. Timo changed oils into differential and cleaned and greased differential out drives. After this operation differential was feeling normal. No car was ready for semi-final.
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Semi-final started same way as ¼ final. Timo hit pile of cars in the jumps and again was left for last. Car was feeling little better than in the ¼ final but still it was nervous. Little by little Timo climed up to fifth place. Then two cars in front of him break and Timo was third and that was the final position for him on that final. For main final Timo would start on 5th position. For the main final Timo opened center differential and changed differential oil and cleaned differential out drives and greased them. He also changed new tires for he final. So far he had driven with same tires the whole race.
Jouko started well his semi-final. He started the semi from 6th position. After first lap he was second, but soon he had to give that position away and settle for third position. Jouko drove steadily whole semi-final without big mistakes and he was easily able to clear his way to the main final. Jouko got 8th position on starting grid for the main final.
On the warm up of the final Timo had problems with his car. There was not any sign of life in his servos.
Now Timo had to take 10 minutes. This meant that he had to start in the end of the grid. Connection cable from receiver to battery back had broken from the car. So Timo had some action before the final had even started. He had to change the connection cable from battery to receiver. Luckily everything was get ready on time. On warm up laps car was handling better than before. New tires made the difference. Now car was handling well. So Timo started the final with confidence.
Start went okay for Timo without any problems. Timo started clime up little by little. At one point Timo had a good battle with Jarno Siltanen who won previous race in Ulvila. In the end Jarno was left behind and Timo was pulling away from him. Mean while Jouko was struggling with his engine. His engine was working ok in the semi-final but now it didnâ™t work like it should have. Engine was lacking acceleration and also high speed. Still Jouko was trying to drive the jumps like the engine was working normally. It cost him in the end on lap 8 when he broke his front suspension arm on big jump. So Jouko had to retire from the race and he ended up on 10th place on final results.
Timo had now clime up to second position and he was fighting for the first place and catching up the leader Arttu Helenius.
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Soon Timo was able to make his move and over take the leader. After couple of laps Timo made mistake and lost the lead. Again Timo catch up the leader Arttu and was able to take the lead. Now Timo was able to pull away and stretch his lead. After last refueling Timo lost his rhythm and made a mistake. That cost him lots of time because marshal didnâ™t notice that car was stuck. So Arttu was catching up Timo. Luckily marshal noticed the stuck car in the end and return the car on track and Timo didnâ™t lost his lead but now Arttu was about 3 seconds behind. So no room for mistakes. Arttu tried hard to catch Timo but he ended up making mistakes which allowed Timo to pull away and breath more easily.
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There were only about 2 minutes left of the race at that point. So Timo knew that he should just take things easy and try to avoid mistakes then the victory would be his. Everything went like planed in the last minutes and Timo and Xray took the victory in the end.
Top 10 results:
1 Timo Jalas XRAY XB8
2 Arttu Helenius
3 Petri Mylläri
4 Juha Sartesuo
5 Jarno Siltanen
6 Ari Heinonen
7 Rami Rantanen
8 Tomi Salonen
9 Juha Rousku 10 Jouko Näätänen XRAY XB8
