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| For me, 2008 began at full throttle with no chance to rest for even a day. I spent most of my time in January at finishing the last details on the new XB808 off-road nitro buggy, in both the R&D department as well as in the Production department inspecting all the new parts coming from the machines or the new moulds. The last few weeks of any project are extremely demanding as you are doing rapid-fire problem solving for the multitude of things that arise. During this busy period I enjoyed a very short break by participating at the one of the largest indoor races⦠a year-opening event⦠the DHI Cup. The team performed very well and took home double TQs and Vice-Champion trophy by placing 3 cars in the A main Modified category and 6 cars in the Stock category. |
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Coming back to the office we had to get working very hard again, as having a looming, no-compromise deadline â” the Nurnberg Hobby Show official release and presentation â” was all the incentive we needed to work very hard, 7 days a week, for several weeks. And of course production was running 24-hours per day non-stop. By the time I left for the Nurnberg show I was very pleased that we had done such a huge amount of work in such a short time; of course we would not be able to achieve this without the dedicated work ethic of the R&D and production teams.
The release of the 808 at the Nurnberg show was a spectacular success. I was available to present the car and answer any technical questions. Meanwhile, testing of the final production version of the car was underway by team drivers around the world. After the Nurnberg show, I became very busy in Production, focusing on the very last details and last-minute improvement ideas I got. With having limited time, Martin prepared and packed up for the upcoming TITC race, the unofficial World Championship warm-up race which was held in February at the 2008 Worldâ™s track in Bangkok. With my brain in âśoff-road modeâť for the few last months, I was finally able to switch over to âśtouring car modeâť after landing in Bangkok and unpacking all the stuff at the track, and with clarity of vision I was ready for the demanding job of giving the best support to the XRAY team. |
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Participating at this race was really important for several reasons. First of all, over the last few months we have run the T2â™008 exclusively at the carpet and after last yearâ™s European Championship this was the first big race on asphalt. Secondly, the race was held at the track which will host the 2008 World Championship and as such we needed to get some track time and first-hand experience. And lastly, all the factory teams were signed up for this race so we would have face-to-face competition with them to compare the performance of our team and the T2â™008 against all the worldâ™s best drivers. I was really looking forward to this race and was keen to see how the car would handle given our build-up of great knowledge and fine-tuning skills.
Arriving a few days earlier before the race gave us a great opportunity to prepare, and having all the other factory teams at the track as well gave us the chance to do some benchmarking. The track was prepared very well, so after charging the first batteries and getting the tires ready, we were ready to race! I was the first one to get track time, and was pleasantly surprised not only with my own driving but especially about the handling of the car. I needed no marshalling at all and the car with basic set-up and new tires was very calm with a lot of steering and traction, but mainly it was super-easy to drive. |
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After the first runs, Teemu, Alex, and Meen reported the same positive handling... it was only Martinâ™s car which was a bit more nervous. The first day we adjusted the set-up for the asphalt track by using the top deck which we used at the European Championship in France. The other days we were experiencing with different tire treatments, spring tensions, shock adjustments, and of course we worked on car balance. Whatever changes we made, we ended up returning to our basic set-up. The main advantage of the T2â™008 was that during the whole day the car was very consistent despite the radically-changing traction level of the track (due to time of day and temperature). This let us focus on using our set-up finetuning tricks instead of looking for general set-ups.
Just the other day, Steven Weiss (2007 European Championship TQ and vice-champion) arrived and joined the team for testing. Unfortunately he was unable to enjoy the testing nor racing as already after his arrival Steven was very tired and just kept sleeping most of the time. Unfortunately he was unable to enjoy the testing nor racing as he appeared to be suffering a virus and for most of the time was unwell. For him it was a very difficult and tiring race and he had major difficulties with concentration. |
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| The handling of the car was improving all the time after we worked on small details, and the team was doing super good with Teemu being unbeatable in practice. Unfortunately, during the last practice someone turned on their radio and Teemuâ™s car (on the same frequency) went out of control and hit the wall, destroying the car. Teemu was very upset because his car had worked really well and he had fine-tuned all small things⦠and now he had to build a completely new car. It was a sleepless night for Teemu as he had to built the all-new car and be ready in the morning for timed practice. Fortunately everything went well and the new car he built had the same great performance and handling as his previous car and once we watched the lap times we could relax as the lap times were the very same as the last ones, at the very top. |
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| Not only was Teemu doing well, but the same could be said for our young drivers Alex Hagberg and the super-fast young gun Meen. They were doing very well and were improving all the time in every practice and were also looking very strong for the qualifiers. At the end, the whole team was using a very similar set-up (which is posted at the XRAY Online Set-up Sheet Database) and the differences in set-up were very small. Alex kept up his hard work on the set-up and during the qualifiers he was improving all the time and at the end got a very well-deserved place in the A-main. Meen was also doing very well but had bad luck in the last qualifying round when he got into traffic and lost his chance for an A-main start. By far, Martin was the most unlucky person. After the timed practice, we both made a big risk and changed our set-up for the first qualifying round⦠BIG big mistake. Later on Martin had problems with an unglued tire (a mistake that no professional should make, but unexpected problems can happen in the most unexpected situations) and another times was the victim of heavy traffic. In the end, counting the 3 best results out of 5 runs there were no more chances for getter better than a C-main placement. |
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Myself, I was really enjoying this race. In practice and qualifiers I always kept myself around 20th place and considering that there were over 130 some of the worldâ™s best drivers I think that is pretty good! In the first round I ran without a good set-up and it cost me a good result; later on I lost one another since I was experimenting with different tire treatments (to give feedback to the team). I guess you could say I as a victim of âświtchcraftâť since as the tire treatment mixture that my drivers gave me to test for them really did not work and so I struggled quite a lot. Well, this is the part âśdirtyâť part of R&D work... testing things that may or may not work for others. But at the end I was happy that I could help in this way as we knew in which direction to go with tire treatments. With the great handling of the car and top driving performance of our drivers, it was not only Alex who secured a well-deserved position in A-main final but it was also Teemu who set TQ and secured the very important starting position at the grid in the A-main final. I settled into the D-main final and considering all the situations I went through it was very satisfactory to me.
The night after the qualifiers was difficult, as I was still analyzing everything we were doing, and despite being happy with the good results so far I was naturally nervous about the main finals coming the next morning. After resting a bit, I woke up in the morning fully motivated and all fresh to take on the 40°C hot weather, to do the very best I could, and of course support and back up our team. |
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| The finals were fairly good for me as I was really relaxed and the car was almost driving itself and on rails, so at the end I finished in overall 32nd place. Considering that this was a race attended by World champions, European Champions, Asian Champions, and of course all factory teams... it was a very good result I think. Over and above my satisfaction with my own performance, I was extremely happy with the team results. Teemu was simply unbeatable and he confirmed his previous domination by winning both of the first two finals from start-to-finish without any mistakes or giving anyone any opportunity to challenge his lead. By securing wins in both the first finals, Teemu had already achieved overall victory. Teemu did not run the third final and as such I could watch Alex closely. Despite his young age, Alexâ™s talent and motivations are really big. After the start he worked his way through traffic into 2nd place and over the whole 5 minutes was cruising without any mistakes behind leader Andy Moore. Alex crossed the finish line in 2nd, which in the end gained him the 4th overall position... a great result and for sure an even greater motivation for future races. |
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| Leaving Bangkok I felt very exhausted as the high temperatures were dehydrating me a lot, and over the week I could not rest and worked from very early morning until the late evening. I was exhausted but satisfied with the overall results, but mainly for the performance of the car as I knew we had a strong contender with the T2â 008 for upcoming races and the upcoming Euros and Worlds. |
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| After coming home I was again pulled into daily issues and had to switch to âśoff-road modeâť again, confirming all the latest changes and production progress which were made meanwhile. Now I am heading to package up all my off-road stuff and the final production XB808 and flying over to US for the Silverstate buggy & truggy race, then after that I am flying with the team to the Off-road Worlds track in Charlotte for testing and preparing the new off-road car for the Worlds. |
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So, back to work, back to the races, and back to the what I like best⦠working on new improvements and testing them to bring XRAY customers the very best.
Links to set-up sheets:
Teemu Leino Winning Set-up sheet.
Alexander Hagberg Set-up sheet.
Enjoy the ride and â till the next time.
Dipl. Eng. Juraj Hudy
Chief designer XRAY |
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