The sixth race of the Middle Swedish Electric Car Cup ⓠthe largest indoor series in Sweden ⓠwas run in Norrtälje. The track is not permanent but the Norrtälje crew did a great job of preparing a fast and bump-free racetrack.
(click to enlarge)
This was my second race with a link car, LiPo batteries, and 13.5 spec motor. My first race was 3 weeks previous and started it out with chaos but ended with a 3rd place finish and the fastest lap of the race. It was a good start and at this race I was hoping to do even better!
The track looked fast and not particularly difficult to drive, so I put on pink rear tires and double-pink front tires and went out for the first practice heat with the same set-up I ended up with in the first race.
The car felt really good but a bit twitchy leaving the straight so for the second practice I changed to harder front springs and changed the reactive caster from the 0mm insert to +0.5mm; this made the car much more stable. The car felt good but I was still a bit behind on lap times â“ especially from the fast cup-leader Mackan Göransson and home driver Christofer Hedlund â“ so I decided to try harder (grey) rear tires. This made the car faster and after the first round of qualification I was in 3rd place. This felt good since I had a hard crash going out on the straight, after that I thought that the diff was loose because the car didnâ™t track straight during acceleration. After the heat I found out that when I hit the barrier on the straight the left wheel had almost locked the rear axle from spinning.
Since the track was rather small there were only 8 cars in each final. I felt great but knew the finals would be tough since everyone had very close lap times.
The start of the first final was good for me and I got away without any troubles. Behind me Christofer made a rocket start and went by Maxx immediately. They battled for the first lap and that gave me time to settle in, nothing much really happened other than Christofer challenged me from time to time and although we where within a second for most of the race I was able to fend him off until the finish.
The second final started nearly the same as the first for me, but Maxx was on his toes and kept Christofer behind him for the first lap. As soon as Christofer passed Maxx he started to put pressure on me and this time I wasnâ™t as focused as in the first final so I a few small mistakes but could still keep him behind until the second to last lap. Thatâ™s when I hit a curb and let him by so I finished 2nd and that meant we could both win the race.
For the last final I had a good start. Something happened behind me so Christofer ended up last after a few corners. Then I made a mistake and let Maxx by. I tried to catch him but I knew that as long as Christofer was behind me I would win the race so when we lapped him I relaxed a bit. But apparently I relaxed a bit too much and I let a few cars by again. I re-took one position and had a really fun race with a recovering Magnus Hedlund for the last half of the race, but I could not make a clean pass on him because he was keeping his car tight on the race line so I finished 3rd in the last final. Since Christofer was over a lap down on me it was enough for me to bring home the trophy!
Anders had some trouble trying to catch up from behind so he ended up in 8th place which in the end was an okay result considering the competition.
The next race will be the Swedish Nationals with modified motors and that will be really fun (I hope).
