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On the 1st and 2nd March the Corally Thunderdays took place again at the Megadrom in Geilenkirchen/Germany. Despite to some date confrontations it was only 75 people attending this year.
Controlled tyres were Corally A and B tyres.
The track had a very fast layout and the carpet built up a lot of grip quickly, so most people were struggling with their setup, due to grip roll.
In Modified the first 4 top drivers from last year, Jilles Groskamp (XRAY) from Holland, Markus Mobers (XRAY) and Heinz-JĂĽrgen Kallinowski (XRAY) from Germany, as well as Gunther van Staey (LOSI) from Belgium, looked strong in free practice. Further on it was Steve Lambrechts (SCHUMACHER) from Belgium as well, whose car looked very comfortable.
In Stock track owner Heinz-JĂĽrgen Kallinowski was using a Tamiya 414 M2. He was fast in practice but closely followed by Michael Spiering (XRAY) and only 12year old Christian Walkenhorst (XRAY).
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| Qualifying Modified: |
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The best two rounds of qualifying on time were counted for the starting grid in the finals.
The first round of qualifying showed a strong performance from Jilles, who went half a lap faster than Markus Mobers, both on their XRAY T1 Evoâ™s. Third spot went to Gunther van Staey.
The next round was pretty fast and Markus found a way to keep Jilles his pace. In this round both cars were separating about 0.5 to 1 second until the 4.50 minute mark. On the straight, right on front of Jilles, a backmarker (his battery was already dumped) crashed and Jilles fully ran into him and a second later Markus crashed into both. The result was, that Jilles could not finish his last lap, so Markus took the win in this round followed by Jilles, who still was second in this round, even he had not finished his lap.
In the next four rounds of qualifying Jilles and Markus were dominating the field. Their cars looked incredible stable and the corner speed was brilliant. Markus tried hard to sneak away TQ from Jilles, but Jilles stayed cool and took TQ. Markus followed in second closely.
Third spot went to Gunther van Staey, who drove extremely well.
1. Groskamp XRAY T1 EVO 2
2. Mobers XRAY T1 EVO 2
3. van Staey Losi
4. Kallinowski XRAY T1 EVO 2
5. Lambrechts Schumacher
6. Jespers XRAY T1 EVO 2
7. Seyfried XRAY T1 EVO 2
8. Lasay Associated TC3
9. de Weerd Associated TC3
10. Sonval Losi |
| Qualifying Stock: |
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From begin on it was a fight between Michael Spiering (XRAY) and track owner Heinz-JĂĽrgen Kallinowski (Tamiya) for the prestigious TQ spot. They both were on exactly the same speed, but Spiering always made little tiny mistakes, which gave Kallinowski enough room to pull away. As far as driving skill and car performance is concerned,12 year old Christian Walkenhorst (XRAY) could keep up with them, but it seems that he had not the luck of getting a good motor. His power was so bad in qualifying, so he had to settle for third spot.
Here are the resuls after qualifying:
1. Kallinowski Tamiya
2. Spiering XRAY T1 Evo2
3. Walkenhorst,C XRAY T1 Evo2
4. Völlinger XRAY T1 Evo2
5. Lein Corally
6. Aretz XRAY T1 Evo2
7. Haarich XRAY T1 Evo2
8. Walkenhorst,M XRAY T1 Evo2
9. Wiedemann XRAY T1 Evo2
10. Manhart XRAY T1 Evo2 |
| A-Finals Modified |
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| Jilles took the lead after the starting tone in the first final. Markus followed him extremely close and tried to find a way to pass Jilles. Both were pulling away fastly from the others in the first two laps. In lap three Markus tried to make a move on Jilles, but he touched Jilles car on the back and turned him around. Markus waited for Jilles to let him go by again and Jilles took the lead again. Due to this incident Gunther van Staey sneaked between Jilles and Markus to take second. Markus put the pressure on Gunther now and passed him after two laps again to take second spot. Jilles had a 1.5 second lead now, but Markus tried hard to catch up again. At the 4.30 minute mark Jilles still had a lead of 1 second. At the end of the straight Jilles made a tiny mistake and crashed into the border. When he came onto the track again he touched Markus and took him out. |
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Gently Jilles waited for Markus now, so in the last lap Jilles had to chase Markus. Markus stayed cool and won just over 4 tenth in front of Jilles. Gunther van Staey took third easily. Steve Lambrechts took fourth closely followed by Heinz-JĂĽrgen Kallinowski.
In the second leg Jilles again took the lead at the start from Markus and Gunther.
Both XRAY cars pulled away again from the field very easily. At the three minute mark Jilles made a small mistake and Markus sneaked into the lead. Jilles was chasing Markus big time now and sometimes the cars were side by side. The crowd was excited and a lots of âśwowsâť and âśuhhhsâť were heard. Markus stayed cool though and won this leg as well by half a second. With this win Markus was already the winner of the Corally Thunderdays 2003.
Another exciting last final was won by Jilles with 4 tenth ahead of Markus. |
| Here are the final results: |
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1. Markus Mobers XRAY T1 Evo2
2. Jilles Groskamp XRAY T1 Evo2
3. Gunther van Staey Losi
4. Steve Lambrechts Schumacher
5. Patrick Jespers XRAY T1 Evo2
6. Heinz-JĂĽrgen Kallinowski XRAY T1 Evo2
7. Andreas Seyfried XRAY T1 Evo2
8. Alain Sonval Losi
9. Koen Lasay Associated TC3
10. Guy de Weerd Associated TC3 |
| A-Finals Stock: |
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Kallinowski took the lead at the start of the first stock final closely followed by XRAY-driver Spiering.
Spiering tried to keep up with the pace from Kallinowski and could follow him very shortly until he made some big mistakes. In second was now, coming from eighth place on the grid, 9 year old Marco Walkenhorst (XRAY) closely followed by Spiering. Marco could not stay to the pressure from Spiering and had to let him go.
Kallinowski easily pulled away from everybody and won from Spiering and Marco Walkenhorst.
In the second leg TQ man Kallinowski again sneaked into the lead but now followed by 12 year old Christian Walkenhorst (XRAY). Christians father finally found the right motor setup and so Christian was chasing Kallinowski big time. It was very funny to see such a young and talented boy racing against an experienced man, who is twice as big and old than Christian. Christian really tried hard to catch up but Heinz-JĂĽrgen Kallinowski stayed cool and also won the second leg closely followed by Christian Walkenhorst and Michael Spiering.
Heinz-JĂĽrgen Kallinwoski took therefore the overall win, but who will be second?? One of the Walkenhorst brothers or Spiering??
After the start in the last final Kallinowski made a mistake, which allowed Christian Walkenhorst to take the top spot. Spiering was in third, but already had quite a gap between him and the top two. A good race between Christian Walkenhorst and Kallinowski was going on now. The cars were pretty close together and even with his age of 12, Christian now hold the pressure and won the final in front of Kallinowski and Spiering.
Here are the overall results:
1. Heinz-JĂĽrgen Kallinowski Tamiya
2. Christian Walkenhorst XRAY T1 Evo2
3. Michael Spiering XRAY T1 Evo2
4. Jürgen Völlinger XRAY T1 Evo2
5. Marco Walkenhorst XRAY T1 Evo2
6. Ingo Aretz XRAY T1 Evo2
7. Marc Manhart XRAY T1 Evo2
8. Christian Wiedemann XRAY T1 Evo2
9. Michael Haarich XRAY T1 Evo2
10. Sebastian Lein Corally
Technical things:
-Mostly the drivers used MoMo foam inserts in black (hard) or red (medium-hard) as insert. Those inserts are slightly harder than JB foam blue and avoid the tyres from overheating. In combination with the 24mm HUDY-disk wheels, this was working really well.
-After some problems in the beginning, Jilles and Markus tried lots of things with stabilizers. This improved their cars quite a lot, specially the corner speed was raised by that. Their setups can be downloaded on www.myTSN.com.
-Almost every XRAY driver was using the C-Hubs, which are getting popular more and more.
-GP 3300 cells were all over the place.
-65 % of the drivers used XRAY cars
-Most popular bodyshells were Protoform Dodge 2.0, Protoform Dodge and Cartech Dodge
-Markus ran his batteries on the left side, Jilles back and forward
-Lots of people are waiting for the T1R
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