It was round 6 of the national title held on the rough astroturf track at Mol. Mol is in Belgium but because the nice Belgium guys always drive with us in the Netherlands we also drive on that track.
It was the 6th race out of 7 and this weekend it was possible for me to take the national title. The only thing I had to do was finish 3rd.
Saturday I was searching for a good set-up⦠a good set-up with enough pack to land after very big jumps and bad landings , but also soft enough to race through the scary, rough, fast, bumpy sections.
(click to enlarge)
My set-up was awesome. The car was easy to drive and very stable on bumpy sections.
In the first qualifier it was XRAY driver Bart Mullink who took the fastest qualifying time with me in 2nd place with a gap of 0.2 sec after 5 min of driving very closely. In the second round it was me who took TQ this time, being 7 seconds faster than in the first round. This time it was Bart who was 2nd and he was at least 0.2 sec behind me. For the third and last round I decided to try a thinner front diff. I felt the car was faster but more difficult to drive, and a very big mistake meant I didnâ™t have a good result this round. So Bart took his first TQ, as he drove 0.5 sec faster than my TQ in the second round.
The half final was not that good because I forgot to put back the thicker front diff. After 5 minutes of driving the stability was gone and the best I could do at that moment was a 2nd place finish.
After the 1/2 final I reinstalled the thicker front diff, and I started from 2nd place on the grid. After the horn it was Jan Eichhorn who took the lead with me following in 2nd. I kept relaxed, as I saw Janâ™s driving style made the car become more slippery and unstable. I thought, âśHe canâ™t do this for a long time.âť After 5 minutes I took over the lead and not long after I thought he had broke his car. Bad for Jan but for Bart is was pretty good as he became the new 2nd place driver.
My car kept going until the last minute, and made with an overall time which was more than 1sec faster each round. On the speaker; âśJorg van Leuken creates a gap of 1.27 minutes with 1 minute to driveâť. It was over. Victory was mine and I took the Dutch title for the 3rd time! And still with one more race to go!
