|
(click to enlarge) |
|
| Race report by Pedro Rombouts |
|
Round 5 of the 1/10th 200mm took place at the fast â â™MAC de Baanbrekersâ™â™ track in Rucphen. Forecasts for the weekend were quite bad, but on Friday and Saturday drivers had a dry track to do their practice rounds. It would be an interesting race weekend, because Team XRAY Driver Pedro Rombouts had a chance to take the title on his home track before we got to the last race of the season.
Massive rain came down on Sunday morning, and it was clear that it would be a wet qualification. It would be a gamble to drive the 2nd or 3rd rounds to make the best times, so this . gave some other names an opportunity to try to put themselves up front. After round 2, Peter Berkhout got the best time followed by Pedro Rombouts and Fedor Eskes.
Unfortunately for them there were better conditions in the 3rd round, so Pedro Rombouts took pole well ahead of other local driver Ricardo van Dam, XRAY driver Bas Geurts, Daan Jacobs, and Peter Berkhout.
Qualification:
1. Pedro Rombouts â“ XRAY NT1
2. Ricardo van Dam
3. Bas Geurts â“ XRAY NT1
4. Daan Jacobs
5. Peter Berkhout
Later that day the weather was still quite bad with rain coming down every now and then. Before the main final, drivers saw they would start the race on a semi-wet track. So again it was a hard call on tires. In the first few minutes of the race there were a lot of changed positions, but after a while the top 3 qualifiers came back up. Then after 5 minutes it started to rain again and some drivers came in to get other tires, while others stayed out and drove on. After 7 minutes there was thunder in the air above the track, forcing the race director to stop the race.
After this decision, massive rain kept falling down which made a restart impossible. The race direction took some time to think about what to do in this situation, and he decided that there was no other option than to make the start grind of the main final as the final result. This gave Pedro Rombouts the win and the national title, 2nd place went to Ricardo van Dam, and 3rd place went to Bas Geurts.
Final Results:
1. Pedro Rombouts â“ XRAY NT1
2. Ricardo van Dam
3. Bas Geurts â“ XRAY NT1
4. Daan Jacobs
5. Peter berkhout
6. Remy Möller
7. Arco de Jong â“ XRAY NT1
8. Daan Stuiver â“ XRAY NT1
9. Maxim Claes â“ XRAY NT1
10. Jurmin Etnel â“ XRAY NT1
With the national title, the win, 2 cars on the podium and 6 main finalists⦠it was another good day for XRAY!
I would like to thank XRAY, RC-Connect and my mechanic Eddie Rombouts for the support this season!
Picture by Ruben dâ™Arco. |
|
