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| The 2011 European Championship for 1/8 off-road will be held in Sand Am Main, Germany. The EC is the biggest and the most important race of the year, and so all drivers who are planning to attend want to be prepared as good as possible so therefore most of them attended the official Euros Warm-up. |
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The Euros Warm-up was held May 13-15 and over 120 drivers from all over Europe attended. The weather was on our side this time as it was sunny for nearly the entire event. The action with open practice on Friday, then qualifiers on Saturday, and finals on Sunday.
Team XRAY was well represented at this important event with its race team and also the support team. Team XRAY is the main sponsor of this yearâ™s European Championship and so the support team was present at the Warm-up and will of course be at the Euros itself. Excellent support was provided by German XRAY distributor, SMI. The team consisted of Juraj and Martin Hudy, Teemu Leino, Carlos Duraes, Jirka Mara, Robin Frischkopf and of course by other team drivers from Germany, Greece, and other countries. |
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| Timed practice went very well for Teemu, Carlos, and Robin who were on pace right from the beginning. We were all in a good mood before the qualifiers. Even though the car was working very well, we were not happy with the qualifiers because the two best XRAY drivers, Carlos and Teemu, were only in the quarter finals. The problem was with the heats; the Euros track is quite small (less than 30sec lap times) and so putting 12 cars at a time on the track was simply too much. We saw many crashes and lots of traffic, and it was difficult to get a clean run. Bad luck also visited Jirka Mara who was very fast in every run but who was unfortunately hit by other drivers in the last lap; he qualified in the 1/16 final. |
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The finals went much better for us. Jirka proved that his car was working very well and was fast enough to do battle with the best European drivers. He bumped up from 1/16 to the semi-final without any problems. In the semi, he had a great start when he moved from 11th to 4th place right from the start, and even though he had much more experienced drivers behind him they were not able to catch him as he slowly pulled away. With an excellent run he finished 4th ahead of Darren Bloomfield, Renaud Savoya, Daniel Vega, Neil Craig and others.
Teemu was also able to easy bump up from the quarter-final to the semi, and then also into the final. Carlos and Robin were not that lucky and did not bump up to the semi. In both cases the reason was bad luck at the start. Even though the semi-final is 20 minutes, with such stiff competition when a driver makes a mistake s/he almost always loses contact with others, leaving no chance to bump up. |
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So there we had two drivers in the final â“ Jirka Mara and Teemu Leino. Before the main final, there was a 20min Junior final. In that final we had three drivers: Martin Hansen from Denmark who just recently joined our team, Ludvik Kurecka from Czech Republic, and Jonas Bauer the son of the track owner.
This final went very well for us when after a short time after the start Ludvik Kurecka moved to the front. Unfortunately, he made several small errors and lost the lead. In the middle of the final Martin Hansen was able to take the lead and stayed there until the end. So, this final was very successful for us when we were able to finish in 1st, 4th, and 8th places. |
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| Final results - Junior |
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1. Martin Hansen XRAY XB808'11
2. Oscar Baldo
3. Christopher Schellein
4. Ludvik Kurecka XRAY XB808'11
Before the start of the main final it started to rain a little and the track was slippery at the beginning. We were not that lucky in the final because Teemu made several errors at the beginning and lost contact with the rest of the field. Jirkaâ™s plug broke on the starting line and he lost some time right at the start, then he had an engine stoppage which cost him 2 laps and no chance to fight for the top positions. However, Jirka was able to make one of the best times of the race and was able to drive with the best European drivers, which was a fantastic result for him. |
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| Final results |
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1. Robert Batlle
2. Darren Bloomfield
3. Jerome Aigoin
4. Simon Willets
5. Daniel Reckward
6. Martin Bayer
7. Jerome Sartel
8. Teemu Leino XRAY XB808'11
9. Jirka Mara XRAY XB808'11
10. Renaud Savoya
11. Martin Karner
12. Yannick Aigoin
So, even though we did not finish in the top places, we were happy with the results because we had two cars in the final and won the Junior race. All the drivers were happy with the carâ™s performance. Service was provided at very high level and all XRAY drivers were given great support at the track. We can honestly say that this event was successful for us and we are already looking forward to the European Championship. |
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