The 2011 Swedish Nationals for electric touring cars was held at the beautiful Dackeringen circuit outside Växjö in southern Sweden. In attendance were some 15 drivers from all over Sweden. The national race used the Sorex 36 (pre-glued by Schumacher) as the control tire. Drivers were to use two complete sets for qualifying and finals. Many drivers arrived already on Friday to practice and prepare.
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During the Friday open practice I focused mainly on my electronics, trying to pinpoint the correct motor, gearing and speedo set-up for these particular conditions. As the track is fairly large, and a lot of power is needed, I opted to use a optional fan on my motor for better cooling. As to the set-up, I started off with my set-up from the Euros warm-up in Austria. This set-up worked really well from the start and I only had to make some minor changes on the car. I decreased the Ackermann by removing shims from the steering rack, and I also found that the middle length front camber link worked better than the shortest position which was used in Vienna. I soon found that the difference between new and old tires was not that big, with only the single fastest lap being slightly faster on new tires, and the full 5 minute run about same.
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In qualifying I won all rounds with ease. The car was handling great without any major set-up changes. Magnus Vässmar secured 2nd place overall, followed by the talented Michael Nilsson (also driving XRAY). Daniel Carlsson was in 4th place, driving a Yokomo chassis. All drivers enjoyed some good rounds of qualifying with nice sunny weather and perfect conditions. In qualifying I set the fastest lap time of 15.2sec, which was very close to the lap record of the 200mm nitro cars (which was 15.1sec).
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Unfortunately for Sunday and finals day, the weather changed drastically, with grey skies and pouring rain. A wet track with large puddles of water meant that many drivers decided to sit out the mains. With my previous rain racing experience, I knew that I had a waterproofing method that worked, and a rain set-up which handled well for these conditions. I decided to race, which allowed me to win my first ever Swedish National title. The podium was all XRAY, with the 2nd place taken by Mattias Johansson, and 3rd place taken by Carl Rönnbäck driving a regular T3 chassis. The first 5 places in the overall standings were won by XRAY cars.
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Top 10 results as follows:
1. Alexander Hagberg - XRAY T3'2011
2. Mattias Johansson - XRAY T3'2011
3. Carl Rönnbäck - XRAY T3
4. Magnus Vässmar - XRAY T3'2011
5. Michael Nilsson - XRAY T3
6. Daniel Carlsson
7. Alexander Andersson
8. Joachim Gustavsson
9. Göran Persson
10. Kenneth Carlsson
