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| Race report by Jernej Vuga |
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Report 1st Alpe Adria Race - Tolmin:
This was the beginning of the new born On-road CUP: no additives, monotyre, monoshore.
Since I was also there as a part of the organization team, there was a lot of work for me ahead of the race weekend. Saturday we had free practise and after some organizing duties I made some runs to test the car and to learn the modified new corner that has been made this year. The car was basically OK with my set-up, but I wanted to try something different, so I tested some shock springs + engines. At the end I was happy enough with the car with not much time to test.
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| Sunday it was the race day and there were some things that were urgent to make for the organization (park ferme for tyres and handling with controlled Contact tyres for both 1/10 and 1/8 classes). So, I only had time to take part at the last qualification run. This was quite risky, but at the end all went as planned and I took TQ. After that there were semi-finals to be run and it went again all OK. |
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| At the Alpe Adria Cup races there is also the Superpole: each of 10 finalists is allowed to run 3 consecutive laps alone on the track to make the best lap. In base of the Superpole the final starting grid is formed. It went OK for me and I was on top spot. Before the final we had the usual 3min warm-up, but 1min to the start the car was feeling quite differently. I was thinking that the big tyres were the cause, but I was not so. All the race I had to drive really smoothly, otherwise the rear end was stepping out badly. I managed to finish 1st, but at home I discovered that the front belt was missing 10 teeth. |
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| Report 2nd Alpe Adria Race - Zagreb: |
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| We moved from Slovenia to Croatia for the second round. The track is big and large and the asphalt is very flat, although it was very dusty. On Saturday I tried 2 cars with different configuration and after tests I opted for car number 2 (more flex). But at the end of the day I had a big crash as some debries must have been on the asphalt and the car at top speed just got airborned. As it was already late evening and the damage was heavy I decided to start the race day with the other car. But I needed to find again the set-up, so I opted to use the first 2 runs of qualifying to try different things. And for the 3rd round also the grip level was much better, so I did TQ with a new lap and 5min record. The semis went also OK and then it was Superpole time. My engine was a little too rich, but I managed to make it top spot for the final. |
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| But then there was a change in the schedule we didnâ™t know and after superpole it was immediatelly the final, but we didnâ™t prepare the tyres yet, so we had to ask for a 10min delay. This meant I would start from pitlane. Since my car was really good, I didnâ™t have any worries, it was just important not to have too much hurry and make an accident. After about 2-3 laps I was already in second position and was catching the 1st placed Mihelič. then I passed him an pulled away since my pace was faster about 0,4s per lap. After 10min I had about 2 laps of advantage, but suddenly I lost power on my engine. I somehow managed to get into the pits and my engine died. We saw the glow plug was damaged and we changed it, but the engine started and died again. We then tried with another plug, but the problem was still there. Then we stopped. After the race I discovered that the problem was the silicon filling of the cranckshaft was destroyed and went into the combustion chamber. |
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| Report 3rd Alpe Adria Race â“ Morac-Kirchberg: |
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| Last weekend we had the 3rd race dor the Alpe Adria Cup 2012 race. The venue was the beautiful MORAC track in Kirchberg (Austria). There was a lot of drivers registered at the race (about 70), so it meant the weekend was going to be very interesting. Also the austrian national champion Michael Klausner and some other good drivers were attending the race and in the 1/10th scale we had the pleasure to have the Xray designes Martin Hudy, who also gave excellent tech support to all Xray drivers. |
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Saturday we had free practise and in the first heat I saw that my standard set-up was not working at all, since the track was prepared with a mixture to make the grip level higher. I changed the shocl oil to a thinned one (500) and also put more camber. Now the car was much better, but to make good laps we used small tyres. At the end of the day I was happy enough with the car, although I would need some more practise to fine-tune the car. The fuel consumption was OK with OS engines, so we were able to run 5min, but I needed to be very smoothe out of corners, because we were on the limit. Saturday night we had a nice party, because the track had the 35th aniversary and there was live music...very nice organization.
Sunday we started with qualifying and the first run was going OK till 2 laps from the end when I made a mistake and went off track. As the grass was still humid I lost a lot of time, but anyway the heat was slow, because the track grip was lower. For the second run I just checked the car and the result was better, as we went under 16s barrier. But still the grip level was not perfect. For the last heat we changed the body, because we wanted to test something for the semifinal. The car was quite OK, but not perfect and also the hotter condition was more critical for the fuel consumption. At the beginning I was going OK, but had a lot of problems with traffic, so I lost some time and needed to push more. About 3 laps from the end I saw that from my engine not a lot of smoke is coming so I realy slowe the lap times by more than 1s and the last lap was going to be critical. I just crossed the finish line and the engine stopped. Anyway I still managed the TQ, but by a very small margin of 0,4s from Michael Klausner. |
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For the semi I decided to run again teh old bodyshell. The warm-up before the start was OK so I was confident. About 5 laps after the start my car started to handle strange: in the right corner I had big understeer and in the left it was stepping out. Also accelerating and braking was difficult. Somehow I managed to drive, but I had to lift the throttle a lot. I also went one time into the grass, because I lost the rear end. After a while I understood how to drive the car and began to push more since I didnâ™t want to lose much time. At the end I finished the semi in 1st, but knew it will not be enough for the 1st place. After checking the times I was behind just 10s to the top spot and 5s of this 10s was because I went into the grass. So, with a normal car I think I could be top spot. Later we discovered that I forgot to tighten the front left lower arm pin, so it was just preventing the arm to go away...some luck for the unlucky semi.
For the final we opted to start with a little smaller tyres, because I made the best laps when my rear tyres were about 71mm. In the warm up laps I already felt that the car was OK, so my strategy was to push from the beginning. We opted to refuel at 4.20-4.30min, as 5min was impossible because of the better grip and more heat. At the start the 1st placed Klausner made a mistake and spun. I wanted to overtake him, but he closed the door so we touched a little and i lost some time to him, but at the end of first lap I was already behind him and I saw he was making some mistakes. In the right big corner he ran wide and the dirt and went into the grass. Now I just pushed as much as I could to make a gap to the second Nejc Mihelič. After the first pit I heared that my engine was reving high, so I decided to drive more smoothly, because I didnâ™t want to run out of fuel. I just administrated the gap to about half a lap and as at one moment I had some more traffic and I lost some seconds, I pushed for some laps and made my best lap with small tyres, but after that I decided just to finish and left the throttle again and finished in front by about 6s. |
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| 1/10 results after 3 races |
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1. Garbetta Ruggero XRAY NT1
2. Kokol Stanislav XRAY NT1
3. Knehtl Vladimir
4. Callegari Fabio XRAY NT1
5. Svoljsak Borut XRAY NT1
6. Hudy Martin XRAY NT1
7. Liptak Tomas XRAY NT1
8. Gratton Massimo
9. Pittner Martin XRAY NT1
10. Lindner Martin |
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| 1/8 results after 3 races |
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1. Vuga Stendler Jernej XRAY RX8
2. Mis Valentin
3. Mihelic Nejc
4. Busac Luka
5. Kozlina Uros
6. Matosic Zvonimir
7. Folnovic Dinko
8. Svetlicic Sanjin
9. Gacar Zdenko |
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All in all the race was nice, with some ups and downs, but productive. The drivers were I think all happy with this controlled tyre race and now we have the last race on 14th October in Cervignano (Italy), where also the price ceremony will take place with some nice tombola prizes + sponsorship prizes for top 3 classified in both 1/10 and 1/8 class.
From my side I would like to thank my sponsors: Xray, Hudy, TopRC, OS engine, Roga.
See you in Cervignano! |
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