Back to the homeland! End of March saw the best french drivers traveling to southern France near glamorous Saint Tropez for racing the 1st round of french national. The RC Cogolin club did a great job to offer one of the most beautiful and technical layout we could race on. Unfortunately, the sky was really threatening as we went thru practices on Saturday morning. I mainly worked on the shocks and tires during the practices, to get the best traction and grip as the track was dusty and slippery. I started with 6 holes 1,4mm pistons as I was thinking the track will get damaged and high grip. It wasn't the case so I went back to my standard 6 holes 1,2. Actually I had more traction, and more pack so the car was jumping better.
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As I was learning the layout, I managed to qualify 2nd after the timed practice. Then, the clouds started to unload and the track became flooded! Unfortunately, the round was already started so we had to finish it! We ran Q1 in survivor conditions, under water and over paddles everywhere! Many drivers suffered radio or engine problems and had to retire, not mentioning the ones that preferred not to race. I raced clear and ended up 2nd for the round.
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For Q2, the rain stopped for a while and the club pour some saw dust over the track. The conditions were a bit better, but the track became muddy and sticky! I opted for harder clutch springs and shorter gear ratio to face off the dirty conditions. Unfortunately, when I drove the track wasn't really sticky, I had too much power and I crashed twice.
They took only one round over 2 for overall results. A huge amount of rain fell during the night, so the track wasn't practicable on Sunday. The club took the decision to cancel the race and seal the result on qualifications, as the rain was supposed to occur all day.
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1. Jerome Aigoin 2. Renaud Savoya - XRAY XB9
3. Yannick Aigoin
4. Jerome Sartel
5. Nicolas Rodriguez
6. Nicolas Reynaud
7. Edouard Hugon
8. Tom Robin
9. Jean-Pierrick Sartel
10. Romain Valter
