This weekend it was the Swedish Nationals in 2WD and 4WD 1/10th buggy. The venue was once again the beautiful dirt track in Falun, Sweden. The race had attracted many top drivers from all over Sweden. For example the Kyosho's David Ronnefalk and Christoffer Svensson, TLR's Oskar Levin and Otto Ausfelt, AE's Niclas M?nsson, Schumachers Kenneth Malkusson to name a few. Track layout is pretty small and not all that technical but it's still demanding due to it's low 20s laptimes and high tempo. Conditions was mainly moist surface and at the end rainy.
The setup i started with was the same from the previous Summer Cup race here in Falun. It was a good base and i felt it was okay in tempo during practice so i started with it for the qualies.
In the qualies the tempo was high right away as expected at the top and it was alot about not making mistakes and keeping the wheels to the ground. David took Q1, Niclas 2nd and with myself in 3rd, around 1 sec between each of us and we all had a relative clean round. Q2 was canceled due to rain. In Q3 I took the TQ with Chrstoffer in 2nd and XRAY driver Kennie Ekenstierna in 3rd. David and Niclas had a rough round and was lower down. For the final Q4 round it was close between me, David and Niclas and with David in the end taking the overall TQ. I took 2nd and Niclas 3rd.
During the qualies i changed from the middle position to the lower position of the front arm bushings and it gave me some more low speed steering and also on corner exit which I felt i needed.
(click to enlarge)
So the finals got going. In A1 top 3 got away nicely and was it was pretty tight. After around 2 mins i made mistake and went down to the back of the pack but finished 7th in the end. David took A1 after a tight fight in the end with Christoffer in 2nd. Niclas 3rd. In A2 we once again got away clean and stayed that way pretty much to the end of the final with some fights over 2-4th at the last laps. David took the win in the end and thereby the National Title. I was 2nd and Niclas 3rd. For Q3 the rain was just about getting started as the start got under way and at the end of the 5 min final the heavens had opened. Only 2 cars finished, XRAY driver Kennie Ekenstierna and Niclas. Importantly for me i took 3rd and took 2nd overall in the event. By Kennies win he took a very nice 4th place of the event.
In the finals i changed from standard hexes in the front to the -0.75mm and they worked very well and made feeling very nice in the car.
In the end the car worked really good and i felt it had the pace during the day, fastest laptime of the event, and as always it ran very reliable without any troubles.
(click to enlarge)
Top 10 4WD:
1. David Ronnefalk 2. Magnus Vässmar - XRAY XB4
3. Niclas Mansson 4. Kennie Ekenstierna - XRAY XB4
5. Christoffer Svensson
6. Oskar Levin
7. Otto Ausfelt
8. Marcus Lind
9. Calle Svensson
10. Kenneth Malkusson
