This weekend the Swedish Nationals was held in the town of Växjö, in the south central parts of Sweden. The classes that were to be run was 1/10 touring mod and 1/12 mod. The track layout was pretty challening with some tight 180 degree corners and tricky chickanes. ETS RIDE tyres was ussed. Grip was medium high and the racing tight in both classes.
In 1/10 touring most of swedens fast drivers were attening. Some of the XRAY drivers was local driver and swedish 1/8 onroad nitro Champion Markus Hellquist, Niclas Nilsson, Magnus Vässmar and Oliver Olsson.
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The qualiefiers got underway on saturday after a whole day of free practise on friday. 3 out of 5 rounds were to count and it was down to the last qualifier round to decide the TQ. In Q1 Magnus Vässmar took the round infront of Niclas Nilsson and Markus Hellquist. Q2 saw Niclas take the round infront of Markus, Magnus hade a malfunction with the transponder. Q3 was like Q1 with Magnus, Niclas and Markus as the order. Q4 went to Niclas and Magnus 2nd, so for the last round Magnus and Niclas had 2 TQ rounds each. Every round so far had been around 1-2 seconds between the 1st and 2nd place. Q5 was run at sunday morning. It started of tight but some little scruffy drving from Niclas removed his chance for TQ. Magnus took the round infront of Markus and Daniel Carlsson. Thereby Magnus secured the overall TQ.
The finals went underway and in F1 Magnus pulled a good gap right away and could have a clean run to the finish. Behind him there was some tight fights and in the end Daniel Carlsson finished 2nd infront of Michael Nilsson. Markus and Niclas had some driving mistakes and therby putting them further down in the finishing order. F2 saw a very tight fight between Magnus and Niclas from start to finish. Niclas tried to make moves to get passed but Magnus finally took the win just 0.2seconds in front of Niclas. Therby Magnus took the overall win and sat out the last final so the other guys cleanly could fight for the other podium places. In F3 Niclas could take a confirtable win infront of Markus and of Daniel. So top 3 was Magnus, Niclas and Daniel.
Both Magnus and Niclas used setups simular from the last ETS and the cars worked very well. Good rotation and feeling over the whole weekend.
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Top 10:
1. Magnus Vässmar XRAY T4
2. Niclas Nilsson - XRAY T4
3. Daniel Carlsson
4. Michael Nilsson 5. Markus Hellquist - XRAY T4
6. Mikael Fransson 7. Oliver Olsson - XRAY T4
8. Jonas Andersson
9. Christian Holmström
10. Mattias Johansson
In 1/12 track there was drivers from Sweden and also Norway. Some of the XRAY drivers was Niclas Nilsson, Karl Ullenius and Lars Haugen from Norway. It was the rocket round qualification system that was used with the best round out of five.
After practice it was Niclas Nilsson, Alexander Andersson and the norwegian 1/12 Euro 2013 A-finalist Helge Johnesen fastes guys on the track. Q1, Niclas had problems with traction roll and had tough round. Magnus Hedlund was fastest that round. Q2, Niclas superglued the front sidewall of the tyres to help get rid of the traction rolls problems. It helped and Niclas was fastest that round after Helge and Alex. Q3, Niclas had a clean 8 min without any mistakes and took the TQ with 1 lap infront of Helge and Alexander. This was to be the overall TQ run for Niclas. Q4, Niclas had better pace to start with than in Q3 but had one mistake that set him back 4 seconds.
Q5, Track was slower than in Q3 and Q4, Alexander was fastest front of Niclas and Helge.
For finals we have top 3: 1. Niclas Nilsson - XRAY X12
2. Alexander Andersson
3. Helge Jonnesen
F1, Niclas led for over 6 min when he had a problem with back marker and lost a front bodyclip so the body got tucked. Niclas finished 3rd infront of Alex and Helge.
F2, Niclas had a bad start and both Alex and Helge pass him on the first lap. After 1 min Niclas car work better and better and in end Niclas won the 2nd final after passing Alex and Helge.
F3, Niclas got a clean start and was leading the final for several minutes but then again he had a problem with a back marker. Helge got passed him but for the rest of the final Niclas challenged him and eventually took the win and theryby to be the new 1/12 swedish champion.
