Last week the XRAY Championship Korea 2004 was held at the GF Circuit in Seoul, Korea. This race was specially organised by the XRAY distributer JinHo Korea.
They invited me to attend this race and to provide assistance and technical support. The race was devided in four classes. Electric 1/10 stock and modified touring cars of any brand, electric 1/18 stock and modified only XRAY M18 allowed.
The tyres for the touring cars were choosen to be TakeOff CS32 or CS37. The 1/18 class only allowed XRAY M18 with only XRAY tyres, batteries, motors and speedo.
(click to enlarge)
Friday and saterday their was an open practise for all competitors. Most drivers came on saterday to practise. Due the very hot weather, 40 degree in the shadow, it was difficult to find the right tyre and insert combination. In the afternoon the track temperatuur raised above 60 degree celsius! After testing insert I wasn't happy with the balance. Due the hot track temperatuur the rear was very loose and the car was oversteering too much. I decided to change the one-way to a spool. At most track this will help the handling and the rear traction. And also on this technical track my car was awesome! The spool gave me 0.5 sec faster laptimes and a much more consistent car. Slightly softer damping helped also which gave the car a bit more overall traction.
(click to enlarge)
For this race the organization had received around 80 registrations which is pretty good. Most top Korea drivers attended this race.
Sunday started with one controlled practise followed by 3 qualifications and three mains for all A-finals.
After qualifing I grabbed TQ with a margin of 8 seconds by Korea champ Lee, Jung-Woo with his Team Much More powered Barracuda.
(click to enlarge)
In the first A-main I messed up my start pretty bad. I clibbed a kerb and landed on my roof. I had to fight back from tenth postion. On the end of the final I still menaged to win the final with Lee in second place. In the second final I rolled my car in the first corner and I had to start again from ten position. Again it was pretty easy to catch up with the leader and win the final. This gave me the overall win, the crowd went crazy!! Second place went to Seo, Dong-IL with a Tamiya and third place to Jang, Ji-Hyun with his Barracuda.
(click to enlarge)
After the race the organisation had arrange some kind of lottery where all racers could win fantastic XRAY/Hudy products including a complete T1 Evo2 FTC and several M18 cars.
(click to enlarge)
I want to thank XRAY and exclusive Korean import company JinHo and GF circuit for inviting me for this race and putting on a great event. Special thanks to Ernie and Hyun to take care of me that week and showing me around. Without them you will be lost in that city!!
