In the weekend of 27th â“ 28th of April, only 2 weeks after the first round, the 2nd round was up in Bad-Breisig. The weather forecast of this weekend was a bit doubtful on Sunday morning, as it turned out to be wet. On Saturday we had allot of track time because the weather was pretty good. Around 15:00 we had a decent setup for the engine and car and we decided to do some checks on the car and do a âśshakedownâť for Sunday.
On Sunday morning the weather was wet, just like they predicted. We took no chance and did one wet run. Because during the 2nd rounds of qualifying the track dried really fast and if the last round was not completely dry we would have no valid qualification. Because this rule only 11 people had qualified for the finals. They decided not to run semifinals and run an 11 car main.
After the wet qualification standings were:
1. Kröger Thomas
2. Baumann Martin
3. Schewiola Frank
4. Cuypers Steven 5. Nauth Claus - XRAY RX8
6. Ermen John - XRAY RX8
7. Hepp Tobias - XRAY RX8
8. Vahrenkamp Ralf
9. Yaramishyan Alexey 10. Baldes Uwe - XRAY RX8
11. Wurst Christian
After the last qualification there was a longer lunch break because there were no semifinals in the class 1, the sun came through and the track dried completely.
At the start of the final the first lap was a bit messy because of the wet qualification the level of drivers were spread throughout the grid. And the start had a bit of a âśharmonica effectâť;-) At the start I decided to take it easy and to see what will happen. After only 1 lap Steven was in the lead from place 4 of the grid and I was in 2nd position from 6th place of the grid. One lap later Steven made a small mistake in the infield and I was able to pass to take over the lead.
I was able to expand my lead to 2 -3 seconds in the first 5 minutes. Because Steven was on another pit stop strategy with refueling, he refueled on 5 minutes and me on 4:20 I needed to pick up the pace to have a bit of an extra lead for the extra fuel stop I needed to make. At halftime I was 8 - 10 seconds in front of when I came into the pit for new tires. After the tire change I had some problems overtaking some back markers and I needed to make an extra stop to correct the body. Steven was then in the lead, but also he was confronted with some back markers which caused him to go off-track and gave back the lead to me. With some 7 minutes to go my first gear broke down.
A marshal needed to bring my car back to the pit and Ismail fitted a new 1st gear so we could finish the race. We lost about 1 minute with the change, but it was still enough for the 3rd place.
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After the 30 minutes final:
1. Cuypers Steven 2. Hepp Tobias - XRAY RX8
3. Ermen John - XRAY RX8
4. Wurst Christian
5. Vahrenkamp Ralf 6. Baldes Uwe - XRAY RX8
7. Baumann Martin
8. Schewiola Frank
9. Kröger Thomas
10. Yaramishyan Alexey 11. Nauth Claus - XRAY RX8
Too bad of the first gear in the main, because I was in a comfortable lead at the time. But because of a fast repair still a podium finish. Package was working really well, another best lap of the day (14,716).
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Thanks to Ismail and Frank for the fast fuelstops and tire change. And thanks to my sponsors for the support: Team XRAY, REDS Engines, Blitz Bodies, Team Titan, Tornado Fuel, Matrix Tires, FVSS Shop, and RC Car Color.
Next race: 2nd Dutch Championship in Groningen in 2 weeks
Until next time. CU!
