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| Race report by John Ermen |
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We arrived on Thursday afternoon at the Aigen track in Austria for some practice. The weather forecast for Friday, Saturday and Sunday was a bit doubtful so we decided to come Thursday to do some dry practice laps. I had some previous outings with the 2014 car on 3 different tracks and the basic setup immediately worked out pretty good. We changed the shock setup to let the car handle better in the short chicane in the infield. We also tried some different BLITZ bodies that were mounted more forward to accommodate some more steering without compensating for rear traction. At the end of the day we changed from our usual Matrix foam to the Contact hand-out tire that was used in this race. We did not need to adjust the setup of the car as the feeling of the rims and tires combination were the same.
On Friday timed practice was up and so was the rain. The track was wet all day as some drivers encountered the wet track conditions to do some practice we decided to prepare our wet car back in the hotel as we did enough wet laps last weekend at the Dutch Nationals in Groningen.
On Saturday one more practice session and qualifying was up but unfortunately the rain never left... The showers stopped after the last timed practice - which we did not run to avoid problems with electronica in the race - so the track did not contain puddles of water. We setup the rain car with some soft jelly suspension and made the car flex a little more as we should normally do in the dry conditions. The rain stopped, but as the track was saturated with water it took allot of time to dry. The track was too dry for full wet rain tires and we had to use damp foam tires to qualify. Because the track was drying and the warmup of each heat was about 4 -5 minutes every heat after the other had a "dryer" track which caused the lap times to be allot faster than the heat before. Because I was not able to race the first ENS I was seeded in heat 7 and the A-main finalist of the 1st ENS were in heat 8, which had a "better" track in each round of qualifying.
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In the first round of qualifying my car worked really well in the damp conditions and I was able to take 6th spot in this round. The next round we decided not to change anything and just let the wet tires and the setup do their thing. As the track dried a little bit more I felt my car was working even better in this conditions as in the 1st heat. In the 2nd round I got 2nd place right after Oliver Mack who had a faster time due too positively changing track conditions.
Overnight I had a 3rd place in the A-main and I felt confident with the car and the weather conditions. In the evening we dried the electronics just to be sure interference would stay away from this event....
The next day the track conditions were a bit better - or dryer - as the day before. As my Matrix damp tires of the day before were completely gone by the last - and dryer - qualifier, I needed to use a new set of tires for the last 2 qualifiers. In the 3rd and 4th qualification I noticed that the tire choice was extremely critical as some other drivers were also struggling with the traction on the track. I was not able to improve my times from the day before, and as some other drivers did I dropped to 5th spot in the A-main.
Happy with the result, and also happy with the fact the sun came through and dried the track completely before the 10mins practice run for the A Main, we prepared the car with the dry setup we used on Thursday practice. The 10 min practice run showed that the track changed completely due to all the rain from the last 2,5 days and we needed to make some adjustments on the setup before the final would start.
As the races of the sub finales progressed, the rain showers came again and this time it seemed that it will not stop any day soon. The track became even wetter than before and so we changed back to our wet setup again.
The track was saturated with water and puddles of water were everywhere so the tire choice was quite an easy one to make. We used full rain tires for the final, and made some last-minute setup changes to the car for these conditions. We also fitted another 150gr extra weight above the already 80gr we added earlier. This way the rain tires would have some more weight to push the water away more easily.
At the start of the final I had a clean start and after a bit of a chaotic first lap everyone seeded into a position. I was on 3rd position after the first lap. Because of the rain we also fitted a rain air filter which in no possible way could have got water inside the engine. The down side was that the airflow inside the box was not optimized for top speed, but more to keep the water out. Top speed on the straight was a bit of a problem, but the time I lost on the straight I could easily get back in the infield because of the last minute setup changes we made.
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Mack was on 1st position followed by Pietsch, Hoppe and then me. Hoppe was able to overtake Pietsch and get a connection with Macks back end. I was able to gain in on Pietsch and was able to pass him in the infield. As the final progressed, both Mack and Pietsch got some engine problems and had several flame-outs, which caused them to drop back. After 15 minutes I was in 2nd position behind Hoppe. After some fuel stops the positions changed around between Hoppe, Kurzbuch, Gremlica, Klausner and me which all have been on the lead.
With some 25 minutes to go Hoppe ran into some problems and I was able to take over the lead. 5 minutes later my engine stalled on the end of the straight, which seemed to be a glow plug failure at the time, but a short check at home showed it was a short exhaust spring that had broken from my engine/manifold and was stuck in between the chassis and the flywheel which caused the engine to. Just to be sure, when the car was brought into the pit, Ismail fitted a new glow plug and a dry air box to run the remainder of the final without any problems. I came back on the track in 4th position and was able to pass Klausner on the track and Gremlica in the pits because he also suffered from a flame-out. With still 8 minutes to go I was in 2nd behind Kurzbuch and was catching up on him. As Kurzbuch lost the front body clips during the race he had some problems on the straight and corners with his body lifting from the car. I was able to pass him in the last 3 minutes, build up a lead of 2 laps and take the win of my first ever ENS race when the checkered flag fell. Kurzbuch came in 2nd in front of Klausner.
Unfortunately that it rained all weekend, because driving in the rain - in my humble opinion - is not racing. Nevertheless you still need to be prepared and setup the car different from dry conditions and actually there was allot of racing going on in the rain A-main. My complete rain setup was "in tune" this weekend. I can remember allot of weekends when it was not that optimal ;-)
1. John Ermen (NL) â“ XRAY RX8
2. Simon Kurzbuch (CH)
3. Michael Klausner (AT)
4. Adrien Bertin (FR)
5. Manuel Gremlica (AT)
6. Lars Hoppe (DE)
7. Robert Pietsch (DE)
8. Oliver Mack (DE)
9. Michael Salven (DE)
10. Andrea Pirani (IT)
11. Olaf Engelmann (DE) â“ XRAY RX8
I would like to thank my mechanic Ismail for this weekend as his "rain ideas" worked out pretty good and of course great job in the pit!
And a big thanks to my sponsors for their ongoing support: Team XRAY, REDS Racing Engines, Tornado Fuel, Matrix Tires, Blitz Race Bodies, Team Titan, RC Car Color, RCC Paint and F.V.S.S. RC Shop.
Next race would be the EC in Bologna, which would be run in little less wet conditions I think.... ;-)
Until Next time!
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