The third round of the 1/10th nitro Dutch Nationals took place at the RACO2000 track in Utrecht. This old venue seems to get bumpier over the year, as drivers had a hard time keeping their cars on track during the first hours of training on Saturday. Luckily, we again had some fine racing weather, which gave drivers plenty of time to make some proper set-up adjustments to fit the track conditions.
In qualification Team XRAYâ™s Pedro Rombouts showed he worked out some fine set-up on his NT1 doing lap times 0,2 faster over the rest of the field. After the qualifying round he managed to do his three best conservative laps in 46,8 seconds. Some half a second back a group of five drivers were just 0,3 from each other, giving the other direct main final places to Julius Kolff, Daan Stuiver and Ricardo Hofmeijer. As Roy Bakker and Richard Keur had to settle for the top spots at the two semi-finals.
Qualification:
1. Pedro Rombouts â“ XRAY NT1
2. Julius Kolff
3. Daan Stuiver
4. Ricardo Hofmeijer
In the main final the front two duo hit trouble at the very start of the race, as Julius had a flame out on the grid. While Daan punched away from third hitting TQ sitter Pedro at the very first meters, resulting Pedro had to continue his race with a slightly tweaked car and a gap of some 10 seconds from the leaders of the race. The pit crew of Julius got him back on track some 1 lap behind the leaders.
The next 20 minutes of the race nothing much happened, as only Pedro and Julius worked their way up the racing order. Eventually Pedro got back in 2nd place as Ricardo hit trouble with his car, with Daan still in a steady leading position. This washed away as a loosen rear wing on Daans car made it impossible to continue his race. Now Pedro was leading again, as he did only the very first 3 meters of the race. In second Julius got stuck with another flame out during the race, so Pedro had a steady lead of a whole lap over him. However, in the very last 4 minutes of the race things got exiting as Pedro lost the 2nd gear on his car. After all the gap was big enough for Pedro to finish the race in first place, doing 107 laps. Behind him Julius came up short 10 seconds, as he also raced 107 laps. In third it was Roy who managed to do 105 laps. In fourth this seasons newcomer Pieter Bottema piloted his NT1 to 103 laps.
Final:
1. Pedro Rombouts â“ XRAY NT1
2. Julius Kolff
3. Roy Bakker 4. Pieter Bottema - XRAY NT1
5. Gaston van Kleef
6. Ricardo Hofmeijer
7. Iwan Biesot 8. Raymond Tempelaars â“ XRAY NT1
9. Milan Holthuis
0. Daan Stuiver
