XRAY took two victories out of four at round three of the Nitro-West-Masters (NWM), a popular on-road racing series mainly held in Western Germany. Uwe Baldes celebrated his first win in 1/8 scale nitro on-road (VG8) since his move to the XRAY RX8â™2014 at the beginning of the 2014 season, and Stefan Schumann brought his XRAY NT1 home on first position at his debut in the HC10 class, 1/10 scale nitro on-road with spec engines.
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At the challenging Motodrom Rhein-Ahr at Bad Breisig, located between Bonn and Koblenz at the river Rhine, Uwe Baldes was able to improve his performance with his Orcan-powered RX8. Following his first podium finish at round two of the Nitro-West-Masters at Dueren early June and another test session on Friday at Bad Breisig, he achieved third position in the heats ranking. But the 30 minutes finale went to be an exciting affair with a couple of lead changes. When the 254 meter track was still dry during the first half of the main race, Baldes was able to take the lead for 20 laps.
Later a few rain drops hit the track but Baldes continued on his Contact
32/35 tires with a smooth driving style to catch a first advantage. Soon the track was dry again and lap times went down to normal. But for the last ten minutes rain came back and increased. At his next pit stop for refueling Baldes called for Contact damp tires which gave him another advantage. Soon he was back at the front again and opened up a huge gap. After 42 laps in second position and 40 laps in the lead, his RX8 crossed the finish line after a total of 93 laps with more than five lap of advantage over the Serpent duo Ralf Vahrenkamp and Frank Schewiola.
Young Philipp Roemer received the trophy as the best junior driver. He was mostly running on fourth and fifth position but decided to retire with his Orcan-powered XRAY RX8â™2014 with no rain tires at hand.
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Final result of the 1/8 scale class (VG8):
1. Uwe Baldes - XRAY RX8
2. Ralf Vahrenkamp
3. Frank Schewiola
4. Christoph Loose
5. Christian Wurst
6. Reinhard Zick
7. Ingo Odenthal
8. Thomas Kroeger 9. Philipp Römer - XRAY RX8
10. Rainer Rosskothen
With his XRAY NT1 Stefan Schumann is a permanent competitor in the regular
1/10 scale class but for the first time he entered the HC10 class using a Sonic spec engine. While Thorsten Lewandowski was again the fasted HC10 racer on the track taking TQ and leading the finale with his NT1, Schumann took advantage when Lewandowski went into trouble and dropped back to fourth. Finally Schumann was on cloud nine when he saw the checkered flag as the winner. Two laps down Timo Niedling came on second spot in his second race to make it a 1-2 for XRAY.
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Final result of 1/10 scale spec-engine class (HC10):
Round four out of six of the 2014 Nitro-West-Masters will be held at Haltern, located between Recklinghausen and Muenster, on July 26/27 and is as usual open to all racers, no license is needed.
