Date: 30 January 2005
Race: Norwegian National Cup
Venue: Trondheim
Previous Track Record: 9.22 sec
Saturday
We started off with free practice on Saturday, and put down a new lap record with the first battery pack - 9.20 seconds! The car felt extremely agressive, but hard to handle. We changed from 30wt oil to 40wt oil and inclined the shocks more. The car felt much easier to drive after that, and our best lap time went down to 9.02 seconds. The card still had a bit too much steering, so I glued the edge of the front tires. Now the car was close to perfect!
Sunday
On Sunday the racing started with 3 qualifying rounds, of which the best time counted. It looked like it would be a race between myself (XRAY) and Team Corally driver Martin Sorlie. We both were on a high-speed run from the first qualifying, but Martin fell back due to a few mistakes, so local driver Ketil Pettersen took 2nd place.
Results after Qualifying Round 1
1. Helge Johannessen 33-5.06.47 XRAY
2. Ketil Pettersen 32-5.03.82
3. Martin Sorlie 32-5.05.33
Stock (click to enlarge)
There were no changes after the second and third qualifying rounds there, so the race continued as the first round. I had the same result in all three qualifying rounds, and Martin made one mistakes every time, so the qualifying ended with the results from round 1. The new lap record is now 8.95 seconds!
In the finals, I tried using tire warmers. I had too little steering at the start, so the possibility that Ketil or Martin could run on the inside in the first corner worried me a little bit. But even with tire warmers I did not have enough steering in the first corner, so Ketil went on the inside with a clean pass. I took back the lead in the third turn and won by almost one lap.
Superstock (click to enlarge)
Before the second final I heated the front tires to 50dgr. and the rear tires to 40 dgr. But the car still had no steering in the first turn. Ketil and Martin went by me, but they crashed a few turns later and I went by them.
I cruised to victory, driving very safely.
In the third final I stopped after 4 minutes due to motor problems. I tried a new motor setup to push a lap record.
Final Results:
1. Helge Johannessen XRAY T1FK
2. Martin Sorlie
3. Ketil Pettersen
The 27-turn Stock Class was won by Oddbjorn Tromborg, and the 19-turn Superstock Class was won by 14 year old Robin S. Nordlie.
The winning set-up sheet of Helge Johannessen you can download here.
