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Race report by Joel Valander
Winter season in Finland started officially this weekend with legendary Winter Jumps series. First round was held at Helsinki, where PKSRCA club has recently bought EOS carpet. Over 100 entries was a new record in this series. This was also my first race with XRAY.

I spent couple days practicing week before the race and I was feeling really good with my XB4 ’16.

New layout was put in for the race so it was new for all drivers. But I Didn’t ran 2wd on Saturday so I had to figure out new layout fast.

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In first practice round my car was working pretty nice until my ball cup popped off and I lost expensive track time. I was still able to pull some good laps on second and last practice round.

For the qualifying I changed all steel gears in my diff’s because they felt little rough. Now I was ready for qualifying with super smooth diff’s.

I noticed right at the warm up my car was lot easier to drive and more stable. Switching to Steel diff gear’s was good decision. My car was perfect and I was only one who got 20 laps.

Next round my car was still good but some driving errors cost me TQ and I finished third, so top 3 starting position was locked for me. Last round was pretty crazy with many guys running close on track. I did couple small mistakes but I was again only one who got 20 lap run. I was starting in Pole position for the A-Main.

First two A-main didn’t go as planned. I think my front tires were little worn out so I didn’t had as good pace as Ari Heinonen and Markku Honkanen who started behind me. I had to push very hard to keep my position, so I did couple mistakes and Ari secured win in first two legs.
For the final A-main I decided now I’m gonna win this last one and so I did. I kept lead whole race with a clean run.

I was kind of disappointed for losing win from first on the grid. But I was still very happy for TQ and second place. I was also really happy with my car. Great experience for second round of the EOS series held in Hudy Arena, Slovakia.

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Final results:
1. Ari Heinonen
2. Joel Valander - XRAY XB4
3. Markku Honkanen
4. August Poutiainen
5. Joonas Hyvärinen
6. Juho Rajaniemi
7. Lari Jäppinen - XRAY XB4
8. Jarno Siltanen
9. Jani Hovi
10. Viljami Kutvonen