| Race report by Nikolakopoulos Nick |
Katikas Harris T1FK'05
(click to enlarge) |
Event: 2nd Race MUG 2005
Location: Stamata - Athens, Greece
Track: FRT (www.frt.gr)
Weather: Sunny, 15-20 C
The second race for the Greek National Championship was held on a very nice day at Fanatix Racing Track (F.R.T.) Stamata Athens. The turn out wasnâ™t very high but all the top drivers were present.
The race format consists of 3 qualifying rounds (best round) and 3 finals (best 2 finished places). |
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From the 1st qualifier it was obvious that the race would be very tight since the places between the drivers were changing every lap! (Lap times can be found here.)
At Group C were the top 10 finishers from 1st race and thatâ™s where the most of the action was during qualifying. Mitropoulos Jim (HPI PRO4), Katikas Harris (XRAY T1FK05), Koritsidis George (TAMIYA 415), Papachristos Vaggelis (HPI PRO4), were battling for the pole while John Doucakis (XRAY T1FK5) was battling to find the cause of the immense interferences he was suffering from!!
Second qualifier was close as well, but this time Katikas Harris managed to take the win with 5secs from second placed man, Papachristos Vaggelis. Everyone improved their times and the top 10 now was as follows:
With one qualifier left anything could happen! Third qualifier went as the previous two, even though Mitropoulos won this time, it wasnâ™t good enough to take the Pole from Katikas Harris. Only minor changes were made to the rest of the top 10 positions on the grid.
Here is the grid for the final after the 3rd qualifier
1. Katikas Harris XRAY T1FK05
2. Mitropoulos Jim HPI PRO4
3. Papachristos Vaggelis HPI PRO4
4. Koritsidis George TAMIYA 415
5. Nikolakopoulos Nick XRAY T1FK05
6. Amaxas Georg TAMIYA 415
7. Zacharopoulos Kostas LOSI G+
8. Gavriilidis Bill HPI PRO4
9. Antoniou Antonis XRAY T1FK05
10.Aggelakopoulos Fotis HPI SPRINT |
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Doucakis John / Aggelakopoulos Fotis XRAY T1FK'05
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For the finals, John Doucakis didnâ™t manage to qualify to A main due to interferences and gave his XRAY FK 05 to Fotis Aggelakopoulos to compete. Fotis installed his electronics on Johnâ™s car and drove superbly taking advantage the carâ™s set-up and speed!
First final started without any problems. Harris lead the race while others were trying to catch up. Papachristos Vaggelis had a misfortune that didnâ™t allow him to finish the race, same with Antoniou Antonis and Nikolakopoulos Nick. Aggelakopoulos driving Doucakis´s XRAY was blistering fast overtaking everyone on the straight like we were having a 19turn motor installed instead the 12 turn limit and managed to finish 4th. |
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| Second final run and Papachristos Vaggelis was involved in an accident with Koritsidis George that caused Vaggelis to retire. Bad luck struck badly Vaggelis on this race not being able to finish on any final round. George on the other hand despite the accident managed to catch Harris and overtake him when he made a slight mistake and finish ahead of him for only few milliseconds! Fotis was again extremely fast managing to finish 3rd this time. |
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(click to enlarge) |
Harris and George had one win each and that meant that the third final would be the deciding one. Of course we couldnâ™t exclude Mitropoulos Jim and Aggelakopoulos Fotis for the win. Harris though, run an extraordinary run making no mistakes, thus not giving the chance to anyone else to question his win. George made a mistake on the start of the run and lost all his chances for winning the race since he finished 6th. Fotis drove flawlessly and finished 2nd this run.
After the 3rd run is over the race final standings are:
1. Katikas Harris XRAY T1FK05
2. Koritsidis George TAMIYA 415
3. Mitropoulos Jim HPI PRO4
4. Aggelakopoulos Fotis XRAY T1FK05
5. Zacharopoulos Kostas LOSI G+
6. Nikolakopoulos Nick XRAY T1FK05
7. Amaxas George TAMIYA 415
8. Gavriilidis Bill HPI PRO4
9. Antoniou Antonis XRAY T1FK05
10.Papachristos Vaggelis HPI PRO4 |
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XRAY FK 05 proved to be very competitive after only having it for 2 weeks all 4 kits are on A main and performed very well.
Comments from XRAY drivers:
Katikas Harris: The car was easy to drive and the free drivetrain helped a lot in such a big track. The car was very stable, with a lot of steering and without any big differences from the standard setup, the car performed excellent.
Aggelakopoulos Fotis: The best and fastest car Iâ™ve ever driven. Thanks John(set-up and power) for such an experience. Congratulations to Harris for perfect performance at the 3rd A final round.
Nikolakopoulos Nick: I really enjoyed the car, the setup I used suited me perfectly and if I could find the speed Fotis/John had, I could easily fight for a place on the podium. Never mind next timeâ¦
Antoniou Antonis: When the day started I knew I had a very good setup for the medium to low traction conditions that were present at the track. I was very confident with the new car, but unfortunately for me as the day went on, traction was improved and I lost that competitive advantage I had over to others. In general I am very pleased with the car's performance since its easy setting up gave me the chance to race against the "tough guys" in such short time compared to my limited experience in the class.
John Doucakis: I only managed to built the car on Thursday evening before the race and I used a setup based on my experience with the FK04. Unfortunately I was suffering from terrible interference and I could not complete a lap without loosing control at some point. Thus I decided to abort my efforts to qualify and decided to give my car to Fotis Aggelakopoulos who installed his radio equipment. The car was a missile in the finals, helping Fotis to climb from 10th on the grid to 4th, 3rd, and 2nd respectively in the three finals. I am happy that the car was so quick and I will use this setup as a benchmark. |
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