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News  Racing
T4, NT1 win at XRAY Turkish Onroad Championship Round 2 |
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| Turkish Onroad Championship Round 2 was held at beautfiul Efmod facility in İzmir. Weather forecast was not great and became most important subject of the weekend. I travelled to İzmir from Thursday for some practise and for other purposes. On Thursday I had chance to drive the new RX8 2016 I built for Yusuf Ekinci. Car was amazing to drive. |
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On Friday I drove couple batteries with EP Stock car, and couple tanks with Nitro Touring car. EP car was superb from the start, with the setup from Round 1, only problem was front tire overheat after 3 minutes. I tried rear ARS system, which proved to have more cornerspeed, but little more difficult to drive in chicanes, where track had 2 important ones. So I removed back.
Nitro car was also really good with my Efra Euros setup, after some adjustments to clutch for more punch for high traction. Really very good cornerspeed and easy to drive.
Unfortunately, Saturday morning we arrived to the track only to find out it was damp. So we waited couple hours for it to dry out, and if I'm not mistaken we started first round of practises with group 1, but after 3-4 minutes of racing, rain came back! So we waited couple more hours. In the team meeting we discussed what we can do, as Sunday forecast was even worse. In the end we concluded that as soon as track dries out, we start the race with a shortened schedule(1 practice, 2 qualifiers, shortened subfinals 15 minutes, main finals 30 minutes), and finish midnight. About 4 pm we started the race, with first practises. Traction was nowhere near Friday as no Sugarwater was applied, because we were afraid of having not fully dried track again. So laptimes were about 2 seconds slower.
After a round of practises, we decided to take the risk to sugarwater the track, thinking that it can not get any worse. So this proved to be the right choice as traction came almost instantly.
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First round of qualifiers were not the best for me. In Pro-Stock, because of bad practice result, I had traffic in front of me right from the start. Then had some contact and lose precious seconds. In the end I finished 2nd behind Ahmet.
In Nitro Touring, my car was strangely suffering from huge understeer, with same setup from friday. Ali was faster than me and took TQ in this round. Also I went out of fuel 2 corners to go, so finished in 3rd position.
Prostock Q2: Now with a cleaner track in front of me, and traction fully developed, I had an easy TQ, faster than Ahmet's, and this put me in pole for the finals.
Nitro Touring Q2: I made some setup changes to have more steering, and leaned out the engine to make 5 minutes this time. Steering was still not enough but better than previous round. With an error free run, I TQ ed and gained the pole position for the final.
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In Prostock finals were trouble free for me, as in A1 I had clean start, and although Ahmet was on my tail in first few laps, I managed to protect my tires from overheating and stretched my lead more. Then Ahmet and Kagan had a contact fighting for 2nd place which put me in a very easy lead. I cruised the rest of the race.
A2, I added 0.5 bumpsteer shim to have ever so slightly more steering, and this worked well, with even higher traction, I was able to protect my front tires and had a very consistent run over 5 minutes. In the end I brought home the victory.
In the meantime lower finals of Nitro Touring were also racing and I was unsure what to do on the car, to have more steering. As schedule was delayed twice more because of a problem of track lighting, Our start of the Main final delayed even further, to 12:00PM. With very cold&humid conditions, I could not judge the amount of traction, and whether the changes I made to the car would provide me enough steering, or too much steering-resulting traction rolls.
Anyways warmup started and I immediately realised that steering was still not enough. Car was very safe to drive but I was concerned about matching the pace of Ali with not enough steering.
Race started and I made a big mistake on first lap, crashing to the inside wall of apex curb in the fast chicane. Car flew about couple meters and landed back, I was thinking I ended my race already. But the car was suprisingly OK and I was able to continue in 2nd position. After couple laps, I realised that Ali was little faster than I was, and before first pitstops he had a straightaway lead. But in the lap of pitstop, he crashed to a car in the straight, damaging the bodyshell if Im not mistaken. He lost about 40 seconds in pits and this put me in a safe lead. I decided to drive safe mode as pushing the car didnt make sense and also in the night, cars were really hard to see, and my eyes were hurting. This strategy worked good, and without faultless pitstops from Umut Turkay, I was able to win the race 2 laps ahead of Ali, who did a great job recovering from his incident. XRAY driver Alain Sarafyan finished in 3rd position another 2 laps back, after a very safe and consistent drive.
For sure this was one of my most difficult national races, both mentally and physically, as in a very tight schedule, preparing both cars on time was a handful. Also, I realised that I may not win the races as easily as in the past, as young drivers like Ahmet and Ali keep improving, and get closer and closer to me. This is for sure not good for my feelings :) But in the end race competition goes much higher, leading to much more exciting races. This is also a chance for me to improve myself as well.
Big thanks goes to Halit Korpe who made this event possible even in most difficult conditions, My mechanic Umut Turkay for fast fuelstops, and everything else(my Mastercard:D) Ahmet&Kagan in ProStock and Ali in Nitro Touring for making this race challenging for me, My sponsors Xray, Team Ncrc, Efmod, Sanwa, Hudy, Hipex, Hiro Seiko, MKT Racing for great products, My family, who always support me for what I do,And last but not least my aunt Figen GĂĽzelay, Nihal Oral, Yusuf Caglayan and many more names that I can not remember, for coming to the race and supporting me.
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| 1/10 GP: |
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1. Mustafa Alp (TQ) â“ XRAY NT1
2. Al Kaya
3. Alain Sarafyan â“ XRAY NT1
4. Halit Korpe â“ XRAY NT1
5. Cengiz Gökbulut ⓠXRAY NT1
6. Sertac Palaz
7. Utku Kizildag â“ XRAY NT1
8. Haluk Soyyoruk â“ XRAY NT1
9. Mert Koroglu â“ XRAY NT1
10. John Knight
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| 1/10 EP stock: |
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1. Mustafa Alp (TQ) â“ XRAY T4
2. Ahmet Kasap â“ XRAY T4
3. Kagan Aydin â“ XRAY T4
4. Onur Karacuhalilar â“ XRAY T4
5. Ali Caglar â“ XRAY T4
6. Kayhan Ketenci â“ XRAY T4
7. Berk Ogretmen â“ XRAY T4
8. Baris Turkay â“ XRAY T4
9. Poyraz Serezlioglu â“ XRAY T4
10. Sefer Kursad Alalma â“ XRAY T4
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| 1/10 EP modified: |
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1. Murat Yazici â“ XRAY T4
2. Erol Uçar(Tq) ⓠXRAY T4
3. Fatih Kaya â“ XRAY T4
4. Kayhan Ketenci â“ XRAY T4
5. Cem Nizamogullari â“ XRAY T4
6. Kaya Kin
7. Sertaç Yalim ⓠXRAY T4
8. Erkan Akin â“ XRAY T4
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