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| Race report by Eric Koh |
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Nicholas KOH was invited to the opening race of the new Incom Arena indoor RC facility in Beijing. Also in attendance for 1/10 TC were Hai Feng WANG, Rocket ZHANG, Jimmy QIAN, Fang Jie DING and young Jerry DAI, arguably the top racers in the country. Special invited guest Mr Masami HIROSAKA, 14 times IFMAR Champion, was also present. Racers were blessed with HIROSAKAâ™s attendance as he cheerfully signed autographs, took pictures with racers and helped with whatever questions they had.
Racers got to race 1/10 TC, 1/12 Pancar and 1/10 LeMans Sportcars over the 2 day event. Participants came as far as Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai. The venue was world class and the organization very professional. The track had CRC carpet and very well laid out. |
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One pre-qualifier race was held on Saturday morning where Nicholasâ™ fastest 3 consecutive laps easily put him in the A group qualifiers. Several adjustments had to be made to Nicholasâ™ Xray T4 as the new CRC carpet grip rose very quickly. Several cars were suffering from traction rolls.
For the first qualifier, Nicholasâ™s put in a faultless drive to qualify 3rd behind Rocket ZHANG and Hai Feng WANG. ZHANG was the only driver to break into 25 laps in the 5 min qualifier.
In the second qualifier, Nicholas was again 3rd when he clipped the board with 30 seconds to go. His rear hub broke in the incident and he ended 7th position. Top 3 positions were ZHANG, WANG and DING, respectively.
Nicholas was unable to start the 3rd qualifying as he stripped his spur gear in his first warm up lap. I failed to notice that his motor had shifted in the earlier crash. Thankfully, qualifying result was based on the best of the three qualifying races and his first qualifying race result was enough to put him behind HIROSAKA (TQ), ZHANG and WANG. He will start the finals in 4th position.
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We tried some new settings with the remaining time on Saturday. As Nicholas felt comfortable with the already fast Revtech 24K motor, I gave him even more boost and turbo. He was able to improve his best time by 0.1 sec but motor temp now went up from 75 deg C to 85 deg C. Based on experience with Trinity motors, we felt this was a safe temperature to run. We also tested Trinityâ™s White Carbon HC battery and Nicholas said power drop off was reduced towards the end of 5 mins. With the Xray T4, Trinity Revtech 24K motor and Trinity White Carbon battery, Nicholas car was as fast as the fastest cars on the track.
3 finals were scheduled for Sunday and the best 2 results will count. Warm up testing in the morning went extremely well as the car and lap times gave Nicholas a lot of confidence.
First race was on time at 9:30am. Starting 4th on grid, Nicholas was able to hold his position right from the start. However, his pace was slightly off compared to the front three runners and 5th place driver, DING, was slowly catching up. Whilst HIROSAKA and ZHANG, were fighting for first and second positions up front, Nicholas was hard defending 4th place from DING. On lap 5, ZHANGâ™s car suffered a mechanical failure which allowed HIROSAKA to pull away. Nicholasâ™s position moved up to 3rd and this gave him the motivation to drive even harder. He started to pull clear from DING and was able to finish 3rd with a faultless drive. WANG was second.
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A2 was a different scenario as Nicholas did not get a good start and allowed DING to pass him in the first corner. Unfortunately, the 2 cars touched and DINGâ™s car rolled over. Nicholas stopped to wait and by the time DINGâ™s car was put right, everyone has gone passed. DING and Nicholas then had a hard time chasing the front runners. Nicholas finished 8th for A2, whilst HIROSAKA, ZHANG and WANG took 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Nicholas knew he had to drive well for A3 as 2 of the 3 rounds counted for finals. With maximum focus, he made a perfect start and was able to keep in touch with the front 3 cars. HIROSAKA was the first to make a mistake up front allowing Nicholas to move up to 3rd place. Then ZHANG made a mistake and allowed Nicholas to move to 2nd. By this time, HIROSAKA was driving at maximum effort and was catching up fast. After several laps chasing, Nicholas yielded to HIROSAKA. ZHANG was also driving at maximum effort behind and caught Nicholas with about 1 minute to go. Nicholas again yielded to ZHANG only to have ZHANG traction roll in front of him. Nicholas held on to 3rd place right up to the finish line.
The unofficial result was WANG, HIROSAKA and ZHANG for overall position. As HIROSAKA was a guest participant, he yielded his position and Nicholas was officially moved up from 4th to 3rd place. Everyone liked the kind gesture as young Nicholas did a brilliant drive for the day against the best drivers in the country.
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| Final results: |
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1. Wang Haifeng
2. Zhang Fangzhou
3. Nicholas Xu - XRAY T4
4. Jimmy Qian - XRAY T4
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