This past weekend I attended round #3 of the Norwegian 1/10 OR National Series. The race was being held at my home track, but with a brand new layout for this race.
4WD:
In the dry during controlled practice my XRAY XB4 was super-fast and I managed to set a new track record and 3 fast consecutive laps to line up 1st for the 4 qualifying rounds. Unfortunately it started to rain heavily for the qualifiers and with too many personal mistakes I only managed to qualify as 3rd for the A-final. But with us testing a lot of different setups and tires during qualifying I knew we had a good setup going into the triple A-finals. I just had to push just enough and keep it clean.
1st A-final went really well in the tricky conditions and I ended up winning it by almost 4 seconds.
2nd A-final I couldn't find a way to cleanly pass the number 1 car and I ended up crossing the finish line less than 0.1 seconds behind him.
3rd A-final went my way again despite an early mistake on lap 4 which saw me loose the lead. But with clean driving I was able to catch up again and make a pass with 7 laps to go and hold the position to the finish line.
Final results:
1. Malin Karlsen - XRAY XB4
2. Eirik Andreassen
3. Daniel Kobbevik
4. Roy Gjemble
5. Frode Skauen
6. Arne-Peder Flesvik 7. Morten Bremsrud - XRAY XB4
8. Sindre Reitan
9. Sebastian Andersson
10. Marius Kristensen
(click to enlarge)
2WD:
In the morning free and controlled practice I was on pace with my XRAY XB2 despite making a few too many small personal mistakes. Still managed to line up as 2nd for the qualifiers. But with the sun coming out and the track temperatures rising I was struggling to push hard enough and was missing a few tenths on each lap to Daniel. Still managed to line up in 2nd place for the triple A-finals despite not being fully confident when pushing.
1st A-final went okay with a mistake on lap 3 to let the #3 car past me. Was able to take back my position and fight back to finish 2nd just 0.3 seconds behind 1st.
2nd A-final I was taken out twice by the car behind me on the very first lap. This put me in 8th after being marshaled. Fought my way back to 2nd place but had no chance of catching the #1 car unfortunately.
3rd A-final I lost my lead on the very first lap and fell back to 3rd. Made my way back to 2nd but was never able to fully close the gap to challenge for the #1 position.
Final results:
1. Daniel Kobbevik
2. Eirik Andreassen 3. Malin Karlsen - XRAY XB2
4. Roy Gjemble
5. Frode Skauen
6. Kai Ronning 7. Morten Bremsrud - XRAY XB2
8. Arne-Peder Flesvik
9. Sindre Reitan
10. Marius Kristensen
Really happy with the weekend as a whole, despite making a bit too many personal mistakes and struggling a bit for setup in the tricky and changing conditions.
Next up is the International Race at Kampenhout in Belgium.
See you there!
