xrayxrayHome XRAY homeXRAY X-shopXRAY X-forumRCAmerica
supportsearchcontactguestbooksite map
newsproductsaboutusworldwide headlines

 
click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Race report by Eric Koh
The race was going to be challenging for young Nicholas as both XRAY team mates, Jerry Dai and John Liu was unable to participate due to personal matters. Qualifying was split into 3 groups and 2 out of the 3 rounds counted towards final grid position.

As Nicholas did not have time for Saturday’s practice, we used last year’s set up to race Q1. It was no surprise that the car did not handle well and Nicholas ended in 6th position, one lap down on the fastest qualifier, Heng.
After some set up changes, Nicholas performed better for Q2 and finished 3rd behind Heng and Lu, less than 1 second off the pace.

Nicholas improved even more for Q3 and finished 2nd behind TQ winner Heng. With this performance, Nicholas secured second grid position, with Robert Lu on 3rd , Huahua 4th and Jason Wang 5th. The finals was set to be intense as the top 4 best qualifying time was less than 1 sec apart.

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Finals started at 2:20pm after the usual group photo. Ambient temperature was high at nearly 30 deg. C and humidity was around 55%. Nicholas had serious problem with dirt sticking to his tires whereas Heng, Lu and Huahua seemed to have found a solution to it. As such, our car would become hard to drive after 3 minutes into the race and Nicholas would have to cope with it until the finish. We need to do some testing to find the solution to this problem.

Starting from grid position #2, Nicholas would have a good start for A1-Main and the top 2 cars would pull away from the field after 3 laps. TQ winner, Heng, won this race 1.039 sec ahead of Nicholas and Tommy Dai would come in 3rd 9.983 secs behind Heng.
However, Nicholas did not have a good start for A2-Main and let Lu slip past in Turn 2. Lu would stay in front of Nicholas for 6 laps before Nicholas found an opportunity to pass Lu. Unfortunately, Lu hit Nicholas back after the pass and both cars stalled, letting Tommy Dai pass. Both Lu and Nicholas would chase Dai for 11 laps before Dai makes a mistake and let the 2 drivers through. Lu would take second position 0.257 sec ahead of Nicholas, in 3rd.

With Heng securing A1 after taking both wins in A1-Main and A2-Main, the 2 remaining podium spots were open between Nicholas, Lu, Tommy Dai, Jason Wang and Huahua.
In A3-Main, Nicholas had a better start but still lost his second position after a fantastic move by Lu in Turn 5. Nicholas had to challenge Lu for 4 laps before regaining his second position. Heng made a rare mistake in Lap 11 letting Nicholas pass. Heng attacked Nicholas for the remaining 15 laps but Nicholas made no mistake to take the win 0.452 secs ahead of Heng. Lu finished 3rd 2.644 secs behind Nicholas. With this fantastic drive in A3-Main, Nicholas takes 2nd overall and Lu takes 3rd.

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)