| Race report by Martin Hudy |
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| The European Championship 2005 was held in Glostrup, a small city close to Copenhagen in Denmark. Team XRAY brought its best drivers to represent at this highly competitive race and showcase the excellent teamwork and performance of the T1FKâ™05. |
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| The event started on Thursday with open practices. First practices were on the wet track but in the afternoon we started to run on the dry track. Team XRAY drivers Jilles Groskamp, Martin Hudy, Andreas & Joel Myrberg, Viktor Wilck, and Alexander Hagberg were very fast and their cars worked very well; all looked very promising for Team XRAY. |
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| Two timed practices continued on Friday. The first timed practice was won by Teemu Leino ahead of Steen Graversen. I have finished fourth. The second timed practice was on a very hot track but our cars still worked very well. We had great expectations for the coming qualifications. |
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| The opening ceremony started just after the timed practices but was interrupted by heavy rain and thunder. The first qualification started on wet track with some small lakes on it; this track conditions created a lot problems for many top drivers. We could smell burnt ESCs in the pits and a large number of drivers struggled with interference problems. Only those drivers who could survive the whole 5 minute run achieved good results and those drivers who used the correct tire additive for water were fast enough. |
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| The remaining four qualification rounds continued on Saturday. In the morning half of the track was dry and half was wet but during heat 8 the strong rain started and after 5 minutes some large lakes were on the track again. The organizers declared that they would not dry the track nor have breaks in case of rain to keep equal conditions for everybody but suddenly after heat 8 they decided to take a break and dry the track to remove the large lakes at least. All the remaining qualification heats were done on a very wet track or under rain conditions. |
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Jilles Groskamp
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| One of the most unlucky drivers was Jilles who broke more then 3 ESCs despite having the electronics in a plastic box sealed with silicone. At the end Jilles had only 1 clean run. I had the same problems as Jilles and broke 3 receivers. My electronics were in the plastic box sealed with silicone too but after the run the box was full of water. I was happy that I didnâ™t need to change my water-proofed Robitronic ESC, which survived the water. Most of the other drivers struggled all the time with broken ESCs, receivers, and motors too. |
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Victor Wilck
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From Team XRAY it was Andreas Myrberg and Victor Wilck who adapted to the raining conditions and qualified into the A final. After so many problems I qualified 63rd and Jilles qualified 72nd â“ a greatly disappointing result considering in dry conditions both Jilles and I had some of the best lap times. Joel Myrberg was missing a bit of luck too and qualified at the end for the B final together with the young Swedish driver Alexander Hagberg.
Top 10:
1. Marc Rheinard
2. Teemu Leino
3. Andy Moore
4. David Spashett
5. Jonas Kaerup
6. Juho Levanen
7. Andreas Myrberg XRAY T1FKâ™05
8. Chris Grainger
9. Viktor Wilck XRAY T1FKâ™05
10. Thomas Pumpler |
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Martin Hudy
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| After the weather disaster in qualification that kicked-out many hot candidates for the A final, the Sunday finals were run in sunny and dry conditions. The race started with final practice and then continued with 3 final rounds. Both Jilles and I, without any problems, dominated in the lower finals and our lap times were fast enough for some of the good positions in the A final. Both Alex and Joel were also very fast in the B final but they were unlucky with multiple âśstop and goâť. |
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Preparation for water
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| At the end it was Viktor who was the most unlucky one because he forgot to marshal and his best result was canceled and at the end he dropped from the 6th to the 10th position. After the sunny finals the rain started again just at the end of the prize ceremony. This year's Euros were a bit strange because of so much water and so much bad luck and unclear rules. At the beginning the organizer allowed the use of tire additives. |
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| After some protests the organizer decided on Friday that additives would not be allowed for Saturday qualification runs however on Saturday morning suddenly the organizer again changed the rule and allowed the additives but added that the tires must by dry before the runs. Just before the 5th qualification run the organizer again changed the rule and decided that the tires have to be dry but also they can not be sticky which in the reality means we could not use any additive because additive makes the tires sticky. All of these sudden changes of rules were strange and brought a lot of chaos. |
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1. Teemu Leino
2. Marc Rheinard
3. Andy Moore
4. Chris Grainger
5. David Spashett
6. Viktor Wilck - XRAY T1FKâ™05 (after penalty 10th)
7. Andreas Myrberg - XRAY T1FKâ™05
8. Jonas Kaerup
9. Thomas Pumpler
10. Juho Levanen
At the end after all the bad luck with weather and unclear rules we concluded that we must have a positive outlook even after a not the best success, and consider that each problem does not influence us negatively but each problem has to be considered as new challenge. |
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XRAY promo tent
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| We had several challenges in front of us and we know what we did not do properly - we were not prepared for the heavy rain as we should and at the end it was the tire additive tricks that decided the result in a big portion. This is a challenge on which we must focus for any future races to be well prepared for all racing conditions. At the end the result of Team XRAY is still very good - 4 XRAY cars in the top 20 which is still an excellent result. The ongoing development will never stop and we continue on furthering our design innovations and new ideas that we will have to test in future to make sure that we will all the time provide to the XRAY customers and fans only the very best products and the highly competitive luxury model racing cars. We keep and stick with our mission: XRAY the art of performance. |
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Juraj Hudy
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| See you at the next races and see you at the Euros 2006 that will be held in Germany, so hopefully we will have after the last two Euros a little bit less rain. |
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| Big thanks to all XRAY team drivers. The team work was as usually the best one and the professionalism of each driver astonishing as always. We are very proud of having such dedicated racing team. Thanks to Jilles, Andreas, Joel, Viktor, Tony, Soren, Alex, Vesa, Steffen, Michal, Vasek and of course thanks to Juraj for making the best touring cars out there. Thanks to organizers for managing the race even in such a rain and thanks to all competition for another highly competetive race. |
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Andreas car
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Andreas Myrberg
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Michal Bok
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Alexander Hagberg
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Joel & Andreas cars
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Myrberg brothers
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Tony Vredenberg
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Vesa Yli
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