| Race report by Martin Hudy |
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| The German Nationals race was held in the city of Bernau near Berlin, Germany, and was attended by more than 100 drivers who were qualified from previous qualifying races. Despite I am not from Germany I got a member of a German racing club and some months ago I had to travel to attend several qualifying rounds too to be able to participate at the German nationals. The best drivers from Germany drove in two classes â“ modified and stock, and the best competition was in modified class. |
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Martin Hudy
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| Drivers such as world champion Marc Rheinard, Toni Rheinard, Marc Fischer, Markus Mobers and many other top drivers promised a very good race. Team XRAY was not very big, but was strong enough because all 3 team drivers â“ Martin Hudy, Alex Stocker, and Steffen Leinburger â“ could make the A main. In stock class, it was Thomas Gunsel who was hot favorite on stock champion. |
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| The race started with open practice on Thursday and Friday, and continued with qualifiers and finals on Saturday and Sunday. I came to the track on Thursday afternoon but after a short time it started to rain so I drove only one battery pack, but Alex with Steffen drove more and they were very happy with their carsâ™ performance. On Friday morning the track was still wet so we started to practice around 11:00AM. I had some problems with my setup but after running through some batteries I found right setup and was really satisfied with the car. There were also several other very fast drivers â“ Marc Rheinard, Dirk Wischnevsky, and Ronald Volker. In the afternoon it started rain again so we finished around 4:00PM. Friday morning started with two timed practices and continued with three qualification rounds. There were five qualifications and they counted the 2 best points. We could drive two sets of Take off 27 tires. |
| Modified Qualification |
Steffen Leinburger
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| It was a very good start in qualification rounds with Markus Mobers winning the first round in front of Marc Rheinard. I finished in third, only 1 second behind Marc. Marc won the second round, making the faster qualifier so far. Markus Mobers finished second, and I finished third. The third round (also the last qualification round on Saturday) was won again by Marc in front of Marc Fisher and myself. Markus Mober decided to drive new set of tires; he was fast but he made a mistake. |
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The last two qualification rounds continued on Sunday morning. A lot of drivers decided to use new tires, including myself. The track was really fast and I won the fourth qualification in front of Toni Rheinard. I also made the fastest qualification of all rounds. The last qualification surprised me as there was less grip. Everyone got slower because it was really hot and the cars were understeering. Marc Rheinard won the last round. Alex and Steffen had back luck in the qualification rounds. They drove very well and they were super fast and could have made the A main but the problem was run time. They always dumped 20 seconds before the end, and lost their chance to make a good result. Both finished in the B main.
1. Marc Rheinard
2. Markus Mobers
3. Martin Hudy XRAY
4. Dirk Wischnewski
5. Toni Rheinard
6. Marc Fischer
7. Sascha Falter
8. Ronald Volker
9. Andy Kramer
10. Rene Pupke |
| Stock Qualification |
Thomas Gunsel
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| In this very fast class, Thomas Gunsel with his XRAY T1FK05 made TQ. Thomas was the fastest stock driver and his car looked extremely well but Thomas showed some nice racing too. |
| Modified Finals |
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| An A finalist could drive with one extra set of tires, so everyone drove new tires at first except me, because I decided to drive new tires in the second final. Marc Rheinard and Fisher drove just one set in qualifies so they had two new sets for final. The first final was lucky for Markus Mobers who was very fast on new tires. |
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Marc Rheinard had bad luck while leading the final after a broken shock brake forced him to stop. I also had bad luck when after an accident with Marc Fisher I was on my roof and lost contact with the other drivers. The first final was won by Markus Mobers in front of Toni Rheinard and Dirk Wischnewski.
The second final was full of crashes. Marc had a bad start and he lost his first position in the first lap. Markus Mobers took the lead in front of me. In the same lap I tried to move on first position but we crashed together side-by-side. I lost a lot of positions but after many crashes in front of me I moved up to 6th place. I battled with Toni more than three minutes but at the end Toni crashed into Markus Mobers who dumped and I moved to 4th place. The second final was won by Marc Fischer in front of Dirk Wischnewski and Marc Rheinard.
The third final was something like a horror movie for me. Before the real start there was a practice start but my German language skills are very low so I started on training start. I immediately realized my mistake so I moved back in starting position and started from a good position but I got a stop-and-go for the early start. I lost a lot of time but I still moved from 10th to 5th position. The third final was won in style start-to-finish by Marc in front of his brother Toni and Andy Kramer. After the final, organizers took all cars and radios to control and they disqualified my last final because I had a different frequency on the list than I had in the car. For disqualification I lost 6 places and moved to 9th place. |
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Alexander Stocker
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| The B main finals were an exhibition of racing skills of Alex Stocker who won both finals in style and finally he had no problems in run time. Bad luck was had by Steffen who drove with a shock without oil and with a tweaked chassis; he finished 20. |
| Stock Finals |
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| Thomas Gunsel showed his driving and car performance by winning all 3 finals. The first final was won without any problems from start to finish. In the second final he lost his first place in the first minutes but he moved back to first position and he won second final, and in doing so won the German stock nationals. The third final was Thomas exhibition and he won again start to finish. |
| Modified Results |
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1. Toni Rheinard
2. Marc Rheinard
3. Markus Mobers
4. Marc Fischer
5. Dirk Wischnewski
6. Andy Kramer
7. Sascha Falter
8. Rene Pupke
9. Martin Hudy XRAY
10. Ronald Volker |
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