The sixth and final round of the Xray Racing Series (XRS) Germany was held at the Eifel-Ring at Leimbach, located close to the famous Nuerburgring. It was already the fourth XRS appearance in two seasons on the original ETS carpet of this 111-meter track with its challenging mixture of a technical and a fast section. The hosting MAC Adenau did a great job again and received 53 entries but some had to cancel mainly because of a cold. Lot of racers including five young talents joined the competition which started with ten hours of intense practice on Saturday before about half of the drivers met for a come-together of SMI Motorsport in high spirits and a yummy dinner in an Italian restaurant. As usual, the German XRAY and Hudy importer SMI was present to support all racers over the whole weekend.
(click to enlarge)
Formula results:
1. Daniel Schober - XRAY X1
2. Jan Bohlen, XRAY X1
3. Eric Champion-Rieger â“ XRAY X1
Daniel Schober was back to performance and was able to prevail from qualifying and all the finals after considerable fights with XRAY fellow Jan Bohlen. Man of the weekend was Eric Champion-Rieger who started to build a new XRAY X1 on Saturday afternoon. His third spot on the podium was well-deserved. Daniel Schober again became the XRS Formula champion.
Only one week before the German Nationals in Ingolstadt twelve 1/12 fighters used the XRS finale as a warm-up. Once again Bernd Wiesenberger was fastest in qualifying nearly a lap ahead of Jacky Mannes. As a surprise, Wiesenberger lost performance in the first A-main and Mannes took the opportunity to bring victory home one lap in front of XRAY fellow Alexander Seitter. But even he was suffering a cold, Wiesenberger fought back and won the following two races in front of Mannes, with only an advantage of a quarter of a second in the third main. Beside Wiesenberger and Mannes, Seitter completed the podium. While David Ranft finished fourth, eighth spot was enough for French nitro racer Alain Levy to catch the XRS 1/12 stock title in his first season with the XRAY X12.
In the touring car stock class, the 13.5T XRAY motor was mandatory as well as hand-out tires from Hudy or Volante. Racing was fully under control of Majuran Tharmalingam. With his Serpent S411 prototype the local hero took TQ as well as all three wins in the A-mains to catch the overall victory. The best Xray performance came from Joerg Baldes who was second in qualifying just one second behind Tharmalingam and four hundredth of a second in front of Melvin Diekmann. Only the top three drivers completed 28 laps during the heats. In the mains Baldes and Diekmann showed thrilling bumper-to-bumper racing with Baldes taking second twice closely followed by Diekmann while he had to retire from the second main due to a malfunctioning ESC. Behind young Marc Stuebben (XRAY) Tobias Hoeffin finished fifth which was enough to become XRS touring car stock champion for the second time. It is worth noting that XRAY racer Hoefflin used the same set of Hudy C1 tires at the Eifel-Ring which he already used at round 5 at the Arena33.
1/12 GT class meant a new record for this new category which will be run as a promotion class at the German Nats as well. Again, it was Tobias Schuster claiming TQ and victory but second became former TC modified racer Haroun Schobner in his first GT class participation with Raymond Libar snatching third spot of the podium away from âśMr. SMIâť Bertram Kessler who took the first 1/12 GT crown.
(click to enlarge)
Touring Car FWD / âś Frontiâť 13.5T
1. Frank Hoeschler
2. Andreas Weyhoven
3. Harald Schmittgen
4. Laurent Libar
5. Raymond Libar
The finale conclusion of the front-wheel-driven touring cars as part of four XRS rounds is quite clear: The so-called âśFronti´sâť with 13.5T motors are a real gain for the XRS race weekends with their original looking WRC/WRX bodyshells and their realistic driving style. Though it was again at the Eifel-Ring. TQ went to Andreas Weyhoven with Frank Hoeschler second and Harald Schmittgen third. Hoeschler took the first win in the mains in front of VBC fellow Schmittgen and Laurent Libar while Weyhoven had to retire after only two laps. But he fought his way back to get a hand on the winner´s trophy taking first in the second main and leading the third main until the very last corner when Hoeschler who was at Weyhoven´s tail for the entire race, found a small gap for a deciding pass. Hoeschler took overall victory with Weyhoven a strong second and a smiling Schmittgen on third who was honored as the first FWD champion.
During the price-giving ceremony race director and time keeper Uwe Baldes presented the best young talents as well as the best 40-plus drivers in separate tributes. Best junior racer were seven-year old Thilo Baldes in TC stock and ten-year old Jody Mueller in 1/12 GT. The best youth drivers were Marc Stuebben in TC stock and David Streb in 1/12 stock with Felix Reichold second. All five talents relyed on XRAY chassis. Honored as best 40-plus drivers were Joerg Baldes (TC stock), Bernd Wiesenberger (1/12 Stock), Andreas Weyhoven (TC FWD), Eric Champion-Rieger (Formula) and Haroun Schobner (1/12 GT). Furthermore, Schobner became XRS TC modified champion.
At the end of this pleasing second season of the XRAY Racing Series in Germany a valuable tombola generated a suspense-packed atmosphere. Finally, it was a surprised and visibly pleased Alexander Seitter who took home the jackpot, a XRAY T4.
