On the past weekend Boras MRK hosted the 3rd round of the Swedish Cup. The weather was supposed to be unstable and rain was in the forecast. Unfortunately the weatherman was right and it ended up being wet and muddy. The temperature was around 15 degrees.
The first round of qualifying was cancelled due to heavy rain, so 2 out of 4 were to be counted.
The first round was won by young Furulund driver Christoffer Svensson, with myself in 2nd and Andreas Edvinsson in 3rd. I won the 3rd and 4th rounds and I claimed the TQ position. Just before the 5th round the skies opened up and flooded the track completely. I was happy that I didnâ™t need to race the last round. Most drivers did not race the 5th round but the race went on; some drivers took the opportunity to drive it and get good points for overall qualification. It was very interesting to see the ones racing, some raced whole 5min, but many were stuck in puddles after just a lap or so; it was a crazy 5th round, but cool to see the enthusiasm of the ones racing.
The weather forecast for Sunday and the mains was the same as Saturday: rain.
I got away with a good start in my semi and pretty much lead it the entire race, but I was closely followed by Jonas Eriksson 5sec behind. Also making the main from my semi were Fredrik Mathiesen, Mikael iregren and Lars Carlsson.
Semi-B was (as expected) won by Christoffer Svensson who pretty much lead
the entire race, and was followed to the main by Mikael Palsson, Niklas Brunnsberg, Joakim Hansson, and Henrik Nilsson.
The track was pretty much flooded before the main final, and the organizer made a lot of efforts to make it drivable for the main.
The start was once again very good for me and I got away clean, closely followed by Christoffer Svensson. I managed to created a gap right away and so I concentrated to race cleanly without mistakes and stay on the race line â”
going outside of it would definitely cost precious seconds because of the sticky mud. I managed to keep the whole main clean and took the win by 10sec over Christoffer Svensson and Jonas Eriksson.
(click to enlarge)
This was my 2nd TQ and 3rd win of the Swedish Cup out of 4 races, and by winning this one I took the overall win for the 2006 season!
A-main Final Results
1. Robert Gustafsson XRAY XB8TQ
2. Christoffer Svensson
3. Jonas Eriksson
4. Mikael Palsson
5. Fredrik Mathiesen
6. Mikael Iregren
7. Niklas Brunnsberg
8. Henrik Nilsson
9. Lars Carlsson 10. Joakim Hansson XRAY XB8 TQ
It should be noted that young driver Kennie Ekenstierna (XRAY XB8TQ) made a great appearance this weekend by making his first semi-final!
The organizer did a great job of keeping the track in good shape, and the race went on schedule.
Many thanks go to my mechanics Jesper and Häggren who always do a great job, sorry for throttling when fuelling, I didnâ™t do it on purpose.
