Swedish Cup, Round 1..

Then it was time for the first of five rounds of Sweden Cup 2011, which was run in Höör in southern Sweden.
We had already predicted before the race that the track would be bumpy and difficult to drive when it has not rained in southern Sweden for a long time, and it is really dry in the ground.

There were two practice rounds and then we already knew that the gridiron was a good qualifying tire at this track so we tested the Impact of preparation for the finals, and after testing the super-soft in the first practice we changed to soft when the SS was warm and the car was hard to drive after a couple of minutes.
We also practiced with a new 7-port engine, just to have an extra engine fresh as a reserve. After the training sessions so we changed back to the 5-Port.
The setup of the car was David´s new standard setup (after Worlds) and we did not change anything during the weekend.

In the first qualification round David drove as expected … fast and really good and he won the round with 23 seconds with lap times 1,5 seconds better than the others.

In the second round as he continued with GridIrion Soft and started with 3 superfast laps together with the fasters of the weekend, but then pulled down the tempo to a safe tempo as the track already started to become difficult to drive.
He also won this round, now with nine seconds, and while most were driving a little slower so he lowered his lap time by 0.5 seconds further.

Before the third round he desire to test I-Beam, Soft, which I did not understood as he never has run well and fast with these tires, but he is the driver as he make his decisions.
Just as I predicted it went not so well with these tires and now he finished 2nd in the round.

In the fourth round so he was back on GridIrion, soft (after finding that he was wrong) and although the track was now miserable to drive he gave away with a great run and also won this round and then secured overall TQ.

In Sunday's semi-practice, it was focused on testing the tires for the final, and that was Impact Medium which we thought most of. The tires worked really well and the practice also and he had no problem to run 10:30 on the engine.

In the semifinal, it was first intended that he would continue with the gridiron as the qualifiers, but then we thought it was better to drive with same tires as final he roll out on the Impact that he had driven in the semi-practice. In the semifinal he was driving as expected and he had kept a good pace and won the semifinal 18 seconds before the second car.

Then it was time for the finals and although we could easily run 9min refueling we chose the safe way and desired to refuel at 7:30 as one refueling more would not do so much.
David made a great start and immediately began to build up a distance back, but after eight laps, he said he thought the glue on the right front tire was a bit loose and he wanted a new tire at the refueling. He made some fast laps to increase the distance to the cars behind and on lap 12 he came in for refueling and we also changed the tire. The change cost about 10 seconds and he came out as a 3 and after the cars in front had refueled, he was basically caught up with them.
A few laps later he had passed cars in front of him and again he started to build a distance back. We knew that 3:d had one fuel stop less and I thought it might be tight, but when Davis ran stable with very few mistakes and good lap times the distance increased all the time. After about 30 minutes it was all lapped.
The most surprising thing that happened was when he crashed out on the straight on one lap, but when I asked afterward what happened he said he heard that several cars crashed in another part of the track and he was forced to watch to see which cars it was :-)

After 45 minutes, crossed the finish line after a pretty boring final without any fight for first place. David thinks that it is difficult to keep focused for so long and still keep a slightly lower pace compared to a race where it is fighting for the places.

In conclusion, it was a good win because we are not going to run next race in the cup as we will be at the 1/10 Pre-Worlds in Finland, so the next race will be round 3. The tire losing in the final was completely my fault, but my excuse is that I had annoying allergies in my eyes all weekend and had trouble see things clearly.

Next race will be 1/10 Pre-Worlds in Finland.

Practice / Race week in France

As my work made it impossible to go to US and race “The Dirt” we desired to go to south France for some practice and then drive the Silver Pennes race some kilometers from Marsielle.

David had not been driving 1/8 nitro since the Worlds in Pattaya last November, so it felt like a good start of the OffRoad season.

We went to Lyon and when we were at the airport we also checked and took some pictures at the racetrack nearby the airport as it’s the place where Euro-B 2011 will be.

We started to visit a new track west of Lyon and nearby Adrien Bertins home where we picked up some fuel, starting box and engines.
The track was good for engine tests and had high grip and a lot of power driving.

We were keeping the worlds setup in the car to see how it should work in a European track. David started to use a 7-Port that he have been using at the worlds and 4 races before that, and switched after that to one of the new 5-port Jared Tebo World edition.
He liked the 5-Port really much as it had a smooth curve and good feeling from mid to high. On the track he was driving on the mileage was the same, but the 5-Port engine was new and tight.

Adrien was in place during the day and he drove his buggy also.
David and Adrien had different setups on their cars and David switched between them to make comparisons.
One other new thing on Davids car was the new KO Propo RXs servos, that has really interesting specifications and the feeling was better than the old ones.

Adrien was driving with one of Tebo VM bodies so it was actually two bodies with IFMAR markings on the track.

Satisfied with the day we prepared the car for Thursday practice in Pierrefeu, a track that David likes a lot.
An early morning leaving 5am and 4 hour later we arrived to the track between Marseille and Nice.

This was a new good driving with good weather compared to the Swedish snow and cold shit.
Robert Battle and Martin and Ales Bayer and some other drivers also came for practice at the track.

We went up to Pennes, near Marseille, and checked the track for the race … and it looked really difficult and fun on the same time. One unusual thing was the straight that ended in a dosed curve in concrete.
The track also had a lot of jumps in different sizes (19 of them). The pit area was roofed and placed under roof … something that was needed.

The first race day was Friday and it started with 2 rounds of free practice followed by 2 timed practice rounds, but without marshalling which was a bit strange.

David thought the track was difficult to maintain high speed on the track and all driving on the track was important. We made some small changes on the car and he felt it better to drive. The track was “dusty” and we drove all day with CityBeam (Cityblock in front and I-Beam in rear) supersoft.
The Aigion brothers were of cause fast on the track with Jerome being fasterst as it was his home track. After those David, Elliot and Battle was on the same lap times.

On saturday practice round we decided to switch from CityBeam to Impact as the track looked cleaner and better.

In the qualification round 1 we kept the car as the previous practices, and also kept Impact tires that were better than the CityBeam.
David started with number 2 after Yannick before so it was no problem with traffic.
With a really good driving and with traffic problem only twice it looked really good.
But then he made a mistake on the last lap just before the finish line which cost 4 sec and he finished 4 the in the first round that Yannick won.

The second qualifying round was overall slower than the first and David got also huge traffic problem in half of the round, but when he got passed the laptimes was better. Even this round he finished 4, and Jerome took it.

In the 3rd and last qualifying round so we tested the grid iron to see if there was any difference.
The driving was really good and the only mistake was when he has been hanging on curbs for a few seconds and some bad times at traffic.
He finished in 3rd in the round and 4th in total after Jerome, Yannick and Martin Bayer.
We was pleased with the result as it was a good start after 4 month with no nitro driving at all.

Unfortunately, it started raining after the qualifications and it was promised 33 mm in the night to Sunday and the final day.

Next day it was only to find that it had rained all night, but when we got to the track at 10am it looked okay even if the cars that came in from the finals looked anything but clean.
We made ourselves ready for the Semi practice and we had planned to test the GridIron and CityBeam tires.

In the 1/4 finals it began to rain a lot and the wind was really hard.
After the 1/4 final they called the 24 semi drivers for discuss and vote for continue/stop the race and after 12 for and 12 against the decision were to cancel the race and take the result from the qualifications.
David really wanted to drive and make some battling for the podium, but as the rain increased even more the decision was correct I think.

So Jerome was the winner followed by Yannick, Bayer, David, Battle, Boots in the top 5.

After the race we went back to Lyon and finished the trip with more practice on Monday before we returned home to Sweden again.

Racing in France

This weekend we will drive a (rain !) race in France, and before that it will be couple of days practice. This is the first nitro driving since Worlds last november.

Yesterday we landed in Lyon and took some pictures at the Euro-B 2011 track that now is under preperations.