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French EFRA GP 1/8 (29/03/2006)

By:: Steven Cuypers

Training

Hi fellow racers,

The european racing season kicked off this weekend with the French GP in Beaumont.
The Beaumont-track is a narrow track with rather low grip conditions.
We arrived on fridaymorning and because the track was still drying out, we decided to take this as an opportunity to run in some engines (MEGA ZX-21 DSII). These further developped and improved engines performed very good, good bottom power and good end speed.
Carwise it was a difficult weekend for me. The problem was that it was, as I told earlier, a very low grip track, so you had a critical balance between rear traction and steering.
If you made the car too stable, you had too little steering and when the steering was ok, the rear was too loose.
It wasn't the car (960) itself, because Mark Green had probably the best car during this event so ... I don't know I had a little bit of problems with the grip conditions on this track.

The race

During the qualifications I searched further after the good "feeling" of the car. I played with the rear toe-in, rear roll-center, difference in tyre diametre front and rear.
Eventually it was ok and I could set the 7th qualifying time.
Michael could take pole and Mark Green was 4th after qualifying.
The semifinal started good for me. I could take the lead and pull away a little bit, but than I started to make mistakes and when the tyres went smaller the car went to slide again. After 20 minutes I was 4th, within 1 sec of 3rd spot.
So, no final for me this time.

Conclusion

This was a very strange race for me, I never really could get into to rythm. But I'm sure I will be back in the first lines next race!!!

I want to thank the club who made this race into a nice event.

Thanks to my mecanic.
Special thanks to Serpent MRC, Enneti-tyres, Sanwa, RC-TECH products, Hudy