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Michael's 720 debut (21/06/2006)

By:: Michael Salven

The 200mm GP in Heemstede was the first big event for me this year. It has a special place in my agenda for several reasons: it is basically my home track, but most important of all, it would be the debut of the 720!

I built the car the week before the GP and took it to the track on Tuesday. I was really nervous, like on a date! You should know that I was not involved in the testing of the car as a driver, we preferred to let other drivers test the prototype on different tracks around the world.

All the testing was done by them and by Rene Cornella, who is basically the father of the 720.
Well, the feeling of my car was great initially, not a lot to criticize. Tire wear in the rear was a bit higher than in the front, so I decided to use softer fronts than rears and adjust the car to that.
Thursday was rained out in the afternoon, so Friday was basically the next day we could test.

We had 7 cars in total: Julius Kolff, who did the most of the testing beside Rene, Mark Green, our “team”-European champion, Jacky Mouton, the French champion, Steven Cuypers in his first 1/10 scale race ever, Richard Keur, who is, beside being our sales manager, a great racer, Jilles Grosskamp, the Electric big shot, who decided to give gas racing a try, and me.
Friday was a little strange, since my car became a little weird. It became a lot better, when I changed from a Mazda To a Stratus 3, the body that everybody else used anyway. Little adjustments to the front anti-roll bar made it just perfect.

We all continued to try things in qualifying. We need to learn quickly about the car. At the end of qualifying everybody used basically the same set-up and we took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th place. A dream result! Only Steven Cuypers failed to get a clean run. He struggled a bit to get the car right and we found a binding front suspension being the reason later on.

Running the final was great fun! All 6 cars ran on a different strategy to get to learn more for the coming Euro’s. Jilles Grosskamp took over the lead from me after about 12 minutes or so and pulled away a little bit. He was on a tire stop strategy, while I would try to go nonstop. But a few minutes later he got involved in a crash and broke his rear suspension. I had to retire a few minutes later with a broken crystal (!).

Julius took over the lead and finished the race easily in front of three more 720!
A great day for the team! We dominated the event, but we know there is still a lot to do for the upcoming Euro’s. The fact that we also won the US Nationals the same weekend gives even more motivation to so.

See you all soon at the Euro's

my 720 in action!

my pitman Bertram working on the car

Am I fast enough?

concentration!

top 4 qualifyers

Bertram in action

where is the secret? ;-)

ready to go!