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710/Mega wins Benelux Cup (06/07/2006)

By:: Nick Cuypers

For the 3th annual Benelux Race we went to the beautiful track of MCC Kochelscheuer in Luxemburg. It’s a fast but also very technical circuit with the famous laguna Seca turn before the straight.

With almost 70 drivers divided in 1/8 & 1/10 and a great weatherforecast it was going to be a superb weekend.
From Holland we had top drivers like René Cornella,Richard Keur and Remy Möller in 1/10 and Jordy Blok and John & Jack Ermen in 1/8. From Belgium we had Ilia van Gastel, Steven Cuypers and Robin d’Hondt who had already proven to be very fast on this track. In 1/10 it was Bert Aerts, Steve Lambrechts, Jérôme Renaux,.., and myself who where going to try to beat our Dutch friends. From Luxemburg we had Gilles Urbing , Richard Dirk and others.

We started practise on Friday. We had our Belgian nationals 1 month ago so we had already a good set-up to work with. I began with 35° , 3 holes in the front and 2 holes in the back. 50.000 in the front differential and 10.000 in the back. Upper inner position in rear roll center, level in the front, with 40 shore tyres alround. The car felt already good but was a bit understeered so I lowered front roll center and softened front roll bar whitch made the car a lot better. Meanwhile Richard and Reneé where demonstrating that the new 720 is a very fast and reliable car. It was going to be a close race on Sunday.

On Saturday we had 1 timed practise and 4 rounds of qualification.Reneé Cornella set the pace from the beginning and took pole position, 2nd spot was for the other 720 driver Richard Keur. Behind them Remy , Steve , Bert , Jéröme and myself were batteling for positions . After all the heats Remy and Jéröme completed the top 4 qualifiers. I qualified 7th and started the semi final behind Bert. Instead of the normal 15 minutes, it was a 30minutes semi so it was important to spare car and engine. I came in twice to ritchen the engine, there was still a 45 min finale to come. I finished in first position , followed by Bert and Jack Van Leeuwen.
Before the final we had to make a big decision, a tyre change or not? Looking at my tyres (Ellegi 40 left, 42 right) I thought It would be possible without a change if you don’t push all the time.Also Bert and Steve went for 1 set of tyres.A tyre change takes at least 2 laps, if everything goes well.The rest of the drivers went for one stop I believe.

René decided not to start and assist Richard . He lead the race in the first minutes followed by Remy Möller .I was able to pass Jéröme and to keep the same distance behind the leaders. After 6 or 7 min. My engine flamed out right in front of the pitlane, when I came back on the track I was 1 lap behind Remy, who had took over the lead of Richard. I couldn’t push to hard because the tyres had to last for 45min. Behind us Jéröme was going very fast and didn’t lose a lot of distance.Meanwhile Steve Lambrechts had engine problems and had to quit the race after 15 minutes.
After 25 min. Richard was the first to come in for a tyre change, he lost almost 3 laps and dropped back a few spots. 5 minutes later Rémy came in, now it was my job to make no mistakes. His engine flamed out during the change and when he came back on the track I was leading with 2 laps ahead of him. Renaux was in second place now, he came in very late for his change and did only his outside tyres which brought him back in second.Richard Keur had to leave the race with a broken wing , a pity because he was going very fast with the new car.
With 2 laps ahead I just had to keep the pace and make no mistakes, hoping tyres and engine would last. The car never became difficult to drive and I took victory home.It was still a close call for 2nd, Rémy was able to pass Jéröme in the Laguna Seca ,5-6 meters before the finish. He was 0.028 sec. ahead, don’t have to tell you again how close this race was. Bert Aerts became 4th, after a few flame-outs, good race.
In 1/8 Ilia van Gastel took victory, in front of Steven Cuypers en Jack Ermen.

It was a good weekend with car and engine performing very well, looking forward to use the engine on our next national race in 2weeks.I enjoyed myself with helping and learning from eatchother during the whole weekend.I hope we still have a lot of races like this this year.
I would like to thank Steven and Peter for their help in the pitlane, also thanks to team serpent, Gammalube and RC car colours.

Hope to see you all soon
Ciao

Final Result

1.Nick Cuypers 159L 45:15.090 710/mega
2.Remy Möller 156L 45:10.375 710/mega
3.Jérôme Renaux 156L 45:10.403 Kyosho
4.Bert Aerts 150L 45:08.009 710/mega
5.Dominique Morsa 147L 45:12.602 Kyosho
6.Jack Van Leeuwen 145L 45:06.755 710/mega
7.Richard Keur 102L 32:05.639 720/mega MF
8.Stephane Roufosse 58L 18:49.707 710/mega
9.Steve Lambrechts 45L 14:36.944 710/mega
10.René Cornella 0L 00:00.00 720/mega