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Michael's 2006 Euro's 1/8 (01/08/2006)

By:: Michael Salven

Dear Racers

Sometimes I wonder if there is anything like luck. I like to think there is no such thing, because that would mean there is something I can’t influence. But I have to admit that it sometimes is difficult to maintain that philosophy.
The European championship 1/8 this year was one of these races. It was held in Staffansdorp in Sweden. We arrived Monday morning on the track, which I already knew form the EFRA GP in June. At that very race we struggled, but we changed a few things after that. We got harder rims, harder front bearingblocks, and stiffer rear wishbones with a different pick-up point for the anti-roll bar. All Serpent drivers at that race got a little package with these parts for free.

I also tried to go a different direction with my set-up. The reason for this was a problem I had in the last races: I had good steering, but under braking my car was understeering a lot and I could only turn in after releasing the brake. We thought that the problem might be that I look for a lot of steering, which means soft front (anti-roll bar, springs) and hard rear end and a low front rollcenter as well. All this leads to a car that lifts the inside rear wheel quite a lot. The problem comes if you brake and turn: the lifted inside wheel can not contribute to the braking forces, the only wheel braking is the outside wheel which in return wants to turn the car outside the turn. Got it?

Anyway, I tried to do different: fully hard front anti-roll bar, high front rollcenter and hard front springs. Now the car was good under braking, I could brake and turn as I like it, but the basic balance was understeered. I found that the 950 WOS steering-blocks solved that problem.
My car was good all week and I concentrated on finding the right tires for the different conditions during the day (in the morning it was cool, but very hot around noon). Right before the first qualifier it started to rain! So first qualifier was gone. Second qualifier I was curious if the track would be good after the rain. It was! My car was flying and I heard that I was leading the heat in front of Collari. But then I crashed into a car that was standing still on the straight! I could hardly believe it.

I rebuilt the car for the Saturday and hoped it would be as good as before. It was ok, but it was quite difficult to drive and I made a mistake in each qualifier. It was even worse when I realized that without the mistake I would have been in the top 4.

Anyway, I was disappointed, but the whole Italian team (Massimo Fantini, Fabio Domanin and Andrea Christiani) had even more bad luck, all of them where back in the quarter, all of them had at least one crash with other cars in qualifying, incredible! But not everybody was that far behind, Mikael Fransson did very well and ended up as 5th qualifier.
Sunday brought all the finals. On our side the Italian team moved into the semi final, as did young Belgium talent Robin D’hond, quite a surprise!

In the semi’s it was my one first. I had a disastrous start, starting second I found myself last after the first lap. But I had a fast car, I moved up to second after the first pit-stops and I was able to close the gap to Bertin, who was leading. 2 minutes before the end I drove a little bit over a curb and after the car came down again, the outside rear wheel came off! I have no idea how that could happen. My mechanic put it right back after he got the car from the marshals, but to much time was lost. Robin D’hond ended up second and moved up into the final, very well done, Robin.
The second final saw Fantini leading, but he soon had to retire due to glowplug problems. Fabio was our only other car that could make the final. Mark Green’s engine decided to run rich very suddenly; it didn’t even shift anymore. Steven Cuypers car had a pit lane incident, where he also lost a rear wheel. Well, I started to believe in (bad) luck!

The final was very exciting. Fabio drove an incredible race, he made no mistakes (except the one 2 minutes from the end, which stopped my heart beating) and his car and engine performed perfect. He was right behind the leading group very soon and took advantage of their little problems. Very, very well done Fabio, it was the right ending of a troubled race for us. I have to admit that I was very emotional after the final because not only was Fabio driving with our car, but also he is a very fine man and a friend.

left side of the track with the difficult chicane

mid part and entry of the straight

right part, the right turn in front is full throttle

the car after my crash. the beer was necessary..;-)

entering the straight