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Worlds_2006.peo (16/10/2006)

By:: Per-Ola Kent Hard

2006 1:10NT 200mm IFMAR WC Brisbane Australia

Race Summary:

Between the 7:th and 17:th of September the 2:nd official IFMAR World Championships for 1:10 NT 200mm cars was held outside of Brisbane, Queensland Australia. After two years of intense preparations the local club in Brisbane welcomed around 140 drivers from all over the world to the updated England Park Raceway. The track looked great, nice layout and tarmac, new pit-area with a good rostrum and timekeeping facility, wireless internet in the whole area, hobby shop trackside, so really a world class facility. Most of the big manufactures like Serpent, Kyosho and Mugen were present with their factory teams, same for most of the major engine manufactures. So everyone expected a very tough race…..

Practice:
The practice started Thursday the 7:th with a somewhat slippery track with low grip, but the grip increased pretty fast and the weather was ok but somewhat windy. Friday saw great weather and traction increased and so did laptimes with the best times between 17.5-18.0 seconds. Saturday the 9:th had very nice and sunny weather about 30 degrees and nice racing, in general the laptimes did not improve because of the hot conditions, instead some drivers started to face traction roll problems. Sunday had rain the whole day so noone could do any racing. Monday the 11:th and last day of practice, the day started wet then dried, two rounds of practice could be done in the evening, tomorrow the real show begins with the first qualifications!

Qualifications:
Tuesday started off dry for the first heats, then rain, then dry, then heavy rain, then dry in the evening again so the last heat had to drive in artificial light in the evening. Wednesday 2:nd day of qualifications, today two rounds in dry for all drivers, good! Thursday two rounds for all drivers on a dry track, many drivers had to face traction roll problems, it was once again obvious that heats in the evening when the sun goes down was much faster than in the morning because of better traction and overall engine performance, laptimes now dropped to low 17 second laps for the fastest, small (56-58mm) and very hard tires (45shore) was the way to go. After the 6 qualifications the four fastest was Tossolini, Balestri, Bertin and Shimo.

Finals:
Friday the 15:th saw the lower finals starting off in a nice and dry condition, but soon it started to rain and in rained most of the day, only the last finals could be run in dry in the early evening. Saturday started with dry ¼ finals, then during the first semi the rain came and the final was stopped, after the track got dry again the first semi started again (first and second part had to be counted together) and could be run in dry, then it started to rain again so the last semi and the main final had to be postponed until Sunday, tricky situation for the organisation. Sunday the 17:th and final day, the rain during the night made the start of the last semi a little late, after some time of racing it started to rain again and the race was stopped, it was now decided that the semi would restart from scratch as soon as the track would be dry again, so later the heat could be run! Now everyone just hoped that the day would stay dry so the main final could be run in nice conditions. Believe it or not but the 60 minutes main final could be run in dry conditions during Sunday afternoon and everyone was pretty happy with that. The race dominant Chris Tossolini was in the lead from the start until about 50-55 min into the final when he ran into frequency problems with his car and crashed into one of the barriers and broke the car, the lead was now taken over by Keisuke Fukuda followed by Takaaki Shimo and 3:rd local and very talented Peter Jovanovic and this was the three guys finishing on the podium after 60 minutes of exciting racing where many drivers ran into different problems at different stages of the race. Masao Takaka the only Serpent power in the final started of well, but he did a tire change which the top guys didn’t and therefore lost time, Tanaka also had to change his receiver pack and therefore lost even more time of course, but he fighted to the end and could get a nice 5:th place. A World Championship is never easy, but everything from traction roll to rain interruptions made this a very tough race, not to different from the situation in Brazil two years ago actually. It is not decide yet where the worlds will be held next time, but somewhere in Europé, I hope for a dry one then… DRY!

My racing:
For me the race was not very good, despite I really liked the track, traction roll and fuel consumption problems in the qualifications made me qualify for the 1/16 final. Then it looked like a wet final for me the whole day, but just before the start of my final the track dried, I managed to get the car ready in the last minute. Started with making a driving mistake and flipped over, then braking for cars spinning in front of me and got hit and put into the grass two times, was now in the end of field, but then I drove pretty good and the car was ok so I worked my way up into 4:th place, worth nothing as only the top 3 moves up to the 1/8 finals. So a pretty disappointed Peo could only watch the end of the racing activities….. After a very wet Euros in Holland and a semi-wet Worlds in Australia I hope for a SUPER DRY Euros in Madrid next year, Spain is a pretty dry country…. But we will see, stay tuned! :)

I would like to thank SERPENT MOTORSPORT in Holland for great support at the Worlds and the other races this season, the same for GQ products in Hong-Kong, Dalton Shop in Indonesia and RunnerTime Fuel in Italy. Thanks for excellent support!