> News

2nd Round Dutch Championship Rucphen (11/05/2010)

By:
Reporter-2

Linked to:
Serpent 966 1/8 scale 4WD EVO, Serpent 966 -TE 1/8 scale 4WD, Serpent 966 -TE v2 1/8 scale 4WD


Last weekend we had the second round of the dutch championship, and after Apeldoorn with the rain on sunday afternoon, I wanted my revenche on Thor.
But he kept his promise this time and it stayed dry for saturday and sunday.

I was really satisfied after apeldoorn with the car and engine. So kept it almost the same. Saturday practice I started with the set up from the warm up in locorotondo earlier this year, (to be found in de set-up download section).  I just made minor changes, like the rear adjustable swaybar, but for me it wasn't better, car started staggering in the corners, so changed back to std 2mm. and lowered the rear shocks to the lowest hole, this was better. Also used the old zytec instead of the Z2


This one gave more steer. I ran in a Mega DS4, and was really impressed with the speed again.
I also tested the Merlin Fuel, I've been using it since the warm up in Locorotondo, and I am very satisfied with the performance.

Sunday, let the games begin, first qualif was pretty oke for me but the fuel stop wasn't great and I made some small mistakes. I used 32° front and 37° rear, so the car was a bit loose. Robin was on a really good pace, and was on provisional pole, with 32r 7:05.942. Second qualif everything worked perfect, I changed the tires to 32° front and 32° rear. The fuelstop went perfect and I had a very good feeling with the car. I was 0,6sec infront of robin after the 7min qualifier. Robin improved by 0,3sec in the last one, but was still 0,3sec to short to grab TQ. I used the 3th qualif to adjust my gearbox. and tested with bigger tires. To see if they would work for the final or not. Standings after 3 qualifs.


1 Ilia Van Gastel    32r 7:04.098    
2 Robin D'hondt     32r 7:04.334
3 John Ermen         32r 7:06.343
4 Rick Vrielynck    32r 7:10.055

The semi's were exciting to watch and after the two finals we were joined by
5 Gunther Van Staey
6 Jordy Blok
7 Stefan Koenders
8 Michiel Renting
9 Peter Ceysens
10 Tim Bosman

Start of the final, on the warm up lap, Jordy blok who was really fast in the semi ran into some problems and had to retire. And the start itself my engine ran a little rich and John ran in to me. He passed me and we continued. Robin took a little lead. After few laps I passed john again, and closed up on robin. And than we had a fierce battle for the next 27min. We swapped places a lot of times. to give an idea how intence it was, when I was called it for me second fuelstop, I passed robin the turn before the pits and waited until the last moment to drive in, so that he wouldn't have to much free run. At 12min my mechanics changed the tires, and I came back out behind Rick V who was second at that moment and didn't make a tyre stop, but after few minutes I could pass him again for 2nd. Than at the 15min mark robin came in for his tire stop.  And he came out of the pits at full speed just infront of me, and we when on to the straight side by side, but I passed him on the inside going on to the straight because he had some less steer on the new tyres. And I could have some advantage of the already ran in tyres, and took a little lead of some 8meters. But than I received a stop and go for refueling, and lost few seconds, luckily for me, the stop after mine robin also received one, so we were almost the same again. And I was back infront. But at the last fuelstop it went wrong, my mech had a  pretty wet fuelstop, also because of the tension I think, and I spon of the track with the wet tires. I lost 4sec on robin, I gave it all I got, and could run in a little, and than Robin made a little mistake which closed the gap, and I could come back just on his tail but than we already finished. So we finished 0,327sec apart after the 30minutes.

But I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as me and robin, because this is what it's all about.

Final Standings
 

Hope we can have some more races like this one.

Thanks to Serpent, Mega engines, Xceed,  Merlin fuel, RC Car Colors, Artec-Racing, for the support.

Thanks to my mechanics, my dad and Tom for the fast tyre stop, and refueling.

My next race will be the Efra GP in Apeldoorn, hope to see you there..

Ciao ciao Ilia