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Sweden: Bengt wins 1/10 and 1/8 nitro Nats 733 / 966 (22/08/2010)

By:: Reporter
Linked to:: Serpent 733-EVO 1/10 scale 4wd, Serpent 733-TE 1/10 scale 4wd

Swedish national championship
(Serpent grand slam)

The race took place on the track of MHF-Skarpnäck which is known to be very difficult and challenging.
Friday the practice began with nice weather and the pleasant temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. The condition of the track hasn´t got better with the past years so when it is economically possible for MHF it is time for new asphalt. When the qualifications where about to start Saturday morning the sky opened up and the rain started pouring down. Because of this most of the drivers only drove one qualification heat hoping that that would make it possible for them to participate during the finals that would take place during Sunday. This made it impossible to draw any major conclusions from the results of the qualification.

When the semi-finals where done one could state that two of the top drivers in 1:10 didn´t qualify for the finals. Per-Ola Hård was disqualified due to the fuel tank that was too big and Mikael Brandt had to disrupt because of a broken servo. Due to the high humidity and water coming from underneath the track was never completely dry. After all it rained about 100 mm during Saturday.

The 1:10 final were run first and as expected Mikael Fransson and Bengt Andersson immediately created a gap between them and the others. The track was difficult to master and because of that Mikael made a small mistake half way through the final and went off the track and was later forced to drive in to the pit to repair a broken exhaust. Bengt had taken a quite big lead and because of that and Mikaels problems one believed that this made the results more or less definite. One of Bengts tires broke, there was no time to change them and he was forced to slow down. In spite of this Bengt was able to drive safely and became the winner of the 1:10 finals.

The 1:8 finals turned out to be a strange event! As in the 1:10 finals Mikael and Bengt immediately took the lead. After some time things started to happen! One after another had to disrupt due to crashes or technical problems so in the end there were only four cars left on the track and Bengt was able to win big. This meant that Bengt won both classes. This achievement (winning both 1:8 and 1:10 finals during Swedish national championship) has only been reached by Mikael Fransson before.

1:8
1.   Bengt Andersson (Serpent 966)
2.   Jan Nilsson
3.   Hans Lyxell
4.   Anders Appelgren
5.   Michael Hahne
6.   Patrick Sahlin
7.   Mikael Fransson
8.   Patrik Johansson
9.   Bertil Karlsson (Serpent 966)
10.   Ronnie Piispanen

1:10
1.   Bengt Andersson (Serpent 733)
2.   Sonny Ahlström
3.   Björn Lantz
4.   Markus Hellquist (Serpent 733)
5.   Mikael Fransson
6.   Thomas Näsström (Serpent 733)
7.   Thomas Gidlund (Serpent 733)
8.   Thomas Livbom (Serpent 733)
9.   Nikola Trtica
10.   Andreas Böök

Team Serpent Sweden