Groskamp holds overnight pole in Luxembourg
Jilles Groskamp (17/5:16.582) holds the overnight pole here in Luxembourg after the Dutch ace, who is in search of his first EFRA European title, set a new fastest time in the second round of qualifying. The factory Tamiya/Speedpassion driver described the run as perfect as he made best use of the cooler track conditions to head home Team Yokomo’s Ronald Volker (17/5:17.977) who TQ’d the slower opening qualifier. Very happy with his overall performance today the ‘Warm Up’ race winner said everything had worked perfectly and it is was good to end the opening day holding the provisional pole.
Volker, who took TQ honours last year while trying to defend his 2007 title said his BD5 was still suffering from understeer but was happy to end the day with a 1st and a 2nd. Tomorrow the German will try to get more steering into the car which he hopes will allow him to challenge for pole in Sunday’s Main final.
After crashing in his first heat and breaking his car, the big surprise of practice Lucas Urbain (17/5:18.959) bounced back in style to record the third fastest time with his Losi. The French Championship front runner said he was nervous at the start of the second round due to his earlier mistake but was very happy to find himself up at the sharp end of the time sheets among some of the best r/c drivers in the world. Suffering from a little understeer on his GM Racing powered JRXS-R he plans to play around with the application of tyre additive in the morning’s one hour open practice.
Fourth fastest and holding 3rd in the overnight qualification ranking, Marc Rheinard (17/5:19.129) thinks he suffered a belt failure in one of his rear tyres. The defending Champion’s Tamiya did a 360 spin on the straight during his run while he was in contention for a TQ run. Officially the World’s greatest electric touring car driver with two World titles to his credit, the German star said his TRF416 felt very good up until the high speed spin which caused his mechanic & designer of the car Kiyo Suzuki to gasp.
‘Not happy with my car’ was how Viktor Wick (17/5:19.605) summed up his second run. The Swede is complaining of bad understeer on his Tamiya which he feels is causing his run time wows. Once again the Tamiya Racing Factory driver dumped on the last lap while in the chase for a TQ run. Having had no run time issues in pre-event testing Wilck will revert to old batteries for his next qualification attempt as well as trying different shock oil.
The fourth of the TRF team drivers Hupo Honigl was very pleased with his sixth place run for the round. The Austrian had followed the set-up of his team-mates for the first qualifier but reverted back to the one step softer spring he ran earlier and said the difference was incredible. Taking the unenviable BQ honours last year in Spain the electric off road ace said ‘I need one more’ referring to one more Top 6 run to secure himself a place in the A Main.
Having had run time issues in the first round Yannic Pruemper and Steen Graversen managed to go the full distance. Pruemper reduced the timing on his Speedpassion motor, which gave him the run time but a lack of top end speed, to claim seventh but for tomorrow the teenager will set the timing in the middle and gear down to compensate. New Team Orion batteries gave Graversen the extra juice he needed to complete the run and the factory Kyosho feels now everything is OK to make the A Main.
Tomorrow, Day 3 of the 2009 EFRA 1:10 Electric Touring European Championships, will get underway with a one hour free practice session following by three rounds of qualifying. The weather is showing a dry day but for Sunday things look like they are going to get very wet.
Full results from the event can be found here.
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