Krapp moves into contention for RROC title
Contesting his first Reedy International Touring Car Race of Champions at the famous Tamiya Raceway in California, Christopher Krapp got the final day underway with an important win that puts the Tamiya driver in contention for the overall win at the 18th running of the event. His fourth win from 9 races, the result was made even more significant because the same round would see overnight points leader Marc Rheinard and defending champion Ronald Volker post their worst results so far. In the other two races, Tamiya’s Akio Sobue notched up a second win ahead of Viktor Wilck while former 200mm World Champion Ralph Burch claimed a popular first win of the event.
Krapp said it ‘feels really good to start the day with a win’. The win over Meen Vejrak and Ryan Cavalieri, ‘opens everything up again’ and having ended Day 2 third in the points table that moved the German up to second just one point behind TRF team-mate Marc Rheinard. Another cold morning, Krapp said his Orion powered TRF419 was a little edgy for the day’s opening race but should, like yesterday, the sun come out he is confident he will have a good car for the remaining three rounds of racing. Running in the same heat as Krapp, Rheinard described his race as ‘horrible’. Starting from 7th on the grid, the 4-time champion was battling with Nicolas Lee for fourth but with three laps to go he would clip the curbing through the sweeper launching his TRF419 into the fencing leaving the German to finish 9th.
Racing in the same heat that would be won by Sobue, Volker said that starting from last he had to be ‘very patient’. Up to 5th after the first minute, the ETS Champion was running behind World Champion Naoto Matsukura and HB’s JJ Wang but when the pair clashed he too got caught up in the incident losing him time. While he would catch up to third placed Alexander Hagberg he said he ‘couldn’t get by’ the Xray driver. Having to settle for 4th which drops him to third in the standings he said now the only way he was going to defend his title was if both Krapp and Rheinard had bad results the next one. Starting from his first pole position for the 10th round, he said with Rheinard in the same race it’s going to be an important one to win.
Starting Race 2 from the pole, RC America boss Ralph Burch was clearly happy to post a win at the Reedy Race. The Texan said he made a good start and was able to get away quickly, his winning margin being a massive 6-seconds. Taking his Xray T4 to the fastest lap of the round, he said while it was ‘not the most comfortable to drive’ it has been really quick throughout the event but he hasn’t had good starts and when he did he ‘took (himself) out’. Unfortunately his chance of a repeat win will be limited due to his starting positions for the rest of the day, him starting last in 2 of them.
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