DHI Cup celebrates 10th birthday
10 years ago a guy by the name of Kim Bendiksen decided that instead of chauffeuring his friend Jonas Kaerup around Europe all the time that maybe it would be possible to get the top international drivers to come to Denmark for a change. Naming the event after his r/c distribution business, Dansk Hobby Import, the DHI Cup was born in 2001. The entry for the inaugural event was not what Kim had hoped for but he didn’t give up on the idea of Denmark having an annual international race. Instead he made a promise to the drivers that if he got over 100 entries for the 2002 event he would make trophy girls a feature of the event. The incentive worked and the event has gone from strength to strength to become one of the major touring car races in the World.
The previous 9 running’s of the DHI Cup have produced seven different winners and four of them are back here this weekend as serious contenders for victory of the 10th Anniversary race. Heading that line up is defending champion Marc Rheinard who is one of only two drivers to have won the event twice. He is joined by Tamiya team-mate Viktor Wilck who took his first ever international race win here in 2008. Ronald Volker, Champion in 2007, is here as part of a very strong Yokomo line up with 2003 winner Juho Levanen the other past winner present here this weekend at the impressive Odense Congress Center.
As always all the big teams are present but one team out in force this weekend is Yokomo. The Japanese company have a real quality line up with Volker being joined by current 1:12 World Champion Naoto Matsukura, former 1:10 Off Road World Champion Hayato Matsuzaki and the latest recruit to the team, former European Championship Top Qualifier Steven Weiss. Yukijiro Umino who showed great speed on his last visit to Europe when he finished second at the Euro Touring Series race in Hungary will carry the hopes of the Yokomo team in Pro Stock.
Heading the entry for the 94-strong field of Pro Stock drivers is defending Champion Tommy Bergfeldt. The Swede dominated proceedings here 12 months ago winning from pole position and after the opening two rounds of practice finds himself at the top of the time sheets ahead of Alexander Stocker and last year’s runner up Henry Salmén.
New for this year’s event is the new pre-glued controlled VTEC CPX tyre from LRP which has been specially developed for indoor carpet racing. With two rounds of practice just completed, and a racing line starting to appear on the brand new carpet, we can expect to get a good indication of who is at what and who has a little more to do ahead of the first round of qualifying which will bring Day 1 of the 2010 DHI Cup to a close.
View our event image gallery here.