Another win moves Wilck into contention, Rheinard adds fourth win
Viktor Wilck has moved himself into contention at the Reedy Race of Champions in California, the 2012 Champion claiming a third win as the 20th running of legendary race reach the half way point. With one of the two allowed dropped scores taken into account, the Serpent driver sits second, 3 points adrift of new leader Marc Rheinard. Starting fourth on the grid, Wilck would win ahead of reigning champion Ronald Volker with the same heat seeing the kink bring an end to Bruno Coelho’s run of Top 3 finishes, the impact leaving the Xray driver with a DNF. For Rheinard, Round 6 netted the Infinity driver his 4th win allowing him to take over the points lead from overnight leader Meen Vejrak, the Yokomo driver having his worst round so far with a 6th. In the third of the encounters, Christopher Krapp finally ended his run of bad luck, last year’s runner-up becoming the ninth of the 24 invite drivers to register a win.
‘Getting better. For sure it was a lot easier than the previous one’, was Wilck’s reaction to his latest win. Having taken a somewhat controversial win in Round 5, the Swede making contact with Akio Sobue in the kink, he added, ‘I thought it was going to be a good fight with Naoto but he rolled when I caught him. They then had a battle with Ronald so I could easily pull away’. Winning his Reedy Race title at the Norcal track before it returned to its spiritual home of the Tamiya Raceway, he said, ‘My car is still ok, it is easy to drive and is not having the same problem others are having in the heat’. Set to line-up in the same heat as Rheinard for Round 7, starting P2 while his former Tamiya team-mate starts last, he concluded, ‘it an important one the next one’.
The only driver with four wins, Rheinard summed up Round 6 with, ‘what can I say, I had a lucky start because 1 & 2 crashed and had the lead in the first corner’. The 3-time Touring Car World Champion who won the first of his five Reedy Race titles 11-years-ago here at the historic Tamiya track, continued, ‘after that I could take it easy to the end, apart from having to avoid one car flying into the chicane the race went like a perfect plan’. Asked about Wilck’s form, he joked, ‘he’s just been lucky’ but on starting in the same heat as his good friend off track he said, ‘everything can happen, Ronald went from 8th to 2nd in the last one so I will just drive and see what happens’.
Sitting fifth, with just a single win to his credit, Volker wasn’t happy with the performance of his latest set of tyres. The World Champion said, ‘Having struggled with understeer in Round 5 we swapped the front tyres from left to right and now it had crazy understeer in right corners which is totally frustrating’. The Yokomo driver continued, ‘I benefited from Naoto and Bruno’s kink hit and 2nd is a valuable result given I started 8th’. He added, ‘While 5 out of the 6 races I have started at the back I can only look forward to the upcoming races and better grids, better tyres and better results’.
Making his third Reedy Race appearance, making a big impression on his 2015 debut, Krapp said, ‘I’m just happy to finally get a clean run’. Suffering a spur gear failure in yesterday’s final round which left his car stranded in the middle of the kink with the entire field somehow avoiding his Yokomo, the German said, ‘With yesterday’s results the race is over for me. The car is good but I have just been unlucky but now with a win I just want to have fun the next round and enjoy the rest of the event’.
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