This year’s Swedish Championship
was set to be run at the Väst-8 track in Gothenburg September 8-9th.
It was really looking good from a number of perspectives! Weather forecast was
good, rather good number of registered drivers, a win from last race so
everything was on top!
This time we had not to travel so far to get to the track as Marcus
apartment is some 10km from the track. Nice! However, when we woke up on Friday
morning we discovered it was wet after some heavy showers during the night… Well,
the forecast was still good so we went out to the track. It was nice to see
relatively many drivers (80) although it was in
3 different classes (1:8IC, 1:10NT and 1:10TC). There were also drivers
from Norway and Denmark attending as the Swedish Championship in Nitro track
classes is open for drivers from other countries.
After some 2 hours of waiting time the track was dry enough for some
first laps. Ooops! The track was really bumpy compared to some tests session we
did previously. It seems that it changes character depending on how much it has
been raining. The setup did not really work as the car was very loose in the
rear on the bumpy sections. We really struggled to have the car dialed in. I
believe we have never tested so many different options without improvements. It
was actually going in the wrong direction. We decided to call it a day and go
back to Marcus apartment for some thinking what to do…. We felt a little lost
to be honest. Ok, what to do? With an engineering approach we checked for any
faulty parts in the car but none was to be found. We compared the car with the
car from last year by measuring at different points to see if there were any
differences but no luck there either. While I was comparing the new and old car
I checked the lower wishbones and found something really interesting!! The
wishbones on the new car felt softer?? I have never seen this
before….. In a desperate measure we decided to switch the wishbones from the
old to the new car and hope this was a step in the right direction.
Saturday morning and qualification day! Weather was ok but really
windy. It was really exciting to see if
the rear end changes would improve the car. During the first heat practice it
was immediately evident that the changes we made last night did really change
the car in the right direction. Together with changes to the rear end camber
(3,5 degrees..) the car was much more drivable with both rear end grip and good
steering. At this point we also tested different bodies and the Protoform PFR
body was better compared to PF909, more drivable and not so “twitchy” as the
PF909. Looking good for the qualification…. J
The first qualifier was not so good and Marcus decided to stop half
way thru. The second qualifier was a decent run and but still some 8 seconds
behind TQ. The third qualification run was a good improvement cutting 6 seconds
compared to Q2. Marcus was now on 3rd place with Niklas Johansson
(Xray) on TQ position and Mikael Fransson (Serpent) on 2nd place.
Young hotshot and local driver, Karl Ullenius (Xray), was on 4th
position (we still run the old qualification format in Sweden with top 4 from
qualification directly to the final). In Q4 there was no change in top 3 but
Magnus Bengtsson (Mugen) was able to take the 4 position leaving Karl Ullenius
on the 5th place. The top ten after qualification was as follows:
Rank
|
Driver
|
Nat
|
Club
|
Team
|
Rnd
|
Endtime
|
Heat
|
1
|
Johansson Niklas
|
SE
|
MHF Skarpnäck
|
31
|
7:13.365
|
2 [3, 4, 1]
|
|
2
|
Fransson Mikael
|
SE
|
Wäxjö MS
|
Team Serpent Sweden
|
30
|
7:00.378
|
2 [3, 4, 1]
|
3
|
Lindner Marcus
|
SE
|
SMK Trollhättan
|
Team Serpent Sweden
|
30
|
7:02.333
|
3 [4, 2, 1]
|
4
|
Bengtsson Magnus
|
SE
|
SMK Trollhättan
|
30
|
7:06.788
|
4 [2, 1, 3]
|
|
5
|
Ullenius Karl
|
SE
|
Väst-8
|
ORCAN SWEDEN
|
30
|
7:08.508
|
3 [4, 2, 1]
|
6
|
Hedlund Christofer
|
SE
|
Norrtälje RCK
|
Orcan-sweden.se
|
30
|
7:11.652
|
2 [4, 3, 1]
|
7
|
Andersson Bengt
|
SE
|
Väst-8
|
Team Serpent Sweden
|
30
|
7:12.746
|
3 [2, 4, 1]
|
8
|
Haugen Lars
|
NO
|
Oslo Modellbilklubb
|
Team Xray
|
29
|
7:00.868
|
1 [4, 2, 3]
|
9
|
Arntzen Erik
|
NO
|
Lørenskog
Modellbilklubb
|
29
|
7:08.363
|
3 [4, 2, 1]
|
|
10
|
Johansson Patrik
|
SE
|
Staffanstorps HS
|
29
|
7:10.432
|
3 [2, 1, 4]
|
Not so bad…. J. Considering the struggle we
had on Friday we were happy with the result from qualifying.
Sunday morning looked ok from a weather perspective but there were
some gray clouds building up. The forecast was “no rain” but I was really
suspicious… so I check with local weather radars and guess what…. there was
rain not far away from the track….
First out in the1:8 track class was the quarter and semi finals.
They all was pretty much in dry conditions (there was some rain coming down in
one semi final but quickly dried up). For the main final the following drivers
made it:
Nr
|
Name
|
Nat
|
Club
|
Team
|
1.
|
Johansson Niklas
|
SE
|
MHF Skarpnäck
|
|
2.
|
Fransson Mikael
|
SE
|
Wäxjö MS
|
Team Serpent Sweden
|
3.
|
Lindner Marcus
|
SE
|
SMK Trollhättan
|
Team Serpent Sweden
|
4.
|
Bengtsson Magnus
|
SE
|
SMK Trollhättan
|
|
5.
|
Ullenius Karl
|
SE
|
Väst-8
|
ORCAN SWEDEN
|
6.
|
Haugen Lars
|
NO
|
Oslo Modellbilklubb
|
Team Xray
|
7.
|
Berntsen Stig
|
NO
|
SMK
|
|
8.
|
Hedlund Christofer
|
SE
|
Norrtälje RCK
|
Orcan-sweden.se
|
9.
|
Andersson Bengt
|
SE
|
Väst-8
|
Team Serpent Sweden
|
10.
|
Lyxell Hans
|
SE
|
Umeå AK
|
Team Nordin Racing.se
|
Just before the practice for directly qualified drivers it started
to rain and it was obvious that this will be a wet final… We quickly changed to
a rain prepped engine and did some tire tests during the practice. 3 different
sets of tires was tested, one rubber and 2 foam tires. We decided to go with
the Xceed foam rain tire which worked best.
As you all know, a rain race is soooo boring. No speed, less exiting
race, sliding cars….. and the final was more or less like this. Niklas
Johansson opted not to drive in the wet conditions and that was maybe the only smart guy in the pit…. The rest of us (aka dummies) went out and did some
drifting… L
And how did it go? Well, the start was ok but then in the first
corner Marcus lost traction and was dead last…. Ok, will 44min and 53 seconds
to go….. Honestly, Marcus did a good wet race and was climbing up place after
place. Around the 30 min mark he was on second place. Mikael Fransson was in
another league and had a good lead which he managed thru the whole race finishing
on top. Marcus was second and Christoffer Hedlund 3rd. In the end
the final ranking was as follows:
Rank
|
Driver
|
Nat
|
Club
|
Team
|
Rnd
|
Endtime
|
1
|
Fransson Mikael
|
SE
|
Wäxjö MS
|
Team Serpent Sweden
|
122
|
45:18.249
|
2
|
Lindner Marcus
|
SE
|
SMK Trollhättan
|
Team Serpent Sweden
|
118
|
45:05.532
|
3
|
Hedlund Christofer
|
SE
|
Norrtälje RCK
|
Orcan-sweden.se
|
117
|
45:09.358
|
4
|
Andersson Bengt
|
SE
|
Väst-8
|
Team Serpent Sweden
|
116
|
45:15.062
|
5
|
Haugen Lars
|
NO
|
Oslo Modellbilklubb
|
Team Xray
|
114
|
45:17.384
|
6
|
Lyxell Hans
|
SE
|
Umeå AK
|
Team Nordin Racing.se
|
113
|
45:21.099
|
7
|
Bengtsson Magnus
|
SE
|
SMK Trollhättan
|
112
|
45:00.930
|
|
8
|
Ullenius Karl
|
SE
|
Väst-8
|
ORCAN SWEDEN
|
109
|
45:03.069
|
9
|
Johansson Niklas
|
SE
|
MHF Skarpnäck
|
0
|
0:00.000
|
|
10
|
Berntsen Stig
|
NO
|
SMK
|
0
|
0:00.000
|
In the end a good result but it could have been so much more
interesting if race would have been under dry conditions.
 |
1st: Mikael Fransson (Serpent/NovaRossi)
2:nd: Marcus Lindner/Serpent/NovaRossi)
3rd: Christoffer Hedlund Xray/Orcan
|
Until next time!
Wolfgang/Marcus
