Victory!

Not so bad…. J

So far the 2012 season have been interesting to say at least…. Often Marcus have been blistering fast during qualification but during finals some mechanical issues stop or slowed us down. This time it was different! But let us start from the beginning!

The 6^th round of Swedish Cup took place at a fairly new track in Lidköping (western part of Sweden). The track was completed a couple of years ago but until now no 1:8/1:10 national race have been run there. The facilities are awesome! It is a complete motor stadium built by the local government for karting, rallycross, moto cross and rc racing track. The area is hugh! This local government have set the standard!!

Left side of the Track

Right side of the track

The rc track is challenging and that is not an understatement. It is a combination of fast sweapers and some really slow corners. Part of the track is a little bit too narrow but overall an interesting experience. Yesterday (Aug26th) I also got information that the World Championship for RC Bikes will take place at this track in 2014!

Marcus and I arrived on Friday afternoon for some practice and testing. When on a new track one need as much time as possible to find the way round and to get a good setup. It was a little bit tricky to get a good setup and we struggled with rear end grip in the slow corners while it was ok in the high speed corners. We did a lot of different test but the key thing in the end was narrow rear width (259mm) and more rear camber then we normally use (3.0-3.5 degrees). It was interesting to see how very small changes to camber angle (0.5 degrees) had a big effect on the handling… you never stop learning… J

Saturday = qualification day, at least according to the original time schedule but during the drivers meeting it was discussed if the race should be changed from a 2-day to a 1-day race due to bad weather forecast for Sunday. All drivers agreed to go ahead with a 1-day event instead of having a rain race again… As it turned out this was a good decision, at least almost… more below

What can be said about the qualification? Well, driving on the black stuff is faster than the green stuff….. J. A couple of mistakes meant that Q1(5^th overall) and Q2 (3^rd overall) was not perfect. However in the last qualification was ok with a 2^nd place overall. Niklas Johansson was blistering fast as usual and was hard to beat this time.

Result after qualification:

Driver	Laps	Time
Johansson Niklas	23	7:16.450
Lindner Marcus	22	7:05.016
Hedlund Christofer	22	7:10.562
Bengtsson Magnus	22	7:15.001

So, a decent result from a qualification perspective. As there was only 1 hour between last qualification and final we had to start prepping for the final. The challenge was to decide if a tire change was needed or not. Normally we do a tire change in a 45 min final but this time the tire wear was not high (~2mm/10min). We simulated the tire wear in our “secret” tool can came up with the following:

Front Tire wear simulation

Reat Tire wear simulation

It should work without tire change…. We decided to take a chance and go without tire change but we also had a plan B in case something bad should happen… J

Final started in a good way, Marcus took the lead as Niklas had to start from the 11^th position due to timeout. No drama in the beginning but after 10min Marcus had an off track experience in one of the fast sweapers. Nothing happened with the car but dropped a 2 place to 3^rd spot. Well, there was still time for improving. In the meantime Niklas had worked his way up and was now in the lead. Around 20 min into the final there was some light rain. Some drivers decided to change to rain tires directly but we gambled and stayed out. Also Niklas did the same which lead to that Niklas and Marcus got a couple of laps lead towards the rest of the field. Midway thru the final Niklas got issues with a broken drive shaft and Marcus could take over the lead. It was really a pitty for Niklas because he was fast as usual and deserved a better result. From now on it was a calm race for our part as we had 2-3 laps lead the rest of the final. Marcus drove steady to save the tires. This time we made it and Marcus won the race!! Bengt Andersson took 2nd place and young hotshot Karl Ullenius 3rd place

	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Lindner Marcus	Serpent Sweden	131	45:14.216
2	Andersson Bengt	Serpent Sweden	129	45:03.166
3	Ullenius Karl	Orcan Sweden	128	45:13.536
4	Bengtsson Magnus		126	45:18.673
5	Nilsson Jan		122	45:35.686
6	Persson PH		114	45:02.133
7	Hahne Michael		114	45:13.260
8	Johansson Niklas		107	36:25.715
9	Hedlund Christofer	Orcan-sweden.se	24	7:57.836
10	Bornetjarn Johan		17	6:20.690
11	Olander Sören		0	0:00.000

Happy guys!

A nice Serpent 966/NovaRossi on 1st and 2nd place

And how was it now with the tire wear? Did the “simulation” tool give the edge we was looking for… J. Well, all tires was within 0,5mm if I compare the calculation results with the IRL results. Not bad! J

As I said in the beginning we did almost have no rain during the race. Ok, we got some droplets during the 1:8 final but you could not really call that rain. However, 15 min into the 1:10 it really started to rain!! I feel sorry for the guys driving because very soon there was standing water on the track…

Our NovaRossi engines worked flawless during the whole event. We also did some extensive measurement of clutch and clutch spring before the race (see earlier blog entries) as we have had some issues during the EC in Portugal. I must say that the testing and measurement of springs worked out really well. It has been said before but here it comses again: “Half the race is won in the workshop with good preparation” J

Our next race will be the Swedish Championship second weekend of September. It will take place at the fast Gothenburg track Väst-8. Looking forward to the race!!

Until next time,

Marcus/Wolfgang