Final race for the season....

Last weekend was the final race for the 2011 season which took place at the super fast track in Örebro. We arrived on Friday afternoon for some good practice rounds. We definitely need it as we had not race for almost 1,5 month due to other commitments. Marcus was down in Italy for a race with the Formula Student car and I had to make the backlog of things at home to become shorter.... but that is another story... :-)

Chalmers 2011 FS Team

For once we had nice weather which has been rare this season. So far almost all races have been disturbed with rain but at least this one started well... The club Örebro RBC had really prepared the race weekend well with a track which had super tracktion! and the tire wear was not bad either so this was looking good. Already the first laps the 966 Evo felt really good. We had a little bit issues with the gearbox but that was soon fixed. Also the engine, NovaRossi Flash PTS did work great although we did run it warmer than normal but it did not seem to impact the performance or wear. We did really look forward to qualifying on Saterday.

WTF! Ice!

It was a little bit of a chock when we did get up on Saterday morning because I had to clean the windshield of the car from ice!! Here we are in middle of September and we already have sub-zero degrees in the morning.... hm.... interesting. Here is a picture from the track with solid water (=ice) on a fence. However the sun did rise and we did actually get decent temperature during the day.

The day started with 2 practice rounds and the car was still running really good. We only made some small adjustments to the dampers and anti-roll bars. The car and engine combo was looking good! 

Time for Q1! Good start and good pace was the key words for Q1 as it was expected that the cooler conditions in the morning would be key for a good result. It was Marcus and Bengt Andersson who was quickest with only 1-2 seconds distance during the first half of Q1. After the refueling Bengt did make a small mistake and went of the track. Marcus did drive very good and set a good time and was on provisional pole.

In Q2 Marcus did a small mistake similar to Bengt in Q1 but overall the laptimes was not the same as in the morning so the raising temperature did have an effect on laptimes..... In  Q3 Marcus was still fastest but 2 second off the result from Q1. So, it was up to the final qualifier to see who was to bring home the 2 extra points for the TQ spot..... Mikael Fransson had some issues during the first qualifiers but in the last he got a grip on the situation and it was exciting as Marcus and Mikael were running similar laptimes. Even the "old" mechanics (me and Stig Fransson) got their act together with good refueling... :-) 

Very, very close.... :-)

As it turned out in the end it was only 0.2 seconds which separated Mikael and Marcus after 7min of qualifying! That can not be many cm in lenght.... :-) 

Mikael took the TQ and that was well done. Marcus was also satisfied with the qualifying in second spot. Even if we did not get the TQ position  Marcus did have the 2nd, 3rd and 4th fastest qualifying. Not bad at all! :-) Stefan Andersson/Shephard took 3rd spot and Patrick Sahlin/Mugen 4th spot (yes, we are running the old format with direct qualifiers).
The weather forecast for Sunday was not really promising... :-( What a surprise..... Even if there was not much rain expected hoping for a complete dry final day would be like winning on Lotto.... and you folks probably know how difficult that is....
Just when we went from the hotel 08:00 in the morning it started to rain..... sh-t! Ok, it was some time until we had the final practice and the final so still some hope, even if it was scrinking....

For the final practice it was a damp track, not really good for any tires. We concentrated to test 3 different sets of tires (1 dry and 2 set of wets). To be honest, nothing really worked good.... so we had to hope for a dry track at the time for the final.

Unfortunately the track did not dry until or during the finals. From the first laps we did struggle with getting any decent grip. For some reasons our tires did not work as well as the competition but we fighted to the bitter end and made the 6th place. Mikael Fransson/Serpent 966 drove a solid race and took first place with Christoffer Hedlund/Xray on 2nd place and Stefan Anderssson/Shephard 3rd.
For the total Swedish Cup results (5 races) it was a little bit more enjoying for us! Bengt Andersson/Serpent 966 was the overall winner, Marus Lindner/Serpent 966 2nd and Niklas Johansson/Mugen MRX-5 on 3rd.

So, this was the final race of the season. It is now time to do some analysis of the 2011 season to understand what can be improved for 2012. There are some crazy(?) ideas also for some "Lindner Upgrades" on the car but you have to stay tuned during the winter to get some sneak preview before the 2012 season :-)

Until next time,

Marcus/Wolfgang

Strong performance by the Team Serpent Sweden/HP

Team Serpent Sweden showed a strong performance at the latest Swedish championship! In 1:10 it was a complete 1-2-3 podium for Serpent with Per-Ola Hård winning, Mikael Fransson on 2nd place and Tomas Andersson on 3rd place. Staffan Karlsson, also Team Serpent Sweden, taking the 4th spot.

In 1:8 it was almost the same with Mikael Fransson in 1st place and Marcus Lindner in 2nd.

Some happy faces!

However, the competition will probably plan for revench at the next race so we have to be prepared! :-)

The dynamic duo!

No words necessary.... :-)

Back in Business!

The Swedish Championship in 1:8/1:10 Track plus 1:10 EP took place in Växjö. With the 3 classes the number of drivers was ok.

As you all know we struggled a lot during the EC in Luxembourg (if not, read the previous blogs). I am happy to tell you that we are back in business with a good 2nd place at the Swedish Championship! It was a little bit of struggle during the qualification as we missed 2 out of 4 qualification due to mechanical issues but in the end we qualified in 4th place. As we still are running the old format of racing (with direct qualifiers) we had a safe spot in the final. The weather forecast for Sunday was not the best.... rain, rain and more rain. Unfortunately the weather forecast did turn out to be correct (which is unusual...). So, we had to prepare the car for rain.

The final started really good! The setup and engine worked really good. We opted for not running with any special "Insbox" as it had stopped to rain. In the beginnig this was a good choice. Mikael Fransson and Marcus pulled away from the rest. 10 min into the final it started to rain again and the engine started to pick up water and caused it to stop. We quickly changed to another "insbox" adjusted for rain and now it was going better. However, we lost several laps..... and was down to 6th place. Not good but the car once again was running good and we could take car by car. When it was 3min left of the final Marcus was up in 2nd place and could safely bring the car to the finish line. Mikael Fransson once again made a flawless final and became the Swedish Champion and Marcus on 2nd place making it a Serpent 1-2. Björn Ohlson/Mugen taking 3rd place.

In the 1:10 it was a big battle between Mikael Fransson, Per-Ola Hård during the final. In the end it was Per-Ola Hård who got a well deserved victory with Mikael Fransson in 2nd place and Tomas Andersson 3rd place making it a Serpent 1-2-3

In 1:10 EP Alexander Hagberg was a class of his own and it was no surprise to find him on top of the podium. Mattias Johansson taking 2nd and Carl Rönnbäck 3rd.

Racing can be hard and tiring... :-) Martin Åberg from Trollhättan did take a power nap before the finals.... :-)

And my driver was also tired when driving home from Växjö. As usual sleeping with the mouth wide open. :-)

Until next time!

Wolfgang/Marcus

Swedish Nations

This weekend it is time for the Swedish Nationals in Växjö. 5:00 this morning we headed for Växjö (350km) and it did not take long before the first raindrops hit the windscreen.. :-(



Well, there was still some km to drive so there was hope. When we arrived the track was dry so we headed out directly for some practice. After some adjustment (basically hard springs) the car looked good. After a couple of hours it started to rain and it looks like there will not be dry today so we are planning for qualifying tomorrow.

While preparing for tomorrow I had to spy on the competition and found this!!!



Dirty tricks!! WTF! I wonder what technical inspection will say about this! LoL!!

Stay tuned, more reports will come.

Until next time,
Wolfgang Lindner

Time for handout tires for EC and WCs?

Have we come to a point in Nitro Track racing that we need to introduce controlled tires at the large events like EC and WC? I believe so..... Just look at what happend at the WC in Miami this year, EC-B in Hildesheim and EC-A in Luxembourg? It was very obvious that some people used tire treatment. EFRA/IFMAR are desperatly trying to find methods to detect any kind of tire treatment. I do support their efforts but it seems always to be a catch up race. New chemicals pops up which are impossible to detect. I witness this myself at the EC-A in Luxembourg. EFRA had a new test which should have detected any kind of treatment so tire impound was introduced again. However, even before the qualification started it was discovered that there was a new substances available which was not detected..... Here we go again.... Some people will do whatever it takes to win even it it means breaking the rules.

What we need are honest, fair races and the battle for winner should be on the track with equipment which is according to the rules. It is ridiculous that we chase races if they have a body which is x mm to wide or high if others can cheat with their tires.

So why not introduce handout tires? Yes, it will be more work for EFRA, Tire supplier, organisers and the racers but we get fair racing. My intention is to do some more thinking in this area (need to understand the complete picture and how the complete process should work) and further discuss this with racers and other people to see if there is interest to provide an EFRA proposal to the AGM later this year. I would be grateful for any comments in the subject!!!

Not all was bad....

Even if we had a tough time during the EC there was also some nice moments to remember. One was a very cute dog. I believed all loved this dog!

"Throwing in the towel"

Yesterday evening we decided to quit further racing at the EC. Why? Simply put: we could not get the car to work to be competitive. We are still puzzled why because at the GP in June it was ok but even after one week of practice and qualifying we could not match our lap times from the GP.
We will now put the EC behind us and focus on the Swedish Championship .... :-)

Until next time
Wolfgang/Marcus


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Back in business!

Well, now we have at least a good setup, still some small adjustments planned for next round. So, this means we will stay here until the race ends :-)

Until next time
Wolfgang/Marcus


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Can we improve? :-)

No words needed...,



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Some last minute changes...

If the car is not good enough you have to do something... so, yesterday evening we introduced some more flex in the car. Stay tuned and I will tell you how it worked out





And here is the lunch for today!




No! I was only joking. This is a cute little dog at the track

Until next time
Wolfgang/Marcus

WTF....

WTF is a good acronym to describe today... Finally we got a setup which was decent to drive. Still some understeer but not as bad as before. We felt confident for the first qualifier but that was ruined as it started to rain just as our heat was suppose to start, WTF describe the situation well. Now we just to hope that the weather will be good for qualifier 2-4.



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Things are heating up!

This morning the process of tire impound started. The queue was building up and it took almost 1 hour to get the tires tested, marked and put into a platic bag... :-(
To no surprise there was an announement for an extra team managers meeting after the first practice round. And what was the news? It was revealed that the test could not detect all tire treatments..... So, a decision was taken to take away the tire impound but tire treatmemt is NOT allowed
This is now getting really embarrasing for EFRA. the only way to solve this in the future is with handout tires. That is my belief and I hope that SBF will send in such a proposal to EFRA AGM later this year

Until next time
Wolfgang/Marcus


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Tire treatment story...

As seen at the WC i US and B-EC in Hildesheim tire impound is compulsary also at the EC in Luxembourg. Tire will be tested with a "tops" impregnated with an undisclosed chemical when tires are handed in. If the "tops" gets black in contact with the tire you have a problem... If disputed the tire will be split in two-halves (one for the driver and one for EFRA). EFRA will send the tire to a FIA lab. for inspection (after the race) If tire does consist of any tire treatment the driver will be banned for 5 years.... and the cost for the lab test, €2800, have to be payed by the driver....
We are allowed to reuse tires from previous run if handed in and retested! This is going to be really interesting because the tires will most probably pick up fuel, oil and other stuff. How will that impact the "tops" test..:-( Are we going to see future races at which you use one set of tires only once? If so, not the smartest way for this sport!!

Ok, enough will tire treatment sh-t... what other intetesting stuff have happened today? Well for our own part it is getting from bad to worse and what is even more annoying; we don't have a clue how to fix it.... Maybe this race will never start for us because if we can fix it we will go home.
A strange thing happend during the opening cermony. When the Italian team entered during the opening cermony non off them had any team shirt nor any car with them.... Hm, is this to be interpreted as a protest against EFRA? who knows...

How fast are the other guys on the track? Who knows, because there are not listings published... Not so nice especially if people home whould like to follow the event

Until next time
Wolfgang/Marcus




Until next time
Wolfgang/Lindner



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Rain has arrived

What a surprise.... After the first (of 5) pratice runs it started to rain... so now we are sitting here and can't do anything....

The hotshots arrived today and also the "våffelmungå"! So let us see what he will surprise us with this time....

From a race perspective we are going backwards ... :-( we though we were on the right way yesterday but the car was not good at the first practice this morning. Now we have rebuilt it to almost the same as during the EFRA GP some weeks ago. We only have to wait for the track to dry.... and that is soooo exciting...

Rumors says that there will tire impound again but without any method to analyse if tires have been treated what is the point...

Until next time!
Wolfgang/Marcus


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Practice, practice

Same procedure as yesterday... more practice, practice... From a setup perspective we are heading in the right direction but still not good enough. More work to be done tomorrow.

So far no scandals, no "våffelmungo" so it is a little bit boring... :-)
The only small excitement was two drivers who happen to collide on the track continued to collide in the pitlane. It was not a wild guess to believe that it was on purpose. It got a little bit load on the rostroom and pitlane :-)

Hopefully we have some more interesting stuff to report about tomorrow.

Until next time,
Wolfgang/Marcus

Just another of those practice days

Today was the first practice day of the Euro's in Luxemburg. Not so much interesting to report about (I guess you are not interested in our setup mess...). The organisers have beefed up the event compared to the GP some weeks ago. We are only 2 Swedish drivers present (Marcus and Stefan). We heard that Franssons got problems with their car in North Germany and decided to go back home.

Until next time!
Wolfgang/Marcus




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Early start this morning

04:00 morning we started from Trollhättan heading for Luxembourg. Some 1300km of boring driving....
And the weather was sh-t. Ok, no reason for being negative from the start. :-) As usual had to talk to myself or listen to the radio as Marcus was sleaping and snoring the first 500km so no difference to other travels.... While waiting for the ferry i Rödbyhamn some familiar faces showed up! The Berntsen holigans with Tryggve, Adrian and Stig plus Lars Haugen! Nice!!
After the ferry it was just the autobahn in front of us and try to kill as many km as possible in shortest amount of time... But WTF, it is a difficult equation considering roadworks, traffic jam, roadworks, roadworks, traffic jam..... :-(
After some pitstops (fuel in the car and we peeing) we arrived at the hotel 19:30. The hotel seems to be crowded with RC-drivers as there was a lot of known faces. Nice!!

And for those of you who are interested: "Våffelmungot" has not been seen yet... LoL!!

Until next time,
Wolfgang/Marcus

Ready for EC in Luxembourg!

After a stressful week with office work, race preps in the evening we are now ready for next weeks European Championship in Luxembourg. Yesterday I was really nervous as we were still waiting on the engines but they finally arrived in the aftetnoon.... puh.... So, now the car is packed with race stuff! Who said that Audi A5 is a small car? :-)
Stay tuned! There will be more race reports the coming days!!



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A little bit late.... NoM 2011!

This year the Nordic Championship was hosted by the Norwegian club Spydeberg MK. It is a young club and the track was finished 2007. We have never raced on this track before but we were excited to run on a new track. We arrived on Friday morning and started with the prep for practice. The layout of the track is challenging with a number of fast chicanes and tight corners.

It was a little bit tricky to find the right setup and we tested different shocks and springs. In the end of day we had a setup which was “ok”. The new engine, NovaRossi PTS, was really good so from a performance perspective we should not have any problems J

Four round of qualification was scheduled for Saturday. A quick summery of the qualifiers: Not so good…… The problem was not the car or engine. It was some totally different: Marcus was suffering from something allergy which made it hard to get eye focus. Best lap was really fast but that doesn´t help if you make other mistakes…. We tried different

ways of getting rid of the disturbance but nothing really worked. Ok, end of the qualifiers we were at 8 position…. Not what we expected but workable.

At Nordic Championships we run according to the EFRA rules which mean no direct qualifiers. So, on Sunday, we had a Semi final to look forward to. Marcus started on 4 position and drove a tactical, smooth run to end up as 4^th. The car also felt a little bit better than on Saturday although a little bit “nervous”. Marcus was lucky to drive the semi final in dry conditions. When the next semi final started it started to rain and never stopped….

It was clear the final would be run in wet conditions. Marcus started on 8^th position in the final and already during warmup we felt that the car was really good in wet. Just after 2-3 laps Marcus was up to 3^rd position and a couple of laps after that on 2^nd position. It was

Marcus and Mikael Fransson who had a good setup/tire combo for the wet condition as they really pulled away from the rest. Unfortunately Michael Fransson run into issues with the radio gear and had to retire. From now on it was a easy race as Marcus pulled away from the rest and won with 6 laps before Svein Harald Ytternes on 2^nd and Christoffer Hedlund on 3^rd place

So, in the end a happy winner:

Until next time,

Marcus/Wolfgang Lindner

Important to follow the domestic traditions

Last day in US we thought it would be important to follow the domestic traditions. You might as you.. What? Well, what is going on during 36 weekends in US? Nascar!! So, we followed the tradition: Drinking Beer and Watching Nascar!! and what a finish it was!!!

To be honest, we spend the day to first to some shopping (jeans, shoes, sweatshirts) However, the item on top of the list was impossible to get: Ipad2... :-(

While waiting on the 1:8 WC final....

Nice to have some stuff to look at before start of the 1:8 WC final... :-)

Found a guy from Norrkoping and it is not Dallas

Hot lap Homestead Speedway!

While waiting for the 1/16 final to come up we took the opportunity to visit the Homestead Speedway giftshop which was located 100m from the track. I bought myself a super detailed 1/24 Nascar car with Dale Earnhardt Jr paint schema. Then we we where finished we start talking with a guy who entered the shop. He was project manager for the track with responsibility for the complete facility. He asked us if we wanted to have a tour around the track. Could we say no? NO, NO!! Such an opportunity selldom pop up!! So, of we go with his FORD SUV making some hotlaps(!) around the track. We also visited the infield and looked at their jet engine blower who is used to clean and dry the track.

The guy who was driving us around, Mark Alexander, have been driving 1/8 track cars and was participating in WC in Gothenburg 1993!! What a conincident. He made our day and even of the 1/16 final ended in a bad way we still have good feeling.

Now we are looking forward to the final day. There are some risks for rain but let us hope it will keep dry.

Until next time folks,
Marcus/Wolfgang

GAME OVER!!

Folks, today it was a long, long wait for the 1/16 A final. It was run in the end of Friday but we did have some great time before racing (more information to come...) Ok, the 1/16 final was up next. The weather was getting a little bit tricky with some gray clouds building up. Warm was ok and the car looked good. Back to the pit and line up for the start. The sound alarm for the start kicked in and off we go! And the usual shit happens.... A mess in the second corner and Marcus car was flipped over. Sh-it... Dead last in the final and now we have to do some hard work. Marcus drow good and was taken back some places. Refueling also went good and we where looking forward to the last minutes of battle but then disaster happend. Around 13 min the car just changed direction in the sweaper after the straight and hit the barriers pretty hard. The car was damaged on the front right side and it was game over for us. The incident looked like a radio interference but when we checked the car after it seems that the servo arm for the steering has came off..... not much to do.

Secret weapon for the finals....

As you can see in the picture we have some secret weapon for the finals. For those of you who doesnｴt know motorsport in general and motorcycle racing specifically: Google on Valentino Rossi... :-)

Qualifying finsihed and looking forward to the finals!

Today (Thursday) qualifying ended with round 4. I will not write about other drivers as I assume that this is covered by LiveRC, RedRC and others. Ok, what about ourselves? Well we are ok with all our qualifying rounds. We had some small mistakes in round 2 with not doing the hot lap fast enough (thought we passed the finish line the lap before...) and a flame out in round 4 (10m before the finish line…). However, when looking at the details neither round 2 nor 4 would have improved the qualifying results. So, we end up running 1/16 final A tomorrow afternoon (does not the exact timing yet). Interesting to observe that there are some drivers in the 1/16 A final which where very guick in practice (top 10) but after tire treatment was forbidden they where not that fast anymore. We are looking forward to the finals and hope to make a copy of EC in Locorotondo 2009 (from 1/16 to semi final).... Keep your fingers crossed folks!!

Cheers,
Marcus/Wolfgang

What do you to if you are running out of tires?

Interesting observation at the WC today... A italiean guy arrived from Italy today with a suitecase full of tires. Obviously the they have been using too many tires during the week. What to do? Call a friend in Italy who rush to the airport and take the next plan to Miami!! This is not a joke folks....

Breaking News! Swedish retailer Biltema enters RC racing!

Seen at the World Championship is this new pitbag from swedish retailer BILTEMA! We also understand that it retails for only SEK 149!! This will be a hugh challenge for the more famous RC industry who retails simular bags for SEK 800-1000. Used by Team Lindner at the WC. This was todays big news at the WC!!

Just some pictures...

Is this WC or a local race?

Folks, sorry for not giving update on what is happening at the WC in Miami. Today the qualification rounds was suppose to start. Well, they did to some extent.... the first heat was run this morning but then everything was stopped! Reasons? A hugh discussion started if tire treatment should be allowed or not. Obviously some drivers have been using it as the IFMAR rules, for some strange reasons, does not prohibit it. Although there was a letter sent out in January from IFMAR stating that it will not be allowed.
One interesting thing was that IFMAR officials, during practice rounds, was spraying ethanol on the tires to neutralize any kind of tire treatment. The funny thing is that according to some (famous electric) drivers the ethanol made the traction even better!! What a mess!

You can imagine the loud discussions going on between drivers, officials and other people.... Ok, finally IFMAR decided to call all drivers for a meeting. Each block (EFRA, FEMCA...) called together their drivers to get their opinion. In the EFRA block we were against any kind of tire treatment. Some countries was very clear that if tire treatment would be allowed they will leave the WC....
The question was how to enforce the rule ... finally we came to the conclusion that tire impound would be the best if possible to handle. This was then taken by EFRA officials to meeting with the other blocks and luckely the EFRA suggestion was agreed by all blocks. So, now we have to handle in all tires to be used during qualifacation. When you need to true them, you get your bag with tires and you can start trueing with officials present to make sure you are not cheating. Then you have to hand them in again. When you are going out for qualifying you will get them in the warm up area.... Who said it is easy to attend major races?.....

Will all this mess todays two qualification rounds was cancelled which means that there will be 4 rounds instead of 6. Let us hope that weather stays as it is (sun, 32-35 degres). To have some actions going on today there was at least one additional practice. And how did it go for us? Not so good, the rear belt did slide of the gear axle pulley after two laps?!?!? Never happend before but better that it happend in practice then in qualifcation.

Tomorrow there will be more pictures then text and hopefully some good news from our first 2 rounds.

Till next time folks!

Testing the barriers....

Practice continued today and it was not a good start... first session ended in the third corner when the cable from the batteri came lose. Probably not connected correctly. Not sure if it was Junior or Senior who made an error. However no major damabe on the car other than a tire. Second and third was nothing to write home about.... contact with the barriers doesn´t improve the laptimes. For the fourth session we decided the really work through the setup from the beginning. After some discussions with other Serpent drivers we also upgraded the rear upper wishbones to the new ones provided at the track. This was absolutely the right direction to go. The car was much easier to drive and more consistent. Now have some basics to start from and hopefully the laptimes will improve... ;-)
Pictures will come tomorrow.

Cheers,
Marcus/Wolfgang

New Anti roll bar parts

New suspension parts

Here you see the old stuff on the left and the new parts on the right.

Temperature today.....

Summery of first day

Today was the first practice day for us and it was a little bit of challenge... The track is super smooth and hardly any bumps. However, the racingline is very narrow and if you miss it slightly you have no tracktion at all.
Our car was not set for the conditions today. We decided in the morning to run with a brand new car which only did have a 3 lap shakedown. Maybe that was not the right decision In the first and second run Marcus was really struggeling with the car. It was not going well at all and very difficult to keep the car close to the curps. For the 3rd and last run we decided to soften up the suspension (from pink/purple to blu/red). That in combination with other brand of tires compared to first and second run gave us at least a step in the right direction. We still have some work to do, to say at least
For tomorrow we have decided to switch back to our old car and upgrading it with some new suspenstion parts which Serpent handed out to all Serpent drivers (new larger upper alu bracket and a new shorter upper wishbone.

We will also upgrade to some alu parts which hold the antiroll bar in the front. The plastic ones ar not up to the standard you should require which makes it a little bit tricky to adjust the anti rollbar correct. Here you can see how it looks like:

Who is then fast on the track. Well, it is the usual names. Here are some of the fast guys:
R Pietch 16.005
D Balestri 16.065

I won´t tell you our fastest time today... :-)

First laps...

We have just turned the first couple of laps and we could say: We have some work infront of us.... :-) Well, the scope of the first outing was to find the way around the track and gradually tune the engine (which is brand new). We take it easy and not too much stress the first day.. :-)

Cheers,
Marcus/Wolfgang

At last.... arrived at the hotel

It was a loping trval from gothenburg to miami..... We started 05:00 Thursday morning and arrived 04:00 Swedish time. All baggage did also arrive which is a little bit surprising due to the change of flights in Toronto. We have set a new worldrecord from customs to gate 169. I will tell you the story tomorrow. Now I am too tired

Good night folks

On the way....

Ok, now we have squeezed us int the airplane for a 8,5 hour flight.... With the knees at the ears.... :-(

Secret weight saving tip

You can't go to far to save weight for your luggage when traveling to a race.... :-)



And yes, I don't believe they have toothbrush for sale in US....

Cheers!!

All the WC preps are killing me....

We did decide rather late that we will participate at the Worlds in Miami so I have been working like hell to do all the preps. The deciding factor was that we got engines from NovaRossi which was already preped and run. And trust me, they are really prepped and not tight at all! So, hopefully they will be fast... :-)

Normally we have a tendence to load the car with all the stuff we need (and don´t need...) but this time it will be a little bit tricky to go by car... :-) Ok, how hard can it be to do some "Biggest Looser" approach to the race stuff? Well, it is damn hard! After some packing, unpacking, replace some plastics boxes with cardboard boxes and packing again we are finally finished. Just under the baggage limit.

While I have been doing all the preps my driver is enjoying a good party... I mean, student life in Gothenburg. Actually, Marcus is also building a race car but a 1:1 scale or should I say 1:2 scale because it is a Formula Student Racecar. Marcus is responsible for suspension and all tests.

How about practice? Well, if you enjoy driving in +2 degress you know.... All in all, we have about 1,5 hours practice..... In a normal season that is not too bad beginning of April but we all know that this is not a normal season.... I am not happy with a WC in the start of the season. I believe that IFMAR need to be more carefully when deciding dates in the future.

On Thursday April 7th we are travelling to US. Keep all the fingers crossed that all the race stuff will arrive in Miami.

Over and out for now. We will do more reports during the WC.

Cheers,

Marcus/Wolfgang