Report from EC 1/8 2012 in Vila Real/Portugal

Sorry for not reporting more from the EC in Vila Real but there was no time left considering all the prep work and racing… and late night parties… J For those of you out there who thinks this will be a “normal” race report (with setup details and more) I will make you disappointed. This report is more about the development of the sport considering the latest EC. From Sweden it was Niklas Johansson, Christoffer Hedlund and Marcus Lindner who were up against the European competition but we also had a dynamic team of mechanics, therapist (!), mentors on site: Janne “Kapten” Nilsson, Johan Bornetjärn, Niklas Nilsson and me.

It was an interesting week to say at least! The track in Vila Real is really nice, the facilities really good, the food was excellent and really close racing. But let us start from the beginning. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was set out for practice with 15min runs for each heat.

It was evident from the first outing that this is going to be an expensive race…. The tire wear was super high (min. 0,5 - 1 mm/min). The first question which popped up in my head was: Will our 25 sets of tires be enough for the race?!?!? Just to compare: We used 18 sets during the WC in Miami last year and that was a 10 day race…… L On Monday we did engine tests and initial setup elaborations keeping in mind that the track would hopefully improve during the week. For some of us it was also the matter of understanding how to manage tire additives which stupidly enough had been approved at the latest EFRA AGM (or did anyone at the AGM understand what they voted for?)

Talking about the track, the tarmac is super rough and we did already suspect from the very beginning that there will not be super traction even after a week of racing due to the surface structure. Some attempts had also been made to prep the track with Tornado “trackbite” but it just disappeared down in the tarmac leaving nothing on the surface…. How about EFRA doing inspection of tracks before giving green light to awarding an EC…

During practice the normal fast guys set the pace: Robert Pietch, ? Balestri, Lomberto Collari, Picco, Kurzbuch. The Swedish guys had some work to do… J

On Thursday two controlled practice and two qualification rounds was planned. Reseeding was done after the practice and I was a little bit surprised that Marcus was on the 7^th of 8 heats running with names like Micheal Salven, Rick V, the Salemi brothers, Mark Green and others. What the f-k was this? When checking it seems that Marcus is EFRA A driver this year… Was that even published? Oh well, can´t harm to understand how fast we need to go… J

After Thursday qualification Marcus was 31^st (of 77 drivers). Niklas and Christoffer did have some issues and was further down but there was still 3 qualifiers to improve the results. However due to that it was really warm (around 30 degrees) every day it was clear for all that the first qualifier on Friday morning will be the deciding one. The 3^rd qualifying round did run good and Niklas, Christoffer made some good runs. Marcus hade some slight issues during refueling but it was not too bad. When the complete round was finished after the 8^th heat there was a delay. No one understood what was going on…. After a while all team managers were called to an information meeting….. What the f-k was now going on? When all the team managers was gathered we were informed that there had been issues in the 8^th heat. 2-3 drivers were stuck before coming into the pits due to issues with the tires when measuring with the sniffer. When it was less than 1 min before the heat should start those drivers were released and could entering the pits. The heat started with all the drivers. After the heat there was an official protest from Italy stating that it was not a fair race. They requested that heat 8 should be rerun. EFRA officials informed us that they took a decision to rerun heat 8. No discussions was allowed from the team managers….. It did not take long until there was a official protest from another country requesting that the complete round 3 should be rerun…. OMG! The interesting thing was that this time team managers were allowed to vote to take a decision. Stupidly enough the majority of team managers voted for a complete rerun….. I am pretty sure that this was not the liking of the drivers, not even in Italy…. So, here we go 2-3 drivers make that the rest 74 have to suffer….. If this “incident” would have happened in any of the lower heats if would never, never resulted in either rerun of a single heat or a complete round rerun!!! So here we go again, there is difference between people and people…. EFRA, this was not handled in a good way…….

The complete mess with the round 3 rerun meant that Niklas and Christoffer lost their good runs and as you can imagine they were not happy. Chances of making faster runts in the remaining rounds were slim because of the rising temperature….. Sh-t!!

It was clear that Robert Pietch did rule the qualification. He completed every round and was clear ahead of the competition with several seconds. He was basically in another league compared with the rest of the gang.

For the Swedish drivers it was 35^th place for Marcus (1/8-final), 44^th for Christoffer (1/16-final) and 47^th for Niklas (1/16 final).

All the finals were set for Saturday and Christoffer did a good run in his 1/16-final bumping up to 1/8-final. Niklas decided not to take part because of the stupid and messy Friday qualifying and I do understand his decision. EFRA races are not on top of our wish lists for the future….

Marcus and Christoffer run the same 1/16 final. As I was mechanic for Marcus I did not have so good view on Christoffers run. For Marcus is started good and the pace was good. In the second refueling I made a mistake…. I had forgotten to fill up the refueling gun… F-K!! Grapped the fuel bottle quickly and splashed in the fuel…. Midway thru the final it was evident that the gearbox decided to switch gears much earlier than before which made it difficult to get the correct speed. Marcus ended up on 5^th place and 36 overall. Christoffer was 37^th overall.

As for the semi final and final I assume that you all have checked the results and maybe also the live streaming. I must say that Robert Pietch continued his super pace from the qualification. He won his semi with ease without any issues. The final was a little bit more exciting due to different tires strategies. Robert changed tires 3(!) times, Balestri 2 times and Collari only once. Due to this the lead changed over and over again due to the strategies. Robert Pietch also got issues with the engine 10 min from the end and it was not reving good going out on the curve leading out on the straight. It was a very, very close battle to the end but Robert was able to overtake Collari who had been in the lead and became a super worthy EC 2012 champion!

It is evident that EFRA need to get a grip on the situation when it comes to race procedures and technical rules. As it is at the moment the sport is developing into the wrong direction if you ask me. I have been discussing this matter with a drivers, mechanics, team managers from other countries and they all agree that something need to be done.

EFRA, here are a couple of suggestions!

-      Shorten the free practice from 3 to 2 days

-     EFRA to ensure track layout and conditions

-      Treat all people the same….

-     Get rid of tire additatives. It is stupid!! (Even EFRA officials started to talk about controlled tires for the future….)

If EFRA can take the above things into considerations I believe we will still have some hope for our sport.... If not, we are coming faster and faster to and end for this class.... 

Until next time!
Wolfgang/Marcus

Some pictures from the race:

Sweden and Norway shared the pitarea

Food was good! This time a complete pig bbq!!

It is hard to be a racer, need some powernapp..

Even the mechanic need a power napp... :-)

Latest from Lindners R&D.... :-)

For those of you who have eagerly been waiting for the latest invention from Lindner R&D have not to wait anymore! Here is a couple of pictures. 

Any clue what it is and what it should be used for? No clue? Well, here is another picture:

 If you have not been able to figure it out by now I am sorry for you.... :-) It is a "TAVD! - Tire Additive Vacuum Device". After many years of research and development this device was released just before the EC in Portugal. A hugh amount of money went into the construction and production. NOT! I bought the bottle at Åhlens (swedish reatail store). It is a pasta bottle, the rubber thing on the top is for making wine bottles airtight and the vacuumeter is from Biltema. Build cost: approx 250SEK (22€) :-) And now the final question from you... Did it work? Yes indeed, worked as good as any 3000SEK commercial device..... LoL!! However, to be honest I hope this was the first and only time this device was used. I hate messing around with tire additives!!!!!

   

On the way...

Just finished the first part of the flight to Portugal.... Sitting on F-furt airport and waiting on a flight at 13:50, some 4hours away.... Trying to crop a picture on the Iphone to reveal some part of our latest invention... not easy and I am too lacy to pick up the PC.... Stay tuned! During the day something will show up!!

From the dynamic duo!

Location:Frankfurt Airport

Ready for EC!

A busy week to prepare all racing gear for the EC in Portugal.... luckely I have vacation so it was looong days and nights. Flight depart tomorrow at 0700 (have to leave from home at 0430....)




Stay tuned! There will be some Lindner inventions released in the coming days... :-)

Nordic Championship 2012 June 9-10

Last weekend (June 9-10) the Nordic Championship was held in Trollhättan/Sweden. We did really

The supersmooth track in Trollhättan!

look forward to this race as this is our hometrack although this year we have not been running so much at this track as Marcus lives on Gothenburg and I work in Gothenburg which leaves us to do most of our testing and practice a the Väst-8 track. However, one week before the Nordic Championship we did half a day of setup testing at the Trollhättan track. From the beginning the setup felt ok and our lap times was very close to the fastest ones from last years race. Engine performance from the NovaRossi PTS engine was also good (we have not yet run the new Keep-On engines because it has been really bad weather or I have been on business trips.... ) On Friday before the race we did even more test and as the track is super smooth (no bumps whatsoever) we tried a couple of new setups (harder springs, from green to grey). It turned out that this made the car a little bit faster! :-) On the engine side we used the well proven and good performing NovaRossi PTS engine and in combination with the new Serpent clutch it was working really good. We made a small adjustment to the clutch by replacing the new (and smaller clutch weights) with the "old" ones from last years clutch. This seemed to be a good setup for the clutch because it worked even better! Weather forecast for the race was not good. A lot of rain was expected and when we arrived at the track on Saturday morning it was wet.... this meant that both the free practice and 1st heat practice was down the drain.... for the 2nd and last heat practice the track was almost dry so we could do the final little tweaks before first q-heat. First qualifier started really well and Marcus was battling with Adrian Berntsen who was a little bit faster. 5min into the qualifier Marcus did run a little bit wide just before the main straight and went onto the grass.... Ok, not so good start but when looking at the lap times we were confident for the remainder of the qualification sessions. 2nd qualifier did rain out but the forecast for the remainng q-sessions looked good. The track does actually dry rather fast due to that the surface has draining tarmac which is good. Even when there is heavy rainfall there is hardly any water standing on the track. For the 3rd q-session we did a little bit of gamble by running really small tires (under 72mm in the rear). With the right roll-out set it should work...  Did it work? Yes! A new lap record for the track, 13.154s!! and 2nd on the q-ranking. Looking good for the final q-session. As we have tested the Serpent 966 on small tires we took the opportunity to test it with large tires during the final q-session as a preparation for the semi finals. What can I say? It worked even better! Best laptime was now 13.054s and close to 32 laps. Adrian Berntsen was even faster with 13.034s as fastest lap (and new lap record) and also making 32 laps. Marcus did have a small mistake losing about 2s but even without that it would have been a challenge to beat Adrian today. Result from the qualifying:

1. Adrian Berntsen Norway Capricorn/Capricorn 32 laps 7.11
2. Marcus Lindner Sweden Serpent/NovaRossi 31 laps 7:02
3. Christoffer Hedlund Sweden Xray/Orcan 31 laps 7:08

Sunday and all the finals! Well, not a good start as the rain was pouring down... :-( Using the time before the semi final to prepare for wet conditions but I must say that we really hate wet conditions. All the exitements is gone and fast/close racing you can just dream of.... To be one the safe side we opted to use an older NR engine as we did not want to ruin the good race engines. Semi final started ok considering the conditions. Marcus and Bengt Andersson did get a gap to the remaining folks but already after 5min we could see that something was wrong. The car was running really low which was strange because the tires was of normal size. Marcus did drop back Place after place and just 2min before end he could not defend the5th position with a car which more or less was dragging along the track. This was soooooo disappointing after the superfast pace during the qualification. The weard thing was that none of the top 3 qualifiers made the final..... Ok, what was now the reason for bad performance of the car? We quickly noted that the right front  shock absorber was loose in the top mounting position... :-( Racing is sometimes very, very tough.....

The lucky guys!

After some "calm down" time.....  both myself and Marcus help out with our friends who made the finals. First we help Magnus Bengtsson in the semifinal which he won easily and then we also helped him during the finals which he won in great style. Ironicaly the finals was run in dry conditions..... Congratulations to Magnus Bengtsson who is the Nordic Champion 2012 in 1:8 class!! Our team mate Bengt Andersson (Serpent 966/NovaRossi) secured the second place. The complete podium:

1. Magnus Bengtsson Sweden Mugen/NR Collari
2. Bengt Andersson Sweden Serpent/NovaRossi
3. Erik Arntzén Norway Xray /NovaRossi

This time we did bite the dust but we take the positive things with us: The pace was really there and has gone up one step since last year. We now seek revench at the next race.... :-)

Until next time,
Marcus/Wolfgang
.

1st round of Swedish Cup 2012

1st round Swedish Cup 12-13 May

Last weekend the first major race in the classes 1:8IC and 1:10NT took place in Växjö. This is a small but nice track in south east of Sweden. The weather forecast for the weekend was of a really mixed nature, with sunny and relatively warm temperature on Friday and Sunday but Saturday did not look good..... More about that below.

We headed towards Växjö after lunch on Friday and had a nice 250km drive. When we arrived at the track some drivers had already arrived but it was not crowded in any way, so we unloaded the car and prepared for the first outing. We opted to race with the NovaRossi PTS engines from last year at this first event because there has not been any good weather (=read warm) to test the new NovaRossi Keep-On engines.

We started the first test with the same setup as previous weekend tests in Gothenburg. The Serpent 966Evo did look good from the beginning but we were not 100% sure about the pace due to that no timing was available. However we continued with more engine and clutch tests and settings. End of Friday we felt ok with the preparation for the race. Talking about preparation how about this picture from technical inspection… not too much and not to little… just about right! J

Good planning Wolfgang, good planning...

Looking out from the hotel window on Saturday morning did not make us happy.... :-) rain...

When we arrived at the track it was wet and basically it did rain the whole day. 4 qualifying rounds was planned but it was obvious that no one (ok, maybe one or two dare devils) would put a car on the wet track. Finally the race officials cancelled the qualifying sessions and decided to move the 4th qualification round to Sunday. This was a good decision because who wants to race in wet conditions.... Now we could spend some quality time with race friends whom some we haven't seen since last year..... :-)

Sunday looked good with clear blue sky’s and sun (although a little bit cold in the morning). A practice session was scheduled before the first and only qualification session. We took the chance to use this practice session for final tuning of the car before the serious stuff started. Our experience from last year was that the PTS engines with the new cooling head caused us some confusion for how warm the engines should be operated for optimal performance. Anything under 130 degrees would make the engine too rich but it was also very sensitive for fine tuning. There was a big difference in humidity between Friday and Sunday (although the temperature was the same) and because of this we had to tune the engine a lot during Sunday practice but in the end we found it reasonable ok to run around 135-140 degrees.

Having just one qualification round is a bit of a gamble but on the other hand it is the same for all participants.. :-) We felt well prepared but we were not sure about the pace compared to the rest. However the qualification run did go really well, Marcus drove a stable but also fast run. He had to keep the pace up not losing tire temperature and it looked good. The result? Well, how about TQ! A really good start of the 2012 season. It was a close deal as Niklas Johansson (Xray/Picco) was only 0.5 sec behind after a 7 min. Bengt Andersson (Serpent 966/Novarossi PTS) was also running good an took 3rd spot.

After the qualification session we made some analysis of tire wear and we concluded that we needed to do a tire change around 24 min. Our plan was also to refuel every 4 min. The final started good. Marcus and Bengt started with a good pace. Niklas Johansson hade to start from the pit as his engine flamed out during the starting procedure. It took not many laps until the first back markers had to be overtaken. This was a real gamble. Two times Marcus was suffering by being hit by back markers but overall drivers did give each other room during overtaking. After 10 min Marcus did just briefly hit a curb and on power the car flipped. Bengt was now able to go into the lead but Marcus could quickly gain grounds by some good driving. Tires were also getting better when the size was more "right" compared to beginning. Bengt had an incident with a back marker and this gave the opportunity for Marcus to take the lead again. Around the 20min mark Marcus wanted to change tires. This was slightly earlier than originally planned. Tire change went reasonably well. Niklas Johansson was now able to take the lead as Bengt Andersson was involved in another incident.

Some happy faces from the podium

The 2nd set of tires was not good.... at the time we had no clue why... Well, 2nd place is not bad and there is still plenty of time left of the final. However the luck should soon turn around....   when there was 10 min left of the final the engine flamed out and also hit the glowplug.... :-(

Quickly change the glowplug and refuel but considering a 1min 37 sec stop on a 14 sec lap you lose places.... Marcus was able to give a good fight and retook 3rd place when there was 5min remaining of the final. Niklas Johansson drove a good final and was awarded 1st place. His pace was hard to beat this time. Well done and well deserved! Bengt Andersson ended up 2nd and Marcus on 3rd making the complete podium.

Overall we are satisfied with this first race of the season considering the good performance in qualification and 3rd place overall.

We now have a two weeks break from racing as I am heading to US for a two week business trip and Marcus is heading towards Netherlands doing aerodynamic measurement on a Eco Marathon race vehicle.

Until next time!

Marcus and Wolfgang

Looong winter... could not start better by visiting NovaRossi in Italy!

Visit to NovaRossi in Italy!
(Written by Wolfgang Lindner)

A couple of weeks ago I and Marcus got an offer from Klas Runesson at Hobby Produkter (Swedish distributor for NovaRossi) which we could not refuse….. J “Do you want to join me for a travel to NovaRossi in Italy?”. Well, you can imagine that we did not have to think too long! Actually, it took 0.1s and then we answered “YES!!”

NovaRossi HQ and Factory

So, off we went with Ryanair flight from Gothenburg Thursday 20^th. Destination was Bergamo in Italy. NovaRossi HQ is located in Montecelli Brusati which is just 45km away from Bergamo Airport. We thought that we would meet the spring in Italy but the weather was really bad… L A lot of rain and thunderstorms. Well, you cannot get everything in life and this time we did not go to race so the rain was not a problem… J We picked up our rental car and headed towards our hotel.

Friday morning we drove over to NovaRossi and was welcomed by Mr NovaRossi himself, Cesare Rossi, his wife Graziosa Rossi and sales manager Malick  Diop.

From the beginning we felt us really welcome. Almost directly we went out in the factory for a “tour Grande” of the complete facility. We did see a lot, from raw materials, casting and all the processing up to finished engines. For obvious reasons we cannot show any photos but I can tell you that Mr. Rossi and Mr. Diop did an outstanding job showing us the different high precision machines, people manufacturing all the parts/assembling of engines. As you might imagine there are a lot of machines which are semi or full automated BUT also some high quality manual work done by the NovaRossi staff. We learnt that many of the 60 employees have been working +20 years for NR. The lady producing glow plugs has been with NovaRossi for 28 years and the gentleman mounting piston and conrod was doing his 38th year at NovaRossi. I believe that this shows the passion and loyalty to the company and the management team.

In today global world it is very common that companies outsource part of their business, like producing parts, to other companies in low cost countries. This is not the case at NovaRossi as almost 100% is made in house. From our understanding the only parts produced outside is the inner/outer ring for the engine main ball bearing and the balls. The assembly of the main ball bearing is then made in-house. The interesting thing is that Mr. Rossi himself takes part in the production! He checks the tolerances for the main ball bearings. I must say that I like this man. This is so very different from the corporate world I earn my living…. J

After the factory tour we got also a glimpse into the workshop where engines are breaked-in.  Mr Frederico Sala, engineer at NovaRossi, showed use the facility which is a rather small room, with simple but effective tools and fixtures. We had a rather interesting discussion about how to break in engines. I will not reveal any details but what I can say is that we, at least I, are too conservative when it comes to rpm and engine temperature….. J

Excellent lunch with amazing people

After the fantastic tour of the factory we went for lunch in a beautiful restaurant in the Italian country side. What a team of people there was round the table! Mr. and Mrs. Rossi, their daughter Erica, Mr. Columbini (NovaRossi distributor in Italy), Mr. Diop, Klas, Marcus and myself.

During the lunch we had a lot of interesting discussions about the development of the RC car sport from early days until now, where are we heading, what can be done to bring back the fun into the sport and, maybe most importantly, how to manage and handle the environmental areas (nitro, tire additives and more). It is interesting to hear that NovaRossi for a number of years have suggested to the governing bodies how to eliminate nitro and still have high performance engines. For me it is rather clear that governing bodies need not just to listen to RC industry companies, they need to setup cooperation to set the scene for the future!! Not sure if you all remember this but we did suggest to EFRA a new constitution 2009 which also covered the area how EFRA and RC industry should cooperate. I hope that will happen in the near future and I am still optimistic. Let us see…. :-)

We also talked about the challenge from the globalization of businesses around the world. More and more manufacturer moves the production to Asia to reduce the cost structure. We believe that NovaRossi will never do this because they have a very skilled and dedicated staff that has a tremendous knowledge. How can you replace that when moving somewhere else? I also get the feeling that NovaRossi sets high level of social responsibility for their employees who all live close to the factory. Maybe something for others companies to learn from….

After returning from a fantastic lunch the time was reserved for business discussion between NovaRossi and Hobby Produkter. As you might understand, I will not writing anything about those discussions here…. J

Time flies when you have fun and at 17:00 it was time for saying Good Bye to our new friends in Italy but before we went back to Bergamo in our super-duper 1,2L Ford Fiesta we had a photo session:

From left to right: Wolfgang, Klas, Malick Diop, Mrs. Rossi,

Marcus and Mr. Rossi 

It is really hard to put words on the feeling we had when leaving NovaRossi factory. As you probably understand from this report we were very, very pleased with our visit and the time Mr. and Mrs. Rossi, Malick Diop and NovaRossi staff spent with us. Imagine yourself; here you have the management team of the world leading engine manufacturer spending 7-8 hours with us during the visit. What can we say? Very, very impressive!!

The last night we changed hotel and moved into the center of Bergamo. This is a fascinating city with and old center really worth a visit. Excellent views, building and super good food.

We, Marcus, Klas and Wolfgang, hope to meet the great and dedicated people from NovaRossi soon!!

Until Next Time,

Ciao

Wolfgang, Marcus and Klas