1st dutch National at REAL80 Groningen
The weekend of the 5th and 6th of april was the first national for the 2008 season. As a season opener, the REAL80 circuit is nice. It is very nice to drive and has technical but also fast sections. The weather forcast wasn’t very good, so it was going to be a weekend that was controlled by the weather.
Saterday practice
We got to the track at about 11:00 after picking up Koen at Arnhem and meeting up with his brother Bas who had already picked up our help for the weekend, Richard Arts.
The track was still wet and we had some rain on the way over to groningen. The track seemed to by drying and at about 12:00 people started to check out the track. Grip seems to be low and the track was still dirtly from the rain.
After that, I started of with some basic practice. My car had a different roll center at the back then the it default has. The car seems to understear a lot and at some points it just seems to swearl out of the corner, getting lots of understear. I change the rollcenter at the back by adding some spacers to the upright. After that I got a tip from Maarten on putting the shocks in a upright position. That increased the response but I didn’t get more stearing. I changed the shocks to a most flat position and the car was less responsive but had more stear and felt smoother over the bumps.
That pretty much ended the saterday and we ate at the MacDonals to get some quick food, after that it was on to the hotel to clean the car for the next day.
I even checked out the rain-engine for because the forcast was still pretty bad.
Sunday – Qualifications
The first qualiciation was wet. I was in the 6heat and the track was drying. I ran the car to put a time down, beter now then wait for the rain. Eventuallu it started to rain and altough most of the 2nd qualification was try, I stopped because it started to rain.Eventually this was a bad decision, everybody still improved on the time and the rain didn’t go on all that hard.
3th qualification was dry to. Then, rain started and some semi finals where dry, some where wet. When the first final started, the track was early dry, but laptimes where still noticablaly down. Nevertheless, Race Control whent with a wet track which means the first 3 of both semi finals will go into the main. Unfortunalty my race ended there. The half-wet conditions are hard for me and I mad some mistakes and I ended up in 5th.
Sunday – Finals
The second semi-final saw Koen leading and having trouble in the last 2 minutes of the race. He ended up 3th which means he was in the final.
The final was nice, I and Bas helped out Koen who came from last place and was 5th or 4th after 10 minutes or so. Eventually he got in first but made a mistake. Then dropped back and the race ended in a 10 minute battle for first position for the top 3 drivers. In the end, koen’s car had a bit to much tire wear and he had to drop out of the battle. Daan and Ruud continued to battle for first place. Check out the pictures at redrc.net.
Conslusion
This was a great start of the season, although it was controlled by the weather, the racing was so close and clean. I hope we can continue the season in this way, because it’s going to be great!
Hobby > Dutch nationals, Hobby > R/C Racing, Hobby > XRay NT1 | Ruben | 
April 13, 2008 3:46 pm
