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Euros Day 2 [Tuesday 24th July]

Jimmy outside the fence where he belongs

Tuesday was the first day of serious driving and started off with two rounds of practice. The second round to decide the start order in the heats, the fastest two consecutive laps the decider.

Overnight showers gave the track a good soaking and the first few heats out struggled with the slippery conditions. Toward the end of the first practice the track was drying up and earlier clouds were starting to disappear to make way for the sun.

It was at this point the officials decided there should be no more people within the track apart from themselves and marshalls, so everyone was herded out. I stood my ground and brandished my 'media pass' which didn't help too much. Later in the day I saw a whole host of photographers on the track anyway, which surprised me (to put it mildly) and it seemed that whatever rule it was that got me kicked off the track was now relaxed as I had no further problems.

In the first round of timed practice, Hubert Honigl was the fastest over the 5 minutes but Peter Pinisch, Lee Martin and Neil Cragg were all on sub-27 second fastest laps - showing their pace.

The Cloud came over early in the first qualifying round and didn't look promising at all. Around heat 9 of the first round the rain started to slowly fall - not affecting things much but stopping the track from properly drying out. And this was the way things went all day - with a scant few minutes of sun toward the end of qualifying but the track remained damp and traction fairly low.

Neil Cragg took the first qualifying round ahead of Hupo Honigl two seconds further back. Lee Martin had a quicker lap than these two but was four seconds further back in third.

 

ALKO is the Finnish state-owned off-licence (alcohol shop) and has a monopoly on selling all alcoholic drinks above 4.7% ABV. So whilst you can find beer in the local super markets, Vodka and similar are simply not available. Finland has some strict drinking laws which I can't pretend to know all about - but one thing we found was that Vodka was impossible to find in Finland.
Drinks over here in Finland seem a little expensive, especially in the Hotel bar - so we went in search of an ALKO during the break in racing. The Alko in Vaasa is hidden down a back street which initially gave the impression that this was a sordid affair which we should be ashamed of. When we found ALKO it was actually a really nice clean shop in a little arcade of small shops. Inside was a wide array of every sort of alcoholic beverage you can think of - along with a mandatory (under law) small range of low alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks.

The range of Vodkas on offer was huge but we went for a classic bottle of Finlandia, since this is Finland after all, it would be rude not to.


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My 'Tip Off' was right (thanks Lee) and Scotty Ernst turned up toward the end of the second day of 2WD and will be commentating tomorrow, wednesday, in time for the finals.

The commentating that Scotty does really adds to the driving experience and makes the event a lot more professional and entertaining. After last years European Championships in Austria, where Scotty did his thing - a lot of people came away hugely impressed with his style of commentating.

Scotty is also a good racer and borrowed Neil Round's Associated B4 for a thrash around the track - the verdict? He wishes this track was back home in the USA!

Neil Cragg went on to win the next two qualifiers - taking all three qualifying legs today almost guarentees him pole in the A main. The positions are calculated on the best two round scores from the five qualifiers - so with the final two qualifying rounds tomorrow it's still possible for someone else to sneak past with the same score but faster times than Neil - but not likely given Neils form at the moment.

Hupo Honigl and Lee Martin are looking good also and should be near the front of the grid come wednesdays finals.

Overall qualifying after three rounds:

      Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5
1 Neil Cragg   0 0 0    
2 Hubert Honigl   2 3 2    
3 Lee Martin   3 2 10    
4 Richard Cree   4 4 15    
5 Peter Pinisch   6 12 3    
6 Paul Bradby   7 5 7    
7 Richard Barton   10 7 5    
8 Marc Rheinard   15 6 9    
9 Simon Moss   8 11 8    
10 Tommi Torikka   13 8 11    

 

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