tool

The day kicked off with timed practice at 9am - this is a chance for the racers to see who's really quick and who's not.

The timing also sorts the order for the heats - the two fastest consecutive laps in practice session two giving each racer their 'setting off' position in their respective heat.

Lee Farrer TQ'd heat 5 with his Vampire LiPo powered X6, however due to an error with changing his transponder number at race control, and not having any numbers on his car, Lee didn't scrutineer so as a result lost his best time of the day so far.

The UK's Lee Martin went quickest over two consequtive laps in the first timed practice, followed by Hupo Honigl and Jorn Neumann - and over the course of the 5 minute practice it was Peter Pinisch from Austria that had the quickest time, just edging out Lee Martin, with Hupo Honigl third. ---- All this doesn't mean a right lot in the grand scheme of things but shows who's going quick.

The organisers express their unhappiness

Not long into the second round of timed practice, which sorts the heat order out - the power suddenly went down. The culprit was the guys outside the venue digging the road up - they inadvertently chewed through the power supply to the entire venue.

So - the racing had to stop and drivers couldn't charge their batteries.

 


Marc Rheinard was using a toaster at the time - and quickly hid it under the table thinking he'd triggered the disaster!

But it was these bad lads up on the road outside the venue who were the real culprits.


The power was back in the pits after around 45 minutes using a backup power generator - and Marc instantly had the toaster back on the table to continue his lunch. Unfortunately the internet connection was well and truly down though :(

There was a delay before the second round of practice got underway and with the schedule way out it was decided to run only two rounds of qualifying today - with the extra round being run tomorrow on finals day.

People hang about waiting for racing to resume

These sexy guys from England entertained themselves

Manolis, the only racer from Greece was having some trouble charging his cells - he didn't have a charger (this doesn't help), so who should jump to the rescue other than our very own Essex hero Ellis Stafford, showing us all what team representation is all about.

 

The nice cleaning lady sweeps up after the messy boys.

Onlookers view the live on-screen results in the pitting area.

Lee Farrer had heard something about car stands, but unfortunately couldn't find one so improvised using this can of brake cleaner.

Schumacher driver Simon Moss is already planning for phase 2 of the event.

Papa Smurf - hello!

Jonesy advertises his favourite pop - DOG MILK

Practice Summary
Lee Martin set the fastest single lap in round 2 of qualifying, blasting around the track in 26.464 seconds. It was Peter Pinisch however who took the fastest practice time, completing 11 laps in 05:08.481.

Best lap or fastest time aside, the start order for qualifying would be determined by the two fastest consecutive laps in timed practice, the drivers with the fastest two consecutive laps were as follows:

Overall 2ND Practice top 5 - best two consecutive laps combined

 
 

position

 

name

result

1

Lee Martin

53.174

2

Hupo Honigl

54.111

3

Martin Kreil

54.253

4

Joern Neumann

54.288

5

Borja Hernandez Cordoba

54.470

   
   

 

NAUGHTY.
Drivers had plenty of time scheduled on Tuesday morning to ensure their transmittrers were safely imounded prior to racing - the deadline being 08:55am. Four drivers received official warnings for not impounding their transmitters on time... name and shame?! Patrick Vogt from (CH?), Viktor Wilck from (SE), and Eduardo Prieto Ballesteros & Luis Jimenez Monino from (ES) were the culprits - bad doggys!

The press and attending websites have their own results area - ace :)

Hungary however were allocated a small corner of the table.


2WD Qualifying Round 1
Manolis kept his car on the track for two entire laps in round 1 of qualifying - we like, yes! Ben Jemison from the UK was the last placed British driver and managed to out qualify Manolis by one place. Dave 'DC Vodka' Church also from the UK got an amazing 35th in round one - he was very very pleased.

Lee Martin had been quickest on the track all day and proved it again in round of of qualifying - sadly though he couldn't keep his head on and made a series of errors. A best lap of 26.8 seconds (faster than anyone else) was followed up with a 31 second lap. Tom Cockerill quickly caught him on the track and took provisional TQ running in heat 13 (of 15).

Hupo Honigl and Neil Cragg were battling it out - positions switching constantly in the final heat of round one - Hupo made a mistake which allowed Neil to catch up and pass the Austrian driver. Ellis Stafford got past and came up short on the quad jump - Cragg landed on top and his car mysteriously stopped - Mick Cragg is still investigating the problem half way into the second round of qualifying.

Ellis Stafford had a pretty steady race and put in his first decent full 5-minute run of the week so far in the process to take the first round of qualifying. Tom Cockerills time was good enough to claim 2nd in round to make it an XFactory 1-2. Hupo Honigl came in third with local hero and amateur boxer Borja Hernandez Cordoba fourth.

Hupo got it wrong and Cragg went past

Ellis crashed on the quad and Neil landed on top - cutting out mysteriously


Round 1 Qualifying

 
 

position

 

name

result

1

Ellis Stafford

11/ 306.654

2

Tom Cockerill

11/ 309.850

3

Hupo Honigl

11/ 310.881

4

Borja Hernandez Cordoba

11/ 311.211

5

Paul Bradby

11/ 311.617

6

Lee Martin

11/ 312.246

7

Simon Moss

11/ 315.865

8

Jorn Neumann

11/ 317.899

9

Per Erik Nordman

11/ 318.529

10

Phil Sleigh

11/ 318.677

   
   


 

DMS would be proud

Round One Press Conference.

At the end of round 1 qualifying, the top three drivers from the round were gathered together in the race commentating tent to answer some questions from their fans. First the commentator spoke to Hupo asking him how he'd found driving on the track, would he be making any setup changes to the car, and was he aiming overall for a top 10 result, or something higher like top 3.
Hupo hasn't planned to make any major changes to his Tamiya-hopped-up-AE-B4, he felt the car had performed well already. He had made a couple of mistakes out on the track and felt that the dirt was getting bumpy as the track wore in.

When asked by the fans if Hupo felt left out, being the only driver out of the top 3 who had a rear-motor car, Hupo replied he would only drive a mid-motor machine if they made it look as nice as his bling ride.

When asked about the track conditions Tom Cockerill (2nd place in round) states it gets difficult in the wet, but the track is dry at the moment and three times European A Finalist Tom was pleased with his top 10 round 1 result. The power of piespeed.

Ellis was chuffed to bits with his TQ in round, especially considering he hadn't even completed a practice round today. Ellis would quite like to secure himself a place in the A final today so that he can sack this shiz off tomorrow and stay in bed in the morning. We think that sounds pretty lazy. Ellis is struggling most on the dirt where the track becomes a big 'random', he said the same thing about Stotfold last weeend, it sounds like a bit of an excuse to me.



2WD Qualifying Round 2
Tom Cockerill had a bad start to round two but soon recovered. Lee Martin managed to take the best time in their heat to go TQ to that point. Paul Bradby had a good first few laps but dropped a second per lap after the mid way point.

After round one Neil Cragg had changed most of the electrics in his car to elimiante whatever problem there was that couldn't be traced. Starting from the back of the grid Neil started working his way through the field quickly.

Hupo Honigl was quickly past Ellis Stafford and drove a smooth race to go realtively clean and take the fastest time - just ahead of Neil Cragg.

Rosetti

Cragg

Tom Cockerill chases Lee Martin

Ellis Stafford

The top three drivers all spoke about how hard the track was to race clean and without mistakes - Neil Cragg mentioned there is really nowhere that the drivers can make up time. Everyone agreed the dirt area was getting very hard work.


Round 2 Qualifying

 
 

position

 

name

result

1

Hupo Honigl

11/ 306.354

2

Neil Cragg

11/ 308.847

3

Lee Martin

11/ 310.182

4

Martin Kriell

11/ 310.837

5

Tom Cockerill

11/ 311.988

6

Jorn Neumann

11/ 313.077

7

Paul Bradby

11/ 313.515

8

Ellis Stafford

11/ 314.874

9

Kevin Lee

11/ 315.334

10

Per Erik Nordman

11/ 315.589

   
   

Hupo Honigl


Overall after day 2 - 2 rounds counting.

 
 

pos

name

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q5

PTS

1

Hupo Honigl

11 5:10.881 (3) 

11 5:06.354 (0) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

3

2

Tom Cockerill

11 5:09.850 (2) 

11 5:11.988 (5) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

7

3

Ellis Stafford

11 5:06.654 (0) 

11 5:14.874 (8) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

8

4

Lee Martin

11 5:12.426 (6) 

11 5:10.182 (3) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

9

5

Paul Bradby

11 5:11.617 (5) 

11 5:13.515 (7) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

12

6

Jorn Neumann

11 5:17.899 (8) 

11 5:13.077 (6) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

14

7

Per Erik Nordman

11 5:18.529 (9) 

11 5:15.589 (10) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

19

8

Martin Kreil

11 5:20.718 (19) 

11 5:10.873 (4) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

23

9

Borja Hernandez Cordoba

11 5:11.211 (4) 

11 5:25.134 (25) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

29

10

Cyrille Baldini

11 5:20.300 (18) 

11 5:18.646 (11) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

- (-) 

29

   
   

Hupo Honigl takes the overnight TQ with a 1st and 3rd place finish - and with two from five to count, things can and will change around a lot. Tom Cockerill looks likely to score his fourth Euros A final and lay 2nd overall over night.

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