European Championship - Oulu

Young multi-rc talent Jorg Tiit from Estonia with Serpent S120-LTX 1/12 takes the Junior European Champion 2013 title in both modified and stock-class.

Race: 2013 EFRA 1:12 European Championships

Dates: 7-10 March

Place: Oulu, Finland

Classes: Stock and Modified

Result:

Mod: 16th, European Junior Champion

Stock: 7th, European Junior Champion

This winter, we thought about racing 1:12 in Finland, but races were separated from the touring car races, so we didn’t race but we had the car, so we thought coming to the Euros. Decided, done. Last equipment for the cars came 2 weeks before the race and we did only 2 weekends of hard training before the race, so it was a big challenge for us J

1st day practices:

Oulu’s track was rather small, quite slow and technical. Grip was extremely low. In the first practice round, cars didn’t work well. For the 2nd round, stock car was okay, but modified car wasn’t still good. In the controlled practiced rounds, we still tried some things on both cars, so we didn’t get results from there and we stayed in the slowest group in modified and 2nd slowest in stock. Good thing was, that we found okay setups for that day.

2nd day practices and first qualifiers:

Cars worked good on the Ulti tires in the morning, they were fast, so everything looked good for the qualifiers. Stock’s 1st qual was good, 9th place result, nice clean heat, times were quite fast. In modified, things were harder. I was in the slowest group as I mentioned before and I had to make overtakes every lap what took lots of time, so I got quite bad run. 2nd run was same, stock went well and in modified, I had huge problems with the traffic. By the end of the day, track got much worse, stock car still worked okay, but mod was really-really hard. All the grip was gone due the oil on the track, came from the additives. Also, we talked to the race official about possible regroup in modified, because driving in the slowest group when I’m much faster is really hard and getting a good result is almost impossible. Race director said, that they would decide it for the next day.

3rd day, qualifiers:

Morning started with the good news, we got to the faster group in modified. In 3rd and 4th round, we got again good results in stock, but track was slower, less grip again and modified car didn’t work at all. That was because of tires, we just had wrong type of rubber and we didn’t have a different one. So we tried Mobgums what were good, but CRC ones were even better and faster. For the 5th and 6th round we used CRC Magenta in front and pink in rear, cars were good and quite fast. Stock’s result was really good I think, we qualified 9th, so we were in the A-final. In modified, we had only 2 good runs and three counted, so we had quite critical situation but we luckily made B-final. We weren’t really happy with that, but we found the tire problem too late. Experience counts and we don’t have it yet with 1:12 cars. So, after qualifiers, 9th in stock and 20th in modified.

Finals day:

We had the Practice final before real finals and cars worked well, I was really fast. 2nd fastest in stock and also one of the fastest in modified by the laptimes.

1st final round was rough, both went bad. In stock, I had good start and became 7th I think, but diff got somehow loose on the 2nd lap, so I had to pull off and tighten the diff. I was lap behind and I got nothing to do than push as hard as I could. I was again, 2nd fastest on the track by the laptimes and finished 9th.

In modified I had bad start, I got hit by someone and dropped to last. But car worked well, I drove fast and was 4th soon but on the 5th minute, spurgear broke up.

2nd final round was better in stock and I finished 6th.Run was quite clean except the start lap incidence what put me on the last position again. Modified was also better than last final. I had good start, and I just drove. Then I was on the 2nd position, about 2 seconds to leader but it was 30 seconds to go. Last lap, and I suddenly feel, that the power is getting away. Battery dumped.  On the straight, car was hardly moving. I lost one place and finished 3rd

In the last final of stock, I had good battles and finished 7th overall. In modified I had a touch with one Finn’s car what put my car on the roof. Huge mistake, about 5-6 seconds, half lap down and on the last position. Again, serious pushing started, I was fastest man on the track by the laptimes again, but I pushed maybe but too hard, so I did some little mistakes but I finished 7th.

6th in the B-final in modified overall and 7th in stock’s A-final

That race was a great challenge and experience for us. We had hard moments when cars didn’t work good, but we solved them. I’m really happy that I made A final in stock and I had good speed there. Also in modified. We had some bad luck in qualifiers with the tires, but finally I was fast, car worked and everything worked out quite well. Also, double European Junior Champion title makes me happy, so I think it was pretty good race for my first one in the 1:12 division.

Big thanks to Serpent, GensAce and BocaBearings

Jörg Tiit