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| Warm up for the European 2008 |
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| Written by Mauricio | |
| jueves, 19 junio 2008 | |
 On Thursday at 7:00 my friend Andrés and left from A Coruña and headed off to Villareal; a distance of no less than 1004km from the circuit. The aim was to leave as early as possible given that we had been told that at 18:00 the track was due to close and according to the Tom Tom our arrival time was due to be at about 16:15. I wanted to get moving early in order to get familiar with the track, given that on Friday all the training sessions will be supervised. We only made two stops; the second to have lunch, and at 16:15 we made it to the track after a long trip that was made shorter thanks to the 1001 stories that we shared with each other along the way. As soon as we arrived to the track we took out all the suitcases and got settled in our boxes. Xavi Rojo had already reserved a small area for us so that we could be together and get working on tuning up the car. So we got ourselves ready went for a quick stroll around the area to greet everyone and then got down to business. The first contact with the track was good, as the first lap I did was a very technical circuit although nothing too strenuous for the car. The contours of the track we very well indicated which made it very easy to trace the route. It was evident that we started off with the great advantage of never having raced on the track before so it was a matter of testing out all possible combinations. In the end, the track didn´t close until 20:30 which allowed us to work a little more on the setup. Xavi Rojo and I we trying out different things and bit by bit put together a solid base, especially in the roll centers. What was made clear was that my Nosram 4,5 didn´t go fast at all and with the 4,0 there wasn´t any significant improvement either. I tried developments and spinner programs but although it had quite a lot of autonomy I couldn´t lengthen the development because as a result, the car lost quite a bit of acceleration and thus it was time to find the best compromise between velocity and acceleration. One of the great advantages of training on Thursday was that given that the training sessions were not restricted, I was able to race with Chris Grainger (Yokomo Oficial) and Helliot Harper (Xray official and race winner). The racing style of their cars was impressive but even at their level of driving, they had to brake in the most convenient points in order to take the curves as if they had been made by a land surveyor. I stayed for a while on the podium observing how they moved their fingers on the controls to see if I could pick up anything.
After the tune up was already about 85% complete we gathered everything together and Barto Esbri, Xavi, Andrés and I went for lunch and afterwards, straight to bed to have a rest.
Friday May 30th
The alarm sounded at 7:15 given that we had to arrive at the track early in order to get a good seat. So still dragging along the tiredness from the previous day we headed off to the track. At this level there was only one clear conclusion; the Sorex 36 only raced 2 good legs. From then on the times would only be from 0,5 to 2 seconds slower in proportion to the number of uses that had been given to them at greater times. This day, the thought of racing 16 laps was a bit far fetched, so I ended up with 15 laps at 5:12 while the best driver was Harper with 16 laps at 5:03. It didn´t seem like a bad time to me considering I had used old wheels (over 5 uses) and preferred not to break in any new set; saving them for the qualifiers on Saturday. The objective had been reached; we had finished the setup and the track had become a bit more familiar to me.
Cruella (Top Driver) couldn´t come on the Friday, so, from Barcelona he called us every two minutes asking us questions about the set up, as he wanted to bring his car all ready to go considering that he would have to race the qualifiers the following day without having had a previous test laps like in Medina.
After a gruelling session we went to the hotel for a while and afterwards had dinner with Callejon, the Coys, Mirand, Blanchy, Crisenti, Andre´s and Xavi. Its was a pleasant dinner with various generations of drivers were one could get up to date with the latest news and gossip of the RC world.
Saturday May 31st.
It was the day of truth; after 5 qualifying legs, the best results were gathered and from the total of these results the qualifiers for the final were determined. The day was threatening to rain and even the track was a bit wet in the early morning but in the end fortunately it didn´t rain despite the weather forecasts in the newspapers, TV and web sites. Things were very close and it seemed that there was a group of drivers clearly qualified for the A final but for the B final there was a large number of drivers separated by small margins of time meaning that, with being only 2 seconds faster in a leg, you could go form being in the C final to the B final. The sure ticket to the B final meant racing a 15 lap leg and an additional 16 laps with which you would have a total of 31 laps. If you ended up with 30 laps it was more difficult to have a foot in the door as this was what occurred to many drivers who raced fast laps but ended up 1 second away from the coveted 16 lap total. After achieving 4 legs of 15 laps I reached leg 5 and it was here where I had to go all out. Here it was necessary to achieve 16 laps given that in the 4th leg I finished at 1,55 seconds from the desired 16 laps. Finally and after a very clean leg with little traffic, I was able to reach the 16 laps at 5:19,543 with the best lap time of 19,453 and finishing at 17th place (7th place in the B Final.) Unfortunately for Xavi who finished in the same times as I ended up in the C final by a mere 0,591 seconds finishing in 23rd place (3rd of the C final), in other words at 6 places lower due to a half second. Cruella who arrived on Saturday morning suffered from not begin able to have a training session and had to enter directly into the qualifying leg, was able to reach 15 laps in 5:10. Considering he didn´t train, he did fantastically. The following day in the finals he reduced his time in 15 laps to 5:04 and it was clear that he had learned the circuit.....who knows what he could have accomplished? Medina came to learn and he reached his objective. In the afternoon we gave him a hand with the preparations and tune up of the car and with a bit of help in the podium explaining to him where to brake and where to accelerate etc. The final result was that on Sunday he reached 14 laps at 5:02 (almost 15 laps). One could already draw conclusions and relax a little given that a 14:30 we already had everything decided up until the finals on Sunday.
Considering that the car set up was perfect and all of the errors were my own personal ones we had lunch (Xavi, Medina, Cruella and Andres) with Alex Rubio who had reserved us a spot at a delicious restaurant.
Sunday June 1st.
Finally, race day began. Early arrival at the circuit and the preparations began.
The A final was overwhelmingly dominated by Harper (xray) given that Grainger (Yokomo) committed some errors untypical of him in such races given that he was the driver deemed to be best contender for coming in in front of Harper.
The good thing about these races was to be able to see the best warm up driver (Elliot Harper) in person:
Photo with Elliot HArper (center) and Xavi Rojo (right)
My very good friends and now TOP drivers Raul Sancho (left) y Luis Condes (right) My friend, mechanic, photographer and a thousand other things, Andres together with Team Yokomo.
TOP Scythe of Xavi Rojo.
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