Report (24-02-2016) by J-P.Huhtala, a race reporter from the VRC community.
Screenshot: Robert Hillman leading, Rössler and Svoba chasing.
STEAM POWERED RACE SERIES, RC EXITEMENT 1
The Steam Powered series race event for Short Course 4wd was held here at the RC Exitement 1 track.
This track is very technical to offroaders, so it is not a high speed race that will resolve the winner. Of course, speed must be there at the top, but mainly you have to be aware to use the shortest line in here.
QUALIFYING
As the qualifying was over, Swedish offroad talent Robert Hillman was at the top and took TQ with huge one lap distance to Austrian Thomas Rössler. Roberts fastest lap was 15.849 with an average 16.390. Instead Rössler`s fastest was 16.219 and his average was 17.009. Erik Bottosso from Italy got third spot for theb Final and his pace was one second slower in average than our TQ.
After these results we could expect that it was going to be very easy win for Swedish driver, but he needed to run without mistakes.
RACE
As the grid was organized, we could see that Rossetti, Bottosso and Smyk were not at the grid. So this race was held between 7 finalists. Ok, that was unfortunate, but could the others challenge the Swedish at TQ place?
As the race started, Hillman got the lead, Rössler was second and what was enormous, Lithuanian Arturas Svoba was at third spot. Rössler and Svoba seemed very aggressive from the start-tone. Dont know, had these drivers hided they pace at qualy? The expectations after few laps of final were really high! After 2 min driving, these three at top were allready catching Berardino at last position and they lapped him. Hillman was at the lead, Rössler second and Svoba at third place. These three were all inside one second of each other. At 6th lap Hillman struggled little with corner 'five' and Rössler passed him, which changed the pre-race expectations of Hillman becoming the definate winner.
It wasnt going to be easy for Hillman, and of course the audience loved this. But allready in next lap, Rössler cutted the 7th corner and Hillman went back to the lead. At this point Svoba at third spot was almost two second from the leader and second behind Rössler.
Next ten laps showed that race had settled, and those differences between three at the top were very stable. Hillman almost got a disaster at 16th lap when he got the wrong line to triple jump after the third corner. His car flyed to the wall but luckyly he survived this one. At lap 22 he collided with inside pipe at turn 8, and after this incident Rössler at second spot, tightened his gap from 2sceonds to 0.8 seconds. Svoba at third place hadnt surrendered yet, he was pushing really hard at Rössler’s tale, now just 2seconds behind. In lap 25, Svobas pressure made result, Rössler flipped his car a little at turn two, and Svoba got very near behind him. In next lap when they crossed line, Svoba had done his move and was at second place, but only 0.059 ahead Rössler.
Screenshot: This Rössler`s flip in lap 25 made Svoba`s passing possible.
With only a few seconds left in the race, these two were in real battle, Hillman had runned away almost 4seconds as Rössler and Svoba were fighting against each other. Finaly Hillman came in to check the flag as first, well over three seconds before the second one. Rössler and Svoba`s battle ended to Svoba`s victory and Rössler got the third place.
A very exiting final between these three, especially given those pre-race expections of the winner being Hillman. Rössler and Svoba also made this final very exiting. Fourth place went to Hong Kong`s Billy Yeung, Billy`s gap to the winner was over one lap. Czech Milan Peka runned to fifth place. Milan and Billy also had a great battle. Milan was leading this duo all the way to lap 26, where he made three seconds mistake and Billy was pleased with passing him. At finishline, these gladiators had only one second gap. Sixth place went to Giovanni Berardino, a good run from Giovanni, but these opponents were too tough for him. He would have needed lot more pace to challenge those guys at front.
Screenshot: Svoba`s pace at qualy didnt showed his actual speed. Finaly this Lithuanian end up to second place.
In SPORT level the race winner was Tony Dugan from USA, Tony's pace was just too much for the others. He came to finisline almost 6seconds before Japan`s Atsushi Takeshita. Third podium place, in this level was achieved by Erwin Fiselberger from Austria. His distance to the winner was 8 seconds.
This level of racing was not free of mistakes either. Winner Dugan made two big mistakes and these took 11 seconds from his result. Of course, Takeshita and Fiselberger would have needed more pace to battle against Dugan, who had two 10th`s better pace than Takeshita and three 10th`s better than Fiselberger.
In CLUB level winner was Sean Krause from Germany. He didnt leave any doubts for his opponent`s and he was in charge of this level. With his result, he would even have won at the SPORT level and would got fourth place at PRO level. Magnificent pace he had!!
Second podium went to John Dasch from USA, his gap to the winner was almost 10seconds.
Of the third podium place we had fair fight. Antti Silvennoinen and Keith Stoppenbach from USA resolved this. They were both driving a good final against each other, but Antti made a 6 seconds mistake at lap 20. By this mistakle Keith got third place and was defending final podium place very strongly. But Antti didnt want to surrender just yet, and was pushing reallly hard.
Finaly Keith made 2second mistake at last lap but Antti was to far behind and didnt pass him. These drivers gap was only 0.2 seconds at the finish-flag.
Good battles, great driving and exiting event. Really nice driving guys!
A main PRO
1 Robert Hillman SE 28 08:06.220
2 Arturas Svoba LT 28 08:09.800
3 Thomas Rössler AT 28 08:10.140
4 Billy Yeung HK 27 08:09.669
5 Milan Peka CZ 27 08:10.683
6 Giovanni F. Di Berardino BE 24 08:13.832
7 Erik Bottosso IT DNS
8 Antoine Rossetti FR DNS
9 Arkadiusz Smyk PL DNS
A main SPORT
1 Tony DUGAN US 27 08:02.680
2 Atsushi Takeshita JP 27 08:08.326
3 Erwin Fiselberger AT 27 08:10.731
4 Chauvet Nicolas FR 27 08:11.883
5 Andreas Hirsch DE 27 08:11.974
6 Harry Blackstock US 25 08:09.763
7 Ivan Barnier FR DNS
8 Pascal Schaller CH DNS
9 John Payson US DNS
10 Dirk Spanier DE DNS
A main CLUB
1 Sean Krause DE 27 08:00.094
2 John Dasch US 27 08:09.652
3 Keith Stoppenbach US 27 08:11.040
4 Antti Silvennoinen FI 27 08:11.286
5 Derek Jacobs US 27 08:15.951
6 Gavin Collingwood GB 26 08:03.697
7 Chris Elworthy GB 26 08:08.295
8 Rich Chambers US 25 08:05.040
9 Iris Lahora PH 24 08:04.737
10 Alex Leeman US DNS