Wasatrack 2001, 18-19.8.2001
Finnish touring car nats
Last weekend we had the Finnish touring
car nationals at my hometrack here in Vaasa. We managed to arrange the
race quite ok despite being a very small club. We had good luck with the
weather also as it stayd dry and sunny all weekend. The modified class
raced on Saturday while Sunday was for the stock class and the nitro touring
cars.
For a racereport that I wrote on
the race, 
go here:
http://www.rczone.net
Here's a bit on how my race went:
The race was actually really high
class with almost all the finnish top drivers present. This had not been
the case the two previous years as the nats had then been on the same weekend
as the euros. Finally this year we got rid of stupidity like that...
The race went ok for me and my Yoke...as
it should since it was my home track. I had not been able to test much
in the weeks leading up to the race since I was working on getting the
track in shape most of the time...and when I went to the track to practice
then it started raining! Anyway, I have done enough laps on that track
so I was not that worried, I knew my car would work well.
As expected the car worked well on
Saurday when I put it on the track. I rebuilt the car on Friday and just
put on a setup that I thought would work...and it did. First qualifying
started well but then I had some problems while lapping other cars and
did a few too many mistakes. I was still fifth or something as many cars
did not finish the first round. In the second qualifying round I simply
overdrove the car, trying to make it faster thaan it actually was. With
two qualifying runs left I did not want to leave it to the last run, especially
as the track had got slower, so I decided that round three was when I was
gonna do a good result. After round two I was 12th or somethin' and I was
not happy with that. The third qual. started really well and continued
like that, I drove really steadily and did a result which placed me sixth
for the a final. This result 22/5.05 was like 5 seconds better than what
I had done in practice, mostly because of better grip. One funny point
about this run was that I did my best lap on the last lap! The laptime
was 13.40...I did a 13.3 earlier on Saturday and the best I had done in
testing was 13.6.
I was happy staring from sixth on
the grid in a high quality field like this...think I was the best privateer
so that's ok. The finals did not go very well...mostly because of bad luck.
First one was ok, did not push at all and finished fifth. Had a dnf in
the second one as the rear belt went...my fault. Should have made that
belt tensioner before the race and not now.. :) Third one started great
for me as I was third and could probably have at least had another top5
finish in that one if it had not been for a car in the middle of the track...
;) Well, those things happen and there's nothing I can do about it.
The only change I did to the car
during the day was that I made the air holes in the wheels a bit larger.
This to slightly help in keeping down the tire temperature as it was quite
warm outside and the track had good grip. You can see my setup here
.
Most important is that the organisation
of the race went well and I think most people went home quite happy with
the way the track was and how it was arranged.
results:
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