published: 2010-08-01 23:10:59 (57808) Author: Oli_M |
1:6 Buggy Euros : The Final |
| Full Report from the Main Final |
 The Main Final for the Inaugural Large Scale Off Road European Championships took to the track with a cloudless sky and temperatures approaching 30 degrees C. Thirty minutes of racing faced the ten drivers who had made it through from their respective Semi Finals |
 From the start it was pole sitter Ken Walkiers who took the lead, with the rest of the field running pretty much in grid order. The referees quickly announced Dario Veseli (Croatia, car 2) and Marek 7Schiller (Czech Republic, car 9) had received penalties for jump starts and so would have to serve a stop-go, dropping them back through the field. This left Ken in front, Kristian La Gasse (Netherlands, car 3) second and Nick Visser (Netherlands, car 4) third. Dario was now on a mission and in a matter of just a few laps, worked his way back towards the front and by quarter distance was right on Ken's tail and looking to make a move. After Ken made a tiny error over the wave section of the track, Dario was virtaully glued to his bumper and forced him wide on the twisty infield section before the crossover in the centre of the track |
 Meanwhile, Kristian had made some mistakes and fallen down the order, leaving the top five as Dario, Ken, Nick, Hannes Kaufler (Germany) and Patrick Schewinzer (Austria). Not long after Dario took the lead, his car suddenly slowed, before coming to a stop in the middle of the track. He car was quickly retrieved and returned to his father his mechanic but it was not going to be a quick fix and he lost several laps in the pits whilst repairs were made |
 So Ken resumed the lead and now had about a half lap gap back to second placed Nick. There were some good battles between Nick, Ian Oddie (Great Britain, car 6), Patrick and Kristiaan who had started making progress back up the field. Lap after lap the positions swapped as the cars raced very closely but fairly until the three-quarter distance mark, when Ian had moved to second and started to pull out a small gap. Kristiaan was running third and Patrick fourth at this point |
 Ken was now over half a lap clear, clearly controlling his race pace and looking set to make sure his was the first name on the trophy for the class. But, with only three minutes to go, it suddenly started going wrong for a number of drivers. Their cars struggling to survive the tough 30 minute race, first Patrick fell out of the race, then Ken retired from the lead with a broken fuel pipe, followed quickly by retirements also from Kristiaan and Nick |
 With only a couple of laps to run, this meant Ian Oddie was now the man in front, with a decent margin over Hannes and Mario Wendler, the local driver who had kept it under control though almost unnoticed throughout the race. As the final seconds ticked away, the order remained unchanged and so it was Britain's Ian Oddie, one of the most experienced Large Scale racers in Europe and former Large Scale Touring Car World Champion that wrote his name in the history books by becoming the first Large Scale Off Road European Champion. Hannes Kaufler was delighted to finished second and the Mario Wendler received perhaps the largest cheer from the Austrian supporters as he completed the podium in third |
| Main Final Overall Results: Champion - IAN ODDIE GB Contrast / Oddified Engine / GRP Tires Runner Up HANNES KAUFLER D Hormann / ZeNoah-Hayler Engine / GRP Tires 3rd Place MARIO WENDLER AT Hormann / ZeNoah Engine / GRP Tires 4 Dario Veseli (HR) 5 Kristiaan La Gasse (NL) 6 Ken Walckiers (B) 7 Nick Visser (NL) 8 Marek Schiller (CZ) 9 Patrik Schweinzer (AT) 10 Jaroslav Ochoc (CZ) |
 So congratulations to Ian, his experience and cool head gave him the strategy he needed to take the victory. There were so many what if's - losing some big names in the Semi Finals, the unfortunate problems taking a few of the favourites out of the Main Final but throughout it all Ian showed he had the pace to give himself a strong starting position and, more importantly, the ability to take a well deserved victory. Of course congratulations too go to all the other competitors who made this first event a huge success. Also the host club should be commended on presenting a fabulous track and facility for the event, and along with the Austrian federation the officials throughout the competition. Thanks also go to the section chairman, Francis Billa, for overseeing the whole event |
| Thank you for joining us at efra.ws we hope you enjoyed the coverage and the videos which we will bring to you as soon as we can! Our coverage of the European Championships continue next weekend as we move to France for the Electric Touring Car class. We hope you can join us then! |
