Detail

published: 2015-06-26 00:57:12 (61030) Author: Carlos Gomez

European Championship B 1/8th I.C. Buggy 2015, “compte rendu”

After our great event at Herts, Great Britain, the second weekend of June, it is time for a complete report about it, our french friends call these reports “compte rendu” and it can be also our header this time.
The event was held at HNMC premises from Friday 12th June to Sunday 14th . Those are located inside a leisure facility with 3 lakes, restaurant, garden center, camping area and other activities conected to and the Club facilities includes 2 off road tracks, covered paddock, cleaning area, toilets, a RC Shop and a huge parking area.

The effort done by the Herts Nitro Model Club with the valuable help of the BRCA officials present at the event, really honour the requirements any driver and participant may expect out of a real EFRA European Championship. Congratulations and many thanks to all of them, you made it possible.
The British weather has been one of the major “facts” of this event, changing unexpectingly and oblying everyone to make and aditional effort to achive its objectives. Friday, the practice day it was dry, but Saturday morning about 4:00 a.m. the rain decided to take part in the event and it was there for 3 out of 4 Qualifying rounds with only the last one nearly without rain.
Our Sunday finals were only partially affected by the rain, mainly the early ones with a nice weather to bring us a new EFRA European Champion and several exiciting races.

More than 130 drivers present coming from 13 diferent countries with an entry list filled up to the roof with 144 drivers, its maximum figure for the Organizer; good ambience, friendship and collaboration from all people involved in the race, drivers, mechanics, families, sponsors, Club members, Race Officials and Team Managers, all helping to make it a great event. Among those I want to highlight the dedication and effort payed by the 2 referees of the event, Mr Dallas Mathiesen and Mr. Mark Stitson, both did an excellent job paying attention to all action at the track.

The Friday 12th June was the practice day, in our EFRA 1/8th Buggy 3 day format this is made by 2 rounds of free practice to get knowledge of the track, and later the day 2 rounds of controlled practice in order to resuffle the groups for qualifying the day after accordingly to the driver skills shown at the best single controlled practice out of the two ran in the afternoon.

While at Race Control they are working with the results in order to prepare the Qualifying Heats we are making the Opening Ceremony at the track with the parade of the different National Associations, all with their flags and anthem, a nice and simple ceremony took place under the sun and many pictures were made, just surf the net and you will be able to find some of those.

Saturday before 6:00 a.m. we were driving to the track, same hour as the previous day, but under a persistent rain, that is the life of a Race Official volunteer, ready to make all possible in order the have a complete day of Qualifying.

The HNMC crew headed by Jim did a enormeous effort and at Team Manager Meeting, by 7:45, it was informed a small delay of 30 mins. to have the track as ready as possible for equal racing conditions.

The weather improved a little and a misty rain was there, thin but persistent allowing to take the water out but keeping the conditions muddy and wet.

The Team Managers informed EFRA about its designated drivers for the Nations Cup, a maximum of 4 drivers per country and we start qualifying.

As per such, the name to highlight is the young Portuguese Kyosho driver Joao “Litos” Figueiredo, his yellow K fly all over the track winning 3 out of the 4 rounds, the only driver able to put in dispute such domination has been the Agama young raising star Callum Nibblet, while other Brit drivers had not been consistent enough to challenge the Portuguese.

Sunrise at Sunday 14th June, something around 5:20 a.m. and nearly everyone awake checking inmediately the weather conditions, mmm, not so good no so bad, slightly wet but just with a thiny drizzle. Heading to the track and ready for the show of the finals.

And... what a show! 4 drivers bumping up the whole time (33% of the 12 competing at each sub-final), and some of them giving some lessons while learning the track, the longest coming back and nearly the more track time has been for the Swiss driver Yael Zurfluh improving 54 positions, from 101 at qualifying to position 47 at final overall. The French Kevin Michaudet improves 34 positions from 66 to 32, while the super most impressive coming back of the event has been for the Hobao car of the Spanish teenager Juan Carlos Canas, from position 49 at qualifying to be in the lead of the main final for the first 20 minutes until his engine flamed out twice.

But before the main final we did had the 2 exhibition finals, first the Over 40 with victory to our 2014 title holder , the Dansk Peter Harder with his Hot Bodies just 2 seconds ahead of the Irish Barkley Abernethy with Darren Hayden-Ball in the third position.

Inmediately next the juniors not at semifinals compete for their exhibition final with the first position for William Skidmore followed by team mate Lewis Jones and with the third position for the French driver Vicent Meertens.

I have already mentioned the surprise of the Main Final, the leader in the first part of the race, the Spanish guy from Malaga, Juan Carlos Canas, leaving all the spectators asthonized by his performance. After his bad luck with the engine the leadership of the race is taken by the poleman, Joao Figueiredo, his Kyosho seems to be the car to win the race, but after the 30 mins mark he broke the front of his car and with that loose all his victory chances, After the Spaniard and the Portuguese a third latin takes the lead, now the Italian Riccardo Berton with Kyosho as well, chased by two fast Brittains with Agama, Niblett and Truman. We are nearly sure the mechanics of Berton were not confident enough as it seems there was a curse of the leader, but Riccardo was able to cruise his car to his very first European Title.

But this is not the last clasification of the event, the final one to be made is the Nations Cup, its final result depends basically on the results achieved at the main final and consequently the result of the Nations cup 2015 at ECB is the following one


But a “compte rendu” is not only to mention all the winners, the good experiences and the positive aspects, that is for the kind of organization not looking for improvements, not trying to be each year better, if you try to be better and to give fair and better races and exposure to the industry you also must consider the negative aspects, to learn out of those and to know where to improve.

Been said that, what has been those negative ones? From my humble point of view the worse one has been the lack of presence of next organizer representatives, situation that may lead to a hard decision at the next EFRA AGM; close to that one I must mention the celebration of a national date at one of our member countries during the same weekend, and in third place the lack of coordination with our EFRA Media in order to have the better exposure possible out of an event held in the UK.

. In a few days we will be heading to Sacile in Italy for our 35th EFRA EC A, stay tuned for more news.

Yours in the sport
Carlos Gomez