2008 RB Cup

Graham Alsop and I arrived in Lisbon on Wednesday evening, and after some interesting map directions we eventually found our hotel, in a lovely resort just down the road from Santa Cruz. We awoke Thursday morning and made our way to the track for about 11.00am to see if anything was yet happening. We had arrived 1 day early due to flight complications so we did not expect to see much going on. The track in Torres Vedras. When we arrived at the track, former European champion Miguel Mathias testing his new Kyosho MP9, as this, his local track. We managed to borrow some fuel from him and got a couple of early runs on the track and Graham?s early impressions were that track was pretty good and quite technical. The track was made up mainly of a sandy dirt surface with some paved sections and a huge concrete banked corner. After a few runs Graham was satisfied that the car was working well so we returned to the hotel to relax and meet up with Rody and the guys from RB who arrived that day. Friday morning and the RB guys and us made our way to the track for about 10.30am and we started to get some proper testing done. Luis from Modelcar (The RB distributor here in Portugal) kindly arranged for some fuel to be delivered and we made some runs to test different tyres. Graham decided that he preferred the Crimefighter to the Bowtie for this track so we prepared some in different compounds to test later in the day. After lunch Rody gave Graham a new engine that was intended for the World championships, taking place in a couple of week?s time, that required running in. We mounted up a set of XTR crimefighters and went out to do some long runs to get the motor fully run in. Graham Alsop and his HoBao Hyper 8.5 Pro. The first session Graham drove was 1 hour and the tyres were working just as well at the end as at the beginning. He felt that as they wore down they lost a little traction on the dirt, but gained traction on the paved sections. Linus Thern from Sweden was also running his car on the track and these two RB drivers were both running about the same lap times and seemed to be the fastest on the tack. After Graham had gone out and done another 45 minute session to help run the motor we took the car apart to perform some maintenance as the surface was punishing the car very hard. After well over two hours of running a few bearings and such like needed replacing. Rody asked us to keep this motor in for qualifying to see how it ran so we finished up and went for dinner with Yarub, the CML agent in Portugal who kindly introduced us to some excellent Portuguese cuisine. For the qualifying runs Graham decided that he wanted to try running the car a little softer in the rear suspension, so we dropped the oil by 5wt to 35wt oil and after a small practice felt the car was way better. In the first round of qualification Graham was clearly the fastest of the PRO driver class and would set the fastest time easily but for 1 unlucky roll off a bump that cost him 10 seconds due to some ?interesting? marshalling. As it was Jerome Sartel from France was fastest with local ace Miguel Lopes 2nd and Graham 3rd. RB's own Rody Roem and team Thern. In the second round Sartel once again TQ?d with a controlled drive on a track that had become very rutty and bumpy with some big holes, Thern was 2nd with Lopes 3rd. Into the 3rd round and Graham put a set of new M2 Crimefighters on and right from the start was on a fantastic run, almost matching the times from round 1 and at the half way point in the heat he was just in front of Thern, who also was running very well. Then disaster struck, Graham has a small roll back onto his wheels before the banked corner and as he got going the engine cut as he rounded the banking. Thern TQ?d this round from Sartel and Lopes but the times showed that up until the cut Graham was 1 second in front, so although disappointed he was quite happy that the performance was right up there. Into round 4 and Graham decided with Rody that he would try a C6 engine to see how it compared, unfortunately Graham had a bad run and was not able to prove it either way. The overall top 5 for the PRO class ended up as?

• 1. Jerome Sartel
• 2. Linus Thern
• 3. Miguel Lopes
• 4. Guilliame Vray
• 5. Graham Alsop

After the qualification had finished we had some fun events, the first of which was the team race where each team that entered had 4 drivers and 1 car. Each driver would drive 5 minutes and the hand over. We entered as the Cold Country Team that comprised of Linus Thern, Graham Alsop, Hakan Thern and myself. Now both Hakan and myself had not driven a proper race for about 8 years so we had a small disadvantage coupled with the fact that we would use Linus?s Kyosho for the race, and his wheel style radio, which put me, and Graham at a further disadvantage! In the end we finished a creditable 4th after some slick pit work and a lot of fun! The winners were the Boys Team of Jerome Sartel, Guilliame Vray, Anthony Abbisett and Rody Roem. Jerome also won the mechanic race where the competitors had to complete a pit stop in the fastest time. There were loads of top drivers at the RB Cup. Onto Sunday and the finals, Graham was in Semi ?A? which was on first and Graham was running really well in the lead and looking comfortable until disaster struck, another cut coming round to the finish of the lap, the worst place. We got the car back and restarted in and got back out. Eventually after some great driving Graham made his way up to 6th place and in with a chance of making the main. The engine cuts were a concern and after some discussion we felt that the most likely culprit was the fuel we had been given to run. These problems we just don?t get back home and this was the only variable. Having qualified as one of the fastest non-direct qualifiers Graham did make it into the final with 11th place on the grid. Graham drove a blinding first few laps to get himself up to 3rd behind Jerome and Linus who were battling over the lead. By now the track was really rough in places and the set up of Graham?s car perhaps wasn?t as suited now and he was pushing really hard to stay in touch with the leaders, this he was doing until the first pit stop where the dreaded cut reappeared. This was a real shame as Graham was driving great and the engine when on track was performing fantastic, so we can only get home and run some Byron fuel through the engines to prove this was the case. The race for the lead was sadly cut short for the spectators when Linus retired with an electrical problem. That left Jerome Sartel to drive within himself to complete a hat trick for the weekend by winning the main event, the team race and the mechanics race! By the end Graham had battled his up to 5th despite another couple of cuts. The winner of the expert class was Carlos Duraes with his Hyper 8.5 car. He showed really good speed and would have been able to run near the front in the Pro class. All in it had been a great trip, and we must thank RB for their generosity and that of Modelcar the local distributor who looked after our every need.