2009 European Championships Review - 2

The lower finals started on Saturday afternoon and ran well into the evening with the last final scheduled to run at 19.15 or thereabouts. John Howells and Stewart Wilcox were the only UK guys to run on Saturday and both would bump out of there final and enjoy the fantastic support offered to the UK guys by their fellow UK drivers. This extended onto Sunday morning where all the UK guys were up early and at the track to support John and Stewart in their attempts to bump again. There was much waving and cheering each time the guys passed the viewing area where the UK team were watching and was spurring the guys on to greater efforts. John Howells obviously got out of bed on the right side as on Sunday morning he was inspired. He and his Reedy powered Hyper 9 would go onto bump up another 3 times he was on the cusp of a further bump that would have placed him in the 1/8 finals when a receiver pack died within sight of the finish and cruelly robbed him of another final. John took his retirement well and saluted the cheering UK support. All the UK drivers received the same great support and both David Crompton and Richard Taylor bumped up from the 1/8 finals into the 1/4?s but this where there meeting would finish. Simon Willetts, Lee Martin and Elliott Boots would all progress from the 1/4 finals up to the 1/2?s but Craig Drescher would unfortunately not make it into the 1/2 finals as he made some changes to his set up that just didn?t work at all. This meant that he couldn?t push hard at all and was stuck in a battle at the rear of the field. The 1/2 finals are always a really stressful affair as it is just so important to make the main final. The first 1/2 final was, on paper, the tougher one and so it proved, at the front Savoya and Battle were off and running with Bloomfield, Daniel Reckward and Teemu Leino all in comfortable positions. The final bump up spot came down to a battle between friends and teammates Neil Cragg and Lee Martin. Both drivers had suffered bad starts and had fought there way back into contention. Coming into the final couple of laps it was Lee Martin who held a small advantage over Neil, but a two costly errors at the end of the penultimate lap cost him dear and allowed Neil to breathe a sigh of relief (not to mention his pit crew of Richard Saxton and Myself!) and take the last remaining main final place. The only UK driver in the second 1/2 final was Simon Willetts and he couldn?t quite get himself into a position to challenge the top 6 and as a result he exited at this stage. Yannick Aigoin, Martin Bayer, Riccardo Rabitti, Dani Vega, Jerome Aigoin and Hupo Honigl would be the lucky men from the men to progress to the main final. A special mention must go to Christoffer Svensson who ran out of fuel about 5 meters from the line while lying in 4th position. The Associated driver was visibly distraught and took some time to become his usual fun self again. Bad luck Chris! Hupo Honigl was the beneficiary and having already passed compatriot Martin Karner on the last lap who also ran out of fuel picked up the pieces to place his car in the main final. After the driver introductions and pre race photographs the drivers set off for the 45 minute main final and the pace at the front was frenetic. Savoya, Yannick and Batlle were racing hard and just edging away from the rest. They were followed by Teemu Leino, Martin Bayer and Neil Cragg who had made a good start from the back and picked off the other two guys to lie in 4th place and looking to pick up the pieces of the front 3. The finalists line up for the pre race photos. At about the 20 minute mark, Martin Bayer put a real spurt on that took him past Neil and on to challenge the top 3. By this stage Teemu was dropping off the pace and had been passed by Jerome Aigoin, who after a bad start was trying to get onto the back Neil Cragg for 5th. A notable driver missing from the leading pack was Darren Bloomfield who suffered an unfortunate stuck carb after a 1st lap incident. After this was sorted out and he got his head together, Darren set a cracking pace a dragged himself up to 7th by the flag. At the front Savoya had just edged clear by about 5-7 seconds from Yannick with Batlle now slipping away into the clutches of Bayer. Batlle was hampered by his inability to run for 9 minutes on a tank of fuel and this ultimately put him under pressure as he knew he would have to be at least 10 seconds faster than the Savoya and Yannick over the course of the final. That is really tough ask of anyone as these guys are about the best in the business on tracks like this. The local Austrians turned out in force for the final. As Savoya looked to be heading to a relatively comfortable win his car ran out of fuel coming down pit lane for his final fuel stop and his advantage was all eroded to nothing as he came out directly behind Yannick. These two guys went at it and Savoya tried to pass several times using the superior power of his RB engine. The first time he hit Yannick at the end of the straight and Yannick flipped onto his lid, Savoya did the right thing and waited for Yannick to be righted and set off after him again. Next lap around and Savoya drove right past Yannick down the straight and never looked back. Yannick made a strong attempt to stay with him but a couple of errors ensured that Renaud Savoya would retain the European title that he won in Crete last year. In fact Yannick was fortunate to hold onto 2nd as a large last lap crash would have seen Martin Bayer pass him had the Czech driver not just caught the timing loop 0.2 of a second too late and be classified as a finisher before the lap began. Robert Batlle held onto 4th and Neil Cragg took 5th after a very lonely last 20 minutes where he had nobody behind and barring mistakes too much of a gap to make up in front. Renaud Savoya was a deserving champion, he stuck with the fast guys early on in the week when he didn?t have the ultimate pace of his rivals, and as the track improved and his car improved he just took the level past the other guys and was the man to beat. His car was powered by RB engine/pipe combination and he used Proline Caliber XTR tyres to take the victory. Neil gives chase during the final. From our side, Neil Cragg was pleased with his 5th place as he thought that was about the maximum he could achieve with the set up of his car on the day. He made very few errors over the 45 minutes and our pit stop strategy worked out well although I must confess to being pretty anxious, as the race wore on and the motor naturally became richer as the air filter took more dirt. (phew!!!). The prize giving ceremony hosted by Carlos Gomez of EFRA was excellent and good fun, just as it should be after the tough race that preceded it. This was one of the better meetings I have attended, and the organising club must be congratulated on the work that was put in to ensure the track and the pitting areas were in good condition. The terrible weather preceding the event must have caused them sleepless nights, and cost a fortune to rectify. The marquee that that was the food hall/bar/ceremony venue was outstanding and the amount of wood chippings that were used to create a dry pitting area was incredible. The food available was excellent, and of reasonable value although some felt the drinks was a little expensive. The number of people in the support crew that assisted the running of the meeting was incredible and just shows what can be done with good backing. The UK team took second place overall. Team Manager Alan Dell (right) carries the flag with pride. Finally my thanks and that of our team go Alan Dell, the UK team manager who was awesome in his support of all the UK drivers and ensured they were in the right place at the right time. Next year we head off to Portugal and we will do it all again, until then. Ciao! Dave Duggan Check back tomorrow for the full photo gallery of Dave's adventures at the 1/8th Off-Road European Championships 2009.