2010 1/8th Off-Road European Championships
CML Team Manager Dave Duggan reports back from one of 1/8th scale's most prominent racing events, this year held in Guarda, Portugal.
Sunday 4th July.
We arrived at Liverpool airport around 11 a.m. to meet up with the rest of our traveling party, comprising of my girlfriend Anna and I, Craig Drescher, Mick & Neil Cragg, Phil & Tony Truman, Bob Ryan, Graham Alsop and Rachel Merry.
Once on the ground in Lisbon it was immediately apparent that despite the glorious weather back home recently, this was another notch up on the temperature scale. Once we had all collected our hire cars we set about the 330km drive into the mountains in convoy. The Cragg-mobile took point as they were satnav equipped the rest of us tried to stay in the slipstream as much as possible to save fuel!
Approaching Guarda, we decided to stop and fill up with fuel so we wouldn?t have to during the event. At this point things went a little wrong when the fearless Craig Drescher made a schoolboy error...petrol in a diesel car! After about an hour of trying in vain to drain the tank of the Clio we decided to leave it at the services overnight and try again the following day. After arriving at our accommodation, we had a brief chat and then off to bed for some well needed rest.
Monday 5th July.
After breakfast, Craig, Mick and Andy Nicholas went to attend to Craig?s hire car, the rest of us set off for the track to get our pit spaces set up and get the general lie of the land.
Following John Howells and Simon Willetts we soon took a satnav error turn that lead us up a dirt track that Sebastian Loeb would have had trouble with. The severity of the incline coupled with the loose surface meant that we were in for ride and our Seat was struggling badly. Eventually about 50 meters from the main road John?s van could climb no more and got stuck. After about 10 minutes of trying to push in out flip flops we gave it up as bad idea and reversed back down to try and find the tarmac road, which we did and successfully arrived at the track some 10 minutes later.
The testing track in Guarda.
The track itself was subject to some pretty horrific press after the warm up race and we arrived not expecting a great deal to be honest, and at first glance that appeared to be well placed. The big plus was the 25,000 euro pit shelter that had been constructed to keep the drivers and mechanics dust and sunburn free! The temperature was notably cooler under it and proves to be godsend from the merciless sun over the week ahead.
The others joined us after getting the hire car back underway and Craig set off to find NEO Phil to do his pre-event track walk to be posted on NEOBUGGY prior to the event. After much mickey taking from us his friends, we then went to the supermarket for supplies. After collecting food, drink, chairs and electric fans we retreated to the villa for a BBQ and bed. Our Villa has a stream running past which doubles as the pool for the accommodation, which all sounded fantastic until Anna and I saw a 3ft snake swimming across it! Not to be deterred we took a dip anyway, although with a watchful eye on the undergrowth!
Day 1 Euros Practice Tuesday 6th July 2010
After meeting with CML?s agent in Portugal, Yarub of Pure Racing who delivered our fuel in good time (Thanks Yarub!), we made some early tyre choices of what we thought would be suitable for the conditions and waited for practice to start, and waited, and waited. It never ceases to amaze me how we come to such important events and the level of disorganisation is bewildering to say the least. (Austria showed how a well-run event should be despite the adverse weather last year) So after 2 hours of speaking to friends from across the continent, we were finally ready to go at 11.20 or thereabouts.
The CML interest was immediate with Tony Truman and his Reedy powered RC8B on in heat 1. These guys would have tough track conditions as the first layer of dust came off the top and made the line extremely slippery. Tony did a good job however and ran consistently throughout, finding a good rhythm on the washboards and whoops in front of the rostrum.
Another organisational blunder saw the 10 minute practice stopped after 5 minutes as the computer had been set wrong and we all had to return to the pits for another 5 minutes, you couldn?t write it.
Neil was up in heat 3 and he made the most of run where the motor tune was never to his liking, and as such he was having trouble getting his timing right on the washboards. By the time Craig was out in heat 6 a racing line was starting to develop and Craig drove excellently, turning what were fast and consistent lap times throughout the 10 minutes. Craig came off pleased and confident of moving forward in the second run.
The Hobao boys, John Howells and Matt Perry were on at the end of the round in heats 13 & 14 respectively. Both had steady runs although both were concerned by the lack of punch from the motors. This however was common theme throughout the pits, that is certainly down to the fact that we are at altitude here and the air feeding the motors is hot and thin, not good for power.
Onto round 2 which comprised of 15 minute runs, and much to the surprise of most people the track was holding up pretty well in most places, and indeed through the switchbacks in the middle, was developing a blue groove line. There were a few holes starting to appear in places but at this stage they were an inconvenience rather than a problem.
You can view our online photo gallery of the event here
Tony once again drive well in a heat of top drivers and was pretty pleased with his basic pace. Neil got his motor tuned spot on for this round and we ran an easy 11 minutes plus. Neil and Craig seemed to be some of the only people not complaining about lack of power and this was down to learning from the warm up race and making some changes to the engines in both tune and set up. (40% nitro, 9mm venturi) Neil wasn?t really happy with his set up chassis wise, but had a clear direction to take which gave him no cause for concern at this stage. Craig made a backward step with set up and couldn?t repeat the times he set earlier in the day. With no official timing available, getting a gauge of who was fast was quite tricky but the usual suspects were all in contention, Yannick and Savoya looked quick, although the latter was having a lot of crashes. Martin Bayer, Darren Bloomfield and Elliott Boots all looked to have good pace also, but perhaps the most impressive was Robert Batlle with his RC8B. Robert looked fast and stable which gave the UK Associated guys some joy as they would torture (question) him for his set up information afterwards.
Then we waited and waited for the opening ceremony which finally got underway after 8 p.m. in the evening and lasted for an hour or more. This had been a long day in the murderous heat (Phil Truman recorded 41C in the pit lane) and we all just wanted to get off home rather than listen to a local Portuguese firm do a little banjo dance, but it?s bad form to not attend the opening ceremony at these events, so you have to show an interest.
Dave's race report finishes tomorrow as we head in to qualifying and the exciting finals.
You can view our online photo gallery of the event here
The testing track in Guarda.
The track itself was subject to some pretty horrific press after the warm up race and we arrived not expecting a great deal to be honest, and at first glance that appeared to be well placed. The big plus was the 25,000 euro pit shelter that had been constructed to keep the drivers and mechanics dust and sunburn free! The temperature was notably cooler under it and proves to be godsend from the merciless sun over the week ahead.
The others joined us after getting the hire car back underway and Craig set off to find NEO Phil to do his pre-event track walk to be posted on NEOBUGGY prior to the event. After much mickey taking from us his friends, we then went to the supermarket for supplies. After collecting food, drink, chairs and electric fans we retreated to the villa for a BBQ and bed. Our Villa has a stream running past which doubles as the pool for the accommodation, which all sounded fantastic until Anna and I saw a 3ft snake swimming across it! Not to be deterred we took a dip anyway, although with a watchful eye on the undergrowth!
Day 1 Euros Practice Tuesday 6th July 2010
After meeting with CML?s agent in Portugal, Yarub of Pure Racing who delivered our fuel in good time (Thanks Yarub!), we made some early tyre choices of what we thought would be suitable for the conditions and waited for practice to start, and waited, and waited. It never ceases to amaze me how we come to such important events and the level of disorganisation is bewildering to say the least. (Austria showed how a well-run event should be despite the adverse weather last year) So after 2 hours of speaking to friends from across the continent, we were finally ready to go at 11.20 or thereabouts.
The CML interest was immediate with Tony Truman and his Reedy powered RC8B on in heat 1. These guys would have tough track conditions as the first layer of dust came off the top and made the line extremely slippery. Tony did a good job however and ran consistently throughout, finding a good rhythm on the washboards and whoops in front of the rostrum.
Another organisational blunder saw the 10 minute practice stopped after 5 minutes as the computer had been set wrong and we all had to return to the pits for another 5 minutes, you couldn?t write it.
Neil was up in heat 3 and he made the most of run where the motor tune was never to his liking, and as such he was having trouble getting his timing right on the washboards. By the time Craig was out in heat 6 a racing line was starting to develop and Craig drove excellently, turning what were fast and consistent lap times throughout the 10 minutes. Craig came off pleased and confident of moving forward in the second run.
The Hobao boys, John Howells and Matt Perry were on at the end of the round in heats 13 & 14 respectively. Both had steady runs although both were concerned by the lack of punch from the motors. This however was common theme throughout the pits, that is certainly down to the fact that we are at altitude here and the air feeding the motors is hot and thin, not good for power.
Onto round 2 which comprised of 15 minute runs, and much to the surprise of most people the track was holding up pretty well in most places, and indeed through the switchbacks in the middle, was developing a blue groove line. There were a few holes starting to appear in places but at this stage they were an inconvenience rather than a problem.
You can view our online photo gallery of the event here
Tony once again drive well in a heat of top drivers and was pretty pleased with his basic pace. Neil got his motor tuned spot on for this round and we ran an easy 11 minutes plus. Neil and Craig seemed to be some of the only people not complaining about lack of power and this was down to learning from the warm up race and making some changes to the engines in both tune and set up. (40% nitro, 9mm venturi) Neil wasn?t really happy with his set up chassis wise, but had a clear direction to take which gave him no cause for concern at this stage. Craig made a backward step with set up and couldn?t repeat the times he set earlier in the day. With no official timing available, getting a gauge of who was fast was quite tricky but the usual suspects were all in contention, Yannick and Savoya looked quick, although the latter was having a lot of crashes. Martin Bayer, Darren Bloomfield and Elliott Boots all looked to have good pace also, but perhaps the most impressive was Robert Batlle with his RC8B. Robert looked fast and stable which gave the UK Associated guys some joy as they would torture (question) him for his set up information afterwards.
Then we waited and waited for the opening ceremony which finally got underway after 8 p.m. in the evening and lasted for an hour or more. This had been a long day in the murderous heat (Phil Truman recorded 41C in the pit lane) and we all just wanted to get off home rather than listen to a local Portuguese firm do a little banjo dance, but it?s bad form to not attend the opening ceremony at these events, so you have to show an interest.
Dave's race report finishes tomorrow as we head in to qualifying and the exciting finals.
You can view our online photo gallery of the event here
