Posted by Bart_Banaan on 2007/10/11 10:00:00 (1665 reads )
Wednesday 10 October
Bad luck.... bad luck..... bad luck...
Today the team of Roelof en Fedor had to run their qualification runs in the afternoon, so after a bit of extra rest in the Hotel they went timely to the track. At the track they prepared the Mugen MRX-4R for the runs of today and everthing seemed to be in order; just mounted a new glowplug and lubricated the belts. At the first heat of the day the engine stalled and Fedor was unable to adjust the engine; the engine would not work correct. Also the roadhold of the car gave Roelof some problems and after a check they found that some teeth were broken off the front belt because dirt. So, Roelof and Fedor used this qualificationrun to adjust the engine properly....
In the second session of today Roelof should make a good time, and ......
..... the engine stalled again and again! It puzzled Roelof and Fedor what was happening with their engine since the problems occured at the beginning of the straight; the engine started to get very rich and just before entering the straight it stalled again and again. Roelof and Fedor could not get their 'fingers behind the problem' and decided to ask Jean Paul from JP Engine (who is also present at this World Championship). Even with Jean Pauls' attention they couldnot give any logical explanation for the problems, so Roelof and Fedor were confused about the problems of today. Roelof thought that maybe the main bearing had some play and maybe the carburator was not optimal, so Roelof and Fedor deciced to replace the carburator, which gave the engine a better feel in a short testrun. An other thing Roelof did to coop with the problems of today was that he cleaned his exhaustpipe from the inside to get rid of any dirt around the pressurenipple... Tomorrow they will see if the engine did improve......
Because of the big problems of today Roelof didnot have any sparetime to make pictures, what is understandable as you know that competing in the World Championship is a very serious matter and when the car doesnot go as the driver and mechanic want, then getting the car right again is priority number one. Our excuses for the lack of pictures of today, but we will make it upto you!
Our other Dutch drivers are facing problems also on this third day of qualification; Jilles Grosskamp (Kyosho/Sirio) was pushing hard to make a good result, but suddenly his car stalled also and he had to go into the pits. Jilles didnot better his fine result of yesterday and dropped somewhat down in the provisional standings. Roelof didnot have a change to see Rick Vrielijnck drive his qualifications, but it seems that also RickV is struggeling at the moment; in he provisional standings he takes a 42nd spot, clearly he didnot improve himselve today.
The surprise upto today are for sure the japanese drivers Shimo and Kitazawa who are both in the top 10 with their OS Max Engine powered cars (Shimo Kyosho and Kitazawa Mugen), which makes very clear that OS Engines is hard on its way to reach the top in onroad racing engines.
And the reigning Champion, Lamberto Collari, does what he does best; perform on the highest level. As usuall he did what is expected of him as a reigning Champion, and he was driving his laps as a true champion making a total of 34 laps, which puts him on the second spot on the qualifiying results, just after the overnight leader Massimo Fantini (Serpent/Mega MF). It is noticeable that Lamberto Collari's second gear is shifting very early from the first to the second gear, and that his engine -a Novarossi tuned by himselve- has a massive bottom end since the engine doesnot mind the early shift to the second gear. The idea behind this early shift is probably to create extra fuel efficiency.
We will report back tomorrow with new and exiting stories and pictures directly from the track in Córdoba ....
Unofficial top 15 results after round 4 1. MASSIMO FANTINI - 34 Laps in 10:14.91 (Serpent/Max) 2. LAMBERTO COLLARI - 34 Laps in 10:18.02 (Kyosho/Novarossi) 3. Adrien Bertin - 33 Laps in 10:00.84 (Kyosho/Picco) 4. CHRIS TOSOLINI - 33 Laps in 10:00.88 (Kyosho/Sirio) 5. DANIELE IELASI - 33 Laps in 10:01.28 (Kyosho/Picco) 6. Pietsch Robert - 33 Laps in 10:02.54 (Shepherd/Novarossi) 7. TAKAAKI SHIMO - 33 Laps in 10:03.19 (Kyosho/OS) 8. DARIO BALESTRI - 33 Laps in 10:04.99 (Motonica/Novarossi) 9. HIDEO KITAZAWA - 33 Laps in 10:05.08 (Mugen/OS) 10. MICHELE ROMAGNOLI - 33 Laps in 10:05.19 (Serpent Max) 11. Salven Michael - 33 Laps in 10:05.48 (Serpent/Mega) 12. Mark Green - 33 Laps in 10:06.91 (Serpent/Mega) 13. WALTER SALEMI - 33 Laps in 10:08.55 (Mugen/Ninja) 14. STEFANO SOLAROLI - 33 Laps in 10:09.31 (Mugen/Picco) 15. JERNEJ VUGA - 33 Laps in 10:09.35 (Mugen/Novarossi) ... 21. Jilles Groskamp 33 Laps in 10:11.52 (Kyosho/Sirio) 42.Rick Vrielijnck 32 Laps in 10:10.71 (Mugen/Ninja) 71. ROELOF TOOMS - 29 laps in 09:41.66 19.343 (Mugen/JP) (Source: RedRC.net)
