LRP Touring Car Masters 2004/Germany
 

I´m just back from the LRP Masters track at Eppelheim/Germany.
Beside the national HPI Challenge there is the Masters class with 150 drivers attending from all over the world. This is including World Champions Surikarn and Atsushi Hara and lot of European and National Champions and Worlds finalists like David Spashett, Craig Drescher, Teemo Leino, Barry Baker, Benni Gröschel, Jonas Kaerup, Andi Moore and soone.
It´s an indoor carpet track build for this race meeting by the local raceclub MSC Eppelheim assisted by LRP RD and motorman Reto König.
Tires are handout LRP VTEC 24R tires including VTEC inserts and wheels. Tire traction LRP Grip only. Motors are limited to 12 turns according to EFRA rules. Bodies according EFRA rules so no Stratus 2, Alfa2 and Mazda6 allowed. Most drivers are using the Protoform Stratus 1.

If you´re interested you could find more informations at the official website http://www.lrp-hpi-challenge.com/eppelheim04/index.html

If there is just one short resume of todays (Saturday) racing than it´s the TRF 415 is the car to beat and nobody could touch young German guy Marc Rheinard. After 3 rounds today he´s on a provisional TQ. Tomorrow morning the fourth and final round of qualifying will be held with two rounds counting. In his fastest heat he was leading by an incredible 5 seconds for the secondfastest driver Teemo Leino with his Schumacher Mi2. Third place currently goes to David Spashett with his Losi XXX-S. Seems he´s back again after switching to Peak Racing.
All other drivers are very close and it´s very easy falling down from an A-Final place down to C-Final by making a very small mistake.

Most cars at the track are TRF 415 and HPI Pro4 by far. The TC3 team is a little behind seems they aren´t that strong as usual but last qualifier will show what´s going on.

For motors it seems the Team Orion/Peak Racings V2 motors are the fastest and lot of drivers from the first 30 positions are using them. The LRP Team is using their brandnew silver compound brushes and these do work very good.
Regarding Speedcontrols most drivers are using LRP Quantum 2/Nosram Dominator Evolution but some very fast guys are using KO/Hara Twister ESC´s also.

Regarding cars it´s nothing special.
TC3´s look like as usual.

Some of the 415´s are using double upper deck but noone is using the special chassis as could be seen at the pre LRP Masters practice. Marc Rheinards TRF415 looks nothing special at all beside the rear aluminium uprights. He´s using just the kit´s single upper deck. From what I have heard today he didn´t change anything since he got his car.

Atsushi Hara is using a flipped over upperdeck so there are no countersinked screws used as mentioned already in the Pro4 thread. Seems this is working better regarding tweak.

So after 3 rounds out of 4 it´s like this:

1 - Marc Rheinard - Tamiya TRF415/Team Orion
2 - Teemo Leino - Schumacher Mi2/Team Orion
3 - David Spashett - Losi XXX-S G+/Peak Racing
4 - Atsushi Hara - HPI Pro4/Team Orion
5 - Surikarn - Tamiya TRF415/Peak Racing
6 - Steen Graversen - Tamiya TRF415/Corally
7 - Benni Gröschel - HPI Pro4/LRP
8 - Andy Moore - HPI Pro4/Team Orion
9 - Jilles Groskamp - Xray/Team Orion
10 - Jonas Kaerup - TC3/Reedy

11 - Ronald Völker - Tamiya EVO3/Team Orion
12 - Craig Dresher - TC3/Reedy
13 - Marc Fisher - Tamiya TRF415/Team Orion
14 - Peter Pinisch - TC3/Reedy
15 - Steffen Leinburger - Tamiya TRF415/Team Orion
16 - Victor Wilck - ?
17 - Hupo Hönigl - Losi XXX-S G+/LRP
18 - Andy Krämer - HPI Pro4/LRP
19 - Alex Stocker - Tamiya TRF 415/Team Orion
20 - Joel Myrberg - Xray

23 - Barry Baker
24 - Satoshi Maezumi
25 - Sakke Ahonemi
26 - Chris Grainger (best Yokomo SD)
28 - Jonas Anderson
30 - Juho Levänen
33 - Masayuki Miura
...........

complete list at the official website

Thanks for the results!

Nice update V12!!!!

Go Teemu!!!!!!!

At this German forum´s thread page 3 you could see some pictures. I´m sorry it´s German languange only but there are some pictures also from this race. http://www.rcweb.de/board/viewtopic....r=asc&start=40

Top ten after qualifying:

1 Rheinard, Marc, Tamiya TRF415/Orion
2 Leino, Teemu, Schumacher Mi2/Orion
3 Graversen, Steen, Tamiya TRF415/Corally
4 Spashett, David, Losi XXXS/Peak
5 Hara, Atsushi, HPI Pro4/Orion
6 Gröschel, Benni, HPI Pro4/LRP
7 Surikarn, C., Tamiya TRF415/Peak
8 Dresher, Craig, Associated TC3/Reedy
9 Myrberg, Andreas, Xray T1FK/LRP
10 Levänen, Juho, Associated TC3/Reedy

First A-final:

1. Marc Rheinard
2. Teemu Leino
3. Atsushi Hara
4. Surikarn Chaidejsuria
5. David Spashett
6. Craig Drescher
7. Juho Levanen
8. Benni Gröschel
9. Andreas Myrberg
10. Steen Graversen

Second A-final:

1. Marc Rheinard
2. Teemu Leino
3. Atsushi Hara
4. Steen Graversen
5. Juho Levanen
6. Benni Gröschel
7. David Spashett
8. Andreas Myrberg
9. Surikarn Chaidejsuria
10. Craig Drescher

Final results:

1 Rheinard, Marc (1) (1) (1) 2 Punkte TRF415/Orion
2 Leino, Teemu (2) (2) (2) 4 Punkte Mi2/Orion
3 Hara, Atsushi (3) (3) (4) 6 Punkte Pro4/Orion
4 Spashett, David (5) (7) (3) 8 Punkte XXX-S G+/Peak
5 Graversen, Steen (10) (4) (5) 9 Punkte TRF415/Corally
6 Surikarn, C. (4) (9) (7) 11 Punkte TRF415/Peak
7 Levänen, Juho (7) (5) (6) 11 Punkte TC3/Reedy
8 Gröschel, Benni (8 ) (6) (8 ) 14 Punkte Pro4/LRP
9 Dresher, Craig (6) (10) (9) 15 Punkte TC3/Reedy
10 Myrberg, Andreas (9) (8 ) (10) 17 Punkte T1FK/LRP

At todays last qualifier there were some very fast heats again and in the end lot of drivers lost or gained places in the final round. Marc Rheinard and Teemo Leino were the only drivers able for laptimes below 13 seconds. Next fastest laps were 13,15 seconds and most drivers were above 13,5 seconds.

kentech posted the final qualifying and A-Final results so there is no need for repeating again.

As a final resume Marc Rheinard was clearly winning all three A-Finals and Teemo Leino also was clearly defending his startposition #2. Marcs TRF 415 looked extremly smooth and pulled away after one or two laps.
There was some impressive driving from all A-Final drivers but absolutely fantastatic to watch was the battle Surikarn vs David Spashett for third place in the 1. A-Final. Extremly close and fast but absolutely fair also. Worldchampionlike is the best description for this art of driving.

Tomorrow I will show some pictures from this exciting race.

Can´t await next years Masters again!

V12,
Was Marc using the standard 415 chassis? Anybody using the chassis that Kentech posted earlier? Thanks.

Marc and everybody else were using the standard chassis. All cars were pretty much in kit version even with Surikarn and Maezumi.

Heard that Surikarn used two upper decks and the battery slots were not milled out completely. They just were "countersunk"....
According to the TRF this prevents the car from tweaking.

Sorry...got no pics:cry:

V12 & kentech, thanks for the results!

Yes Surikarn and Maezumi were using two upper decks but that was the only change. I never saw the special chassis on their cars. Marc Rheinard even didn´t use the two upper decks and he had the fastest car at the track.

Here you can find a list of the final results:

http://www.lrp-hpi-challenge.com/epp...UCKERFinal.pdf