The weekend for me is finished. I was leading the 1/4 Final with only 5 minutes left to go and I could not hear Rick call me in for fuel. I actually made it all the way back around the track to the pit lane but flamed out coming in (about 5:25 on the tank). Otherwise, my 5 minute stragey would have worked out great and I would have been a few seconds in front at the end.....
The good part though, Patrick was right behind me in 2nd so he ended up winning the 1/4 and then transfered into the Semi.
I did made a mistake on the results yesterday - It was Piranni and not Christiani that was 2nd qualifier. Christiani over came a terrible start in his Semi final to come through the entire field to win and transfer. Mark Green who was also a 1/4 Final qualifier won his 1/4 and then was 2nd in the Semi transfering him into the final.
Here's the interesting bit - Ielasi and Marc Vanni were 1 and 2 in the other Semi final but both were too light from the high tire wear so they were disqualified. This put Patrick into the winners position and directly into the final along with Adrien Bertin. Also, because if this the additional spots that would have gone into the final by laps/time of Patrick and Adrien went to Franchesco and Salven with Rick V. being the 11th place driver.... Crazy finish....
The big suprise was watching Lamberto drive away from the field at the start of the semi but then I think about 2-3 minutes in he broke a glow plug. Flamed out after the next fuel stop and was down in the order and never recovered. I"m sure it will be sorted when we return.
Well, time to go watch the final. I would bring the lap top trackside but... I want to watch the race rather than typing about it!! I'll take some notes and try to give a good account of what happens!!!
Well, the final is now over and Alberto Picco is the winner!! He ran a very smooth, consistant and mistake free race to win by about 1/2 lap over Shimo with Mark Green a lap behind them.
At the start, Pietch ran away from the field stretching out a pretty sizeable lead by the first pit stop. Shimo tried to run 5 minutes but ran out of fuel coming into the pit lane. By the time he was re-fired he was about 3/4 of a lap down to Pietch. From there, he consistantly pounded out some of the fastest laps at the time. Pirrani had a mistake which allowed Picco to move past for 2nd and by the 10 minute mark the lap times between Picco and Pietch had leveled out to about the same with Shimo still running the quickest back in about 6th-7th place. By the 15 minute mark though, it really looked like Pietch was already running out of tires and the pitting at 4 minutes was taking it's toll. Alberto, Green, Bertin, Shimo were all running about 4:30 and during the shuffle of pit stops, Pietch was coming out of the pits back in 3rd-4th place. By the 20-25 minute mark, Shimo had passed all but Picco and was closing on Alberto with Pietch dropping down to 3rd, then 4th, then 5th as Green, Bertin and Christiani all were running quicker laps and his early 20.3's were now 21.5's....
Tire changes started at the half way point and Shimo's crew had an awesome tire chang coming in about a second behind Picco but then out about 2 seconds a head. From there, Picco ran hard to keep the pressure on and passed Shimo. Picco was a little faster on the big tires but Shimo tried to keep pace but ended up running a little too hard and ran out of fuel coming into the pits with about 12-13 minutes to go. After he was restarted, he ran some of the fastest laps of the race clicking off 20.2's in the last 10 minutes when Picco was in the 20.5-20.9 range (all others were in the 21's). I think if Shimo could have just run his pace he would have beat Alberto as Shimo was much faster as the tires wore down. The battle for 3rd was between Mark Green and Bertin and with about 10 minutes to go Adrien had a big crash on the back straight were we were standing and you could easily see that the left rear was maybe only 64mm!!
Overall, it was a great race to watch and interesting to see how the strategies played out. I'm sure some will still opt for the 3:30 mad dash for qualification but the toll it takes on the tires for 1 hour I think is really a huge gamble. Fuel milage/power/speed will be the decider in qualifying but for sure tire strateg will play a big part in the coming WC final. No matter what, it will be quite interesting and exciting to see how it all plays out as this track really lets you play a lot of different options!!!
Well, we have to finish packing up here and are headed back to the Shepherd office. Thanks everyone for checking in on us. I will get to work on all the pics and videos we took here and get them up on this thread. For the next WC, I will be posting daily updates on the www.cefx.net web site rather than here as I should be able to easily upload all the videos and pictures so hopefully that will all work out as planned!!
Thanks for keeping us updated Josh. Sorry to hear about your bad luck. I guess its good to strike problems now & sort them out then at the WC.
Could this be the year Picco finally wins a World Championship? He should have won in Mexico & was looking good in Messina till he had issues. I think he almost won the Euros at this track a couple of years ago too.
On his day, I believe Picco is about the only driver that can match Collari. Thats why I rate him as the 2nd favourite behind Collari.
Anyone know if Picco still runs the Evolva M3?
Anyway, it shapes up for a great WC event come mid August.
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Is Josh working you to hard, I don't see a post from you in the last day are so, just kidding.
Good luck to you and Josh, we know it's a team effort.
Nope, I've been taking notes trackside and he's been typing them all up to post on here. Very busy though, we def. went through the entire spectrum of setups on the car this week.
Socko
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Great Planes, Futaba, O.S. Engines, MuchMore USA, Shepherd Micro Racing, Duratrax, CEFX, Top Racing, Tornado Fuel, BSR Racing Tires
Nope, I've been taking notes trackside and he's been typing them all up to post on here. Very busy though, we def. went through the entire spectrum of setups on the car this week.
Socko
Rick,
How did the O.S. Engines look, are they getting closer to the speed of others?
You and Josh have a safe trip back.
Ira
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MUGEN SEIKI USA, BYRON FUEL, LEISURE HOURS HOBBIES, O.S. ENGINES, FUTABA, YBSLOW, FASTLANE GRAPHIX, #22
ha..ha..ha..
