Turkish On-road Nationals – Report

The Izmir EFMOD track recently played host for the 2018 Turkish On-road Nationals, a 5-day race that was held in Touring Modified, Touring Stock, 1/8th IC Track and 1/10th 200mm Nitro Touring classes. The race was affected by changing weather conditions and the level of competition was high in all classes, meaning lots of pressure for all drivers. In the Touring Modified category the race for the overall win was on between Ahmet Kasap and up and coming Atahan Yıldız. Both showed a very fast and very similar pace. Eventually Atahan took the title in his first race season while Ahmet took the runner-up spot. The podium was rounded out by Yunus Şahin.

In Touring Stock class, powered by 13.5T stock motors and controlled speedos, Ahmet Kasap set the early pace, however he got strong competition from Ali Kaya, Poyraz Serezlioğlu and Berk Öğretmen. Ali was unlucky due to his university entrance exams, and so he missed the opening A-main and a solid performance of Ahmet helped him to win the title. 2nd place went to 12-years old talent Poyraz ahead his team mate Berk Öğretmen.

The 1/8th IC Track class showed lots of professionalism and great sportsmanship but also bad luck for some drivers. In the end it was Burak Özcan with the title after a steady performance all week. Görkem Gür came in 2nd from Ali Çağlar 3rd.

The competitive 1/10th 200mm Nitro Touring class attracted the most entries and it wrote a different story each day. Ultimately it was local talent, Ali Kaya with the overall TQ and quite a margin to Alain Sarafyan, Cengiz Sönmezler and Halit Körpe who also directly qualified for the 45-minute A-main. The race for the win was a 3-horse battle but ultimately it was Alain who took over the lead in lao 44 and never looked back from there. Cengiz Sönmezler finished 2nd on the same lap as the winner and the podium was completed by 12-years old talent Poyraz Serezlioğlu. Direct qualifiers Ali and Halit had some bad luck and scored DNFs.

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]