Tobias Hepp wins German West 1/8th Rd4
Serpent supported youngster Tobis Hepp has won the fourth round of the 2008/2009 Western German Championship in class 1 of 1/8 scale which was held at Bad Breisig in the south of the former capital Bonn. It was a victory in style with a five lap advantage in the 30 minutes finale race over Frank Schewiola, the winner of round three, and Ralf Vahrenkamp. So the podium was completely in the hand of Serpent, Mega engines and Xceed tyres.
The race weekend with a total of 33 competitors was once again affected by rain and no practice was possible on Saturday. So race director Juergen Bell of the organising Club MCC Rhein-Ahr decided to offer two heats of practice on Sunday morning – an exemplary step but it turned out to be a long day with the price giving short before eight o´clock in the evening.
TQ was taken by Steven Cupyers at his first start in Germany with his Mugen/Sirio/Enneti package following his long time with Serpent. 2.5 seconds behind Tobias Hepp put his S966 on the second spot of the grid. Another two seconds behind Joerg Baldes caught third position just six days after the roll-out of his new Rex-powered Motonica P81. Only these three drivers completed 20 laps while Karl-Heinz Meister on fourth missed the 20 laps barrier by only two tenth of a seconds.
From the semi final Schewiola and Vahrenkamp, the Motonica duo Uwe Baldes and Christian Wurst, Mugen driver Rainer Rosskothen and Andreas Weyhoven with his Kyosho made it into the final.
Unfortunately the ten finalist didn’t show their best behavior on the track. A lot of incidents happened which could have been avoided and caused several after-race-discussions. Pole setter Cuypers retired short before halftime while Joerg Baldes had to repair for a while following a start clash and also Karl-Heinz Meister lost his chance of a better result in several collisions.
The final result of class 1:
1. Tobias Hepp, 114 laps –Serpent / Mega / Xceed
2. Frank Schewiola, 109 – Serpent / Mega / Xceed
3. Ralf Vahrenkamp, 108 – Serpent / Mega / Xceed
4. Andreas Weyhoven, 103 – Kyosho / Team Orion / GP
5. Rainer Rosskothen, 99 – Mugen / GRP / GRP
6. Karl-Heinz Meister, 94 – Serpent / Mega / Xceed
7. Jörg Baldes, 88 – Motonica / Rex / Cosmic
8. Christian Wurst, 86 – Motonica / JP / Matrix
9. Steven Cuypers, 47 – Mugen / Sirio / Enneti
10. Uwe Baldes, 34 – Motonica / Team Orion / Cosmic
In class 2 Dirk Drechsler (Mugen/Ninja/GRP) took TQ but lost the victory to Arno Puepke (Mugen/Novarossi/RPM). Drechsler came in second just nine seconds behind. Two laps down in the 30 minutes finale was Udo Tappertzhofen (Kyosho/Team Orion/Matrix) taking the last spot on the podium.
