Easy win for Michael Salven in Western Germany
Michael Salven took an easy win at round two of the Western German Championship 1/8 held at Dueren close to the Belgian and Dutch border. Following an incident of Serpent fellow Tobias Hepp in the first lap which caused a short pit stop and a 44 seconds lap time, Salven was never under pressure during the 40 minutes final. Even the handsome crowd saw excellent racing with very fast laps by Salven and Hepp, the 16 years old local hero couldn’t close the gap and came in second three laps down. Third place on the podium went to Mugen/Sirio racer Christian Wurst who lost four laps on Hepp but had an advantage of two laps over Frank Schewiola (Serpent/Novarossi). During the four heats only Salven with his Mega powered 966 and Hepp powered by Novarossi did 21 laps with Salven taking TQ just 1.221 seconds ahead of Hepp while the young talent achieved a new lap record with 14,178 seconds (Salven 14,241s).
Result of the class 1 final with only seven competitors:
1. Michael Salven, 161 laps – Serpent / Mega / Xceed
2. Tobias Hepp, 158 laps – Serpent / Novarossi / Shepherd Tyres
3. Christian Wurst, 154 – Mugen / Sirio / Matrix
4. Frank Schewiola, 152 – Serpent / Novarossi / Xceed
5. Ralf Vahrenkamp, 143 – Serpent / Novarossi / Xceed
6. Emil Kostadinov, 125 – Mugen / Reds / GRP
7. Rainer Rosskothen, 30 – Mugen / Novarossi / RPM
The final statistics: Serpent counted four chassis with Mugen three. Novarossi led with four engines, Mega, Reds and Sirio had each only one in the race. On tyres it was three for Xceed and one each for Shepherd, Matrix, GRP and RPM.
In the ranking list Tobias Hepp, winner of round one, is leading with 390 points after two of four races ahead of Salven (355), Schewiola (354), Vahrenkamp (326) and Rosskothen (298).
In class 2 local racer Detlef Kueppers, a 1/10 regular 1/10, pushed his Mugen to pole position head of Ralf Wacker (Serpent) and Christian Kobiela (Mugen). In the 40 minutes final Arno Puepke joined the battle for victory and led until his last refueling when things went wrong and he lost victory to Kueppers to cross the finish line one lap down. Third position on the podium was captured by young Jean-Pierre Roenicke (Serpent), the winner of the season opener.
Result of the class 2 final with only eight competitors:
1. Detlef Kueppers, 148 laps – Mugen / Novarossi
2. Arno Puepke, 147 – Mugen / Novarossi
3. Jean-Pierre Roenicke, 121 laps – Serpent / Novarossi
4. Markus Bastians, 115 – Mugen / Ninja
5. Sebastian Scheidweiler, 82 – Serpent / Max
6. Christian Kobiela, 48 – Mugen / Novarossi
7. Andre Huntebrinker, 25 – Shepherd / Novarossi
8. Ralf Wacker, 7 – Serpent / Novarossi
The final statistics shows an advantage for Mugen (4:3 over Serpent on chassis) and Novarossi (6) with one engine from Ninja and Max each.
In the ranking Jean-Pierre Roenicke leads by 381 points, with 363 each for Markus Bastians and Arno Puepke on second followed by Sebastian Scheidweiler (326) and Shepherd racer Andre Huntebrinker (306).
The 1/10 scale friendship race was a clear affair for local racer Lucien Zens. With his Serpent 733 he took TQ and won both 20 minutes finals. Christian Moritz (Xray) was second in the first final ahead of Capricorn racers Peter Classen, Michael Schwartz and eleven years old Leon Steinwartz, in the second race Schwartz came in second in front of Moritz, Classen and Steinwartz.
Even the attendance has been poor, the racers enjoyed a nice weekend in good atmosphere and with lots of sun. The 1/8 racers have to wait two month until round three will be held on 17/18 July at Dormagen close to Cologne. Next race events in Western Germany are round three of the 1/10 championship on 29/30 May in Bad Breisig and round two of the Nitro West Masters on 05/06 June in Dueren.
Source: Nitro West [nitro-west.de]
