Nacho López wins Valladolid 1/8th National

The 1/8th scale Spanish national championship moved to Valladolid last weekend and front running Serpent driver Nacho López sent us the following report. We arrived to Valladolid on Friday before lunch, with many new things to test such as W2 Rear uprights, link set for the radio-tray, and other setup changes in order to adapt the car to the sinuous track of Valladolid. Another important issue of this track was the tyre wear! With new tyres, if we pushed hard the life of the tyres were from 15 to 18 minutes. Anyway, after the two firsts fuel tanks I had good sensations and the car worked very well. The rest of the Friday we were testing minor changes in the car and different engines. We changed from Zytec V1 to Zytec V2 with a big improvement in my laptimes! So we ended the free practice day happy with the setup and also with the engine.

On Saturday Morning the behavior of the car with medium and small tyres was excellent. But with the hot of the midday the car became slower and more difficult to drive. In the two first qualifs the car didn’t work as in the morning, so I only could achieve the third best time. We decided to do some small changes in the setup to try to catch Cabezas and Peracho whom were in the two first places. We hardened a little the front anti roll bar, and moved from 1’5º to 2º rear toe-in.

So the car in the third round was better but it was much hotter that the previous ones and anyone could improve his time. For the last round we revised the clutch and the car was perfect. But as in the third it was very hot and anyone could improve his time. However in the last round we were with the second position closer to Cabezas who won the round. We were very confident with the car and with the engine

In the finalist training the car was perfect and I did 10 minutes pushing hard to check if the tyre wear was lower that the days before as we expected. Our surprise was when we looked to the front left wheel, which was very very small after 10 minutes of training. So the only thing I could do was to drive slow and very smooth especially before the first tyre-change at minute 25.

I started well moving from third to second place in the first lap. But in the second lap I made a mistake turned over and falling to the last position. Then I tried to push hard while I was thinking in the tyre wear. Anyway I moved up quickly to the fourth position. Before the second fuel stop more or less as the same time Cabezas and Peracho suffered some problems, so just after the second fuel stop I was second just behind Montesinos. I was faster than him so I tried to put pressure to him. When he made a little mistake I was just behind prepared to overpass him and I moved to the first position, from this lap to the end of the race! The rest of the race was very hard, with difficult minutes just before and after the tyre change, but everything worked very well, and I could win the race one lap ahead Peracho and Montesinos whom were in second and third place.

The decisive race for the Spanish Championship will be in the new ARCA, the home track of Cabezas and Peracho among others. We need to end the race ahead Peracho and in the first five positions if Cabezas win in order to win the Spanish Championship. I can’t wait for this race.

I also was very happy with the performance of a new Serpent Driver, Paco Lara who won the Plus 40 final, and was fainting during the semi in order to get into the main! Impressive performance of Paco in his first race with the 966.

Thanks to my family, and to the Team Serpent for the support.

Thanks to Nacho López for the report and photos.