Thomas Mayr takes Austrian title with Rd3 victory

The third and final leg for the Austrian Nationals in 1:8 Offroad was held last weekend at WMW Fehring track, EC-A track for 2012. The Championship standings after first 2 races meant that only 3 drivers could became Austrian champion, Dominic Bauer, Thomas Mayr and Andreas Scharinger. In Qualifying Dominic Bauer dominated winning 3 from 4 rounds giving the following qualifying result.

1. Dominic Bauer (Mugen/Novarossi/Proline)
2. Martin Karner (Agama/Go/VP-Pro)
3. Hupo Hönigl (Durango/LRP/Proline)
4. Jürgen Trieb (Crono/OS/ProCircuit)

Thomas Mayr (Mugen/Novarossi/Proline) had problems to do clean runs and ended up only 7th after qualifying. The third title candidate Andreas Scharinger  (TLR/Novarossi/Proline) was on 11th position.

During lunch break Hupo Honigl made a complete rebuild at this Durango car bringing more weight to the front, because he was complaining the whole weekend from huge understeer and in Semi Final A the car was working perfect and Hupo made new lap record with 36.582 sec and was easily winning before Dominic Bauer and Thomas Mayr, which had to run around 5 minutes with electronic problems where sometimes his car had no steering in left corners. Slower Semi final B was won by Patrick Schweinzer before Rene Kargl and Martin Karner.

Hupo Honigl should start from pole position for the 45 minute final, but revving up his LRP motor a few seconds before the start at his start position the conrod broke so Dominic Bauer was easily leading the final. Thomas Mayr starting from position 6 managed to get up to second by lap 3 and was pushing hard to close the gap to Dominic. Both where running at full risk like in qualifying and at first pit stop it was clear that Dominic had to refuel one time more than Thomas, both were running so fast that the already lapped the complete field at 25 minutes mark. The lead was only changing during different refuel strategy but Thomas managed to close the gap more and more and got by and into the lead. Both fighting hard but fair for the lead and the title Dominic had to make his additionally refuel 3 minutes before the end – and so Thomas was running safe for the last minutes and allowed Dominic to close the gap and finished second, 2 seconds back.

1. Thomas Mayr (Mugen/Novarossi/Proline) – 70L 45:15.504
2. Dominic Bauer (Mugen/Novarossi/Proline) – 70L 45:17.828
3. Jürgen Trieb (Crono/OS/ProCicuit) – 69L 45:30.781

Final result for the Austrian championship:
1. Thomas Mayr (Mugen/Novarossi/Proline) – 600 points
2. Dominic Bauer (Mugen/Novarossi/Proline) – 580 points (Austrian Junior champion)
3. Jürgen Trieb (Crono/OS/ProCicuit) – 520 points

Thanks to Michael Selner for the report.