Nicholas Lee wins 2013 Futaba Cup
The annual Futaba Cup took place last weekend in the city of Senayan in Jakarta, Indonesia and Nicholas Lee gave this report. ‘The track was resurfaced two weeks before the event but the layout remains the same as to the one I attended last year with the surface sugar watered for increased traction on Saturday. This year’s event attracted drivers from 8 different countries, but most notably, 1 Reigning World champion from Thailand (Meen.V) and 2 Worlds finalists (Alexander Hagberg and Chavit). As I had a good result finishing 2nd last year for the 10th and the 8th scale, I was hoping for a strong result. My dad and I arrived on Wednesday and we headed to the track right away. There were some new rules for this year as addictive is allowed and 4 rounds of 5 minutes qualifiers were to be run. My initial plan was to break-in engines and choose the best engine for the race. However, I had a stressful week because none of my engines would finish 5 minutes. I wasted the time stressing on my engines rather than finding a competitive car setup and tyre combination.
In qualifying, I ran out of fuel at 3 minutes 30 seconds only to have found out that I had a hole in my fuel line. Second qualifying was decent and it put me on 4th spot. I was pushing for a faster run on the 3rd qualifier but broke my car as I went too close to the wall on the straight. I decided to make some changes to a harder differential oil for the 4th and last round of qualifying. The car was much more stable and easier to drive, but could not make a faster time.
In the final, I had a bad start when attempting to make a pass on Charlee P. I went sideways and dropped to the back of the field. Minutes later, I was battling Bowie for the 5th spot. I made a contact on him and waited for him. We had a good 10 minutes of battling until he flamed out. 15 minutes into the final, I found myself in 3rd spot with Meen leading and Hagberg close behind. Hagberg ran out of fuel multiple times and that moved me into 2nd spot. Moments later, Meen flamed out twice. And I would find myself leading the race after changing tyres. I won the race ahead of Chavit and Meen for an all KM H-K1 podium.’
Source: KM Racing [km-rc.com]
