DJ Apolaro wins 200mm at Copa Mitad Del Mundo

The Copa Mitad Del Mundo nitro on-road race for 200mm Sedans and 1/8th GT cars was run in the Quito area, Ecuador. The track is located roughly 3000 metres above sea level and the race saw entries from many South American countries including Brazil, Peru, Chile, USA and Ecuador of course. Friday’s practice was washed away by the rain largely but come Saturday the weather improved and the competitors were able to start working on their engines and chassis setups. The race format had direct qualifying for the top 4 so everyone was eager to qualify as good as possible. Capricorn’s DJ Apolaro was invited to compete in the Sedan class and soon learned that engine setup in the thin air was crucial. Nevertheless he ended up in third place after the qualifiers.

Sunday came and the day was only for finals. The meeting was run an IFMAR format and then the organisers added a final’s B for a second chance at a trophy. This looks like a cool idea, as it gives the drivers a second chance that did not make the finals to race it out again and take home a trophy. The Sedan finals came around and the start was pretty good for DJ. He went from 3rd to 2nd pretty quick and found his way into first. After that Hermann Saa was behind him for a while and the pair would battle it out. Hermann tried a couple of passes and one or the other rubbing occurred, but Hermann waited to let DJ pass again. Despite a horsepower disadvantage little by little through his consistency, DJ could pull away and then the race started going his way. The Capricorn driver had an error free race and this allowed DJ to take the win by a comfortable margin with Hermann Saa in Second and Rodrigo Grijalva in 3rd.

Source: Capricorn [capricornrc.com]