Sami Munck wins Finnish nitro touring nats Rd3

The PKSRCA club hosted the third round of the Finnish nitro on-road champs in Helsinki. Drivers were greeted with overcast weather on Saturday morning and everybody was hoping for a dry day, but just a few minutes before the controlled practice skies opened and there was heavy rain for some hours. This meant no practice for the drivers and the first two rounds of qualifying were a waiting game to see if the weather would improve. Thanks to the organising club whose volunteers did an excellent job on drying the track before Q3 drivers started to get some results on the board on damp conditions. In Q4 on an almost dry track Teemu Saarinen was able to secure TQ in front of local driver Jari Valkola.

The semifinals were run on an improving track and this caused problems to all drivers with engine tuning and chassis set-up issues. For the final weather kept improving even more and the sun came out. Before the start of the final there was drama for TQ driver Saarinen whose radio stopped working and Teemu had to call a 10 minutes delay to fix his radio gear. For the first part of the main final it was semifinal winners Alexandr Naumov and Tony Raikas who fought for the lead, but after a slow start hard charging Sami Munck and Teemu Saarinen, who started from back of the group, caught up with the leaders. After Teemu and Sami got past Alexandr and Tony they started to pull away from the rest of the group and were able to drive sub 19 second lap times. Sami and Teemu were swapping lead several times because of different fuel strategies. Before the last pits stops of the 45 minutes final Teemu was hit by problems and his car went off the track and after this incident Sami Munck was able to open up cap between Teemu and himself and take the victory with 10 seconds margin. Teemu Saarinen though secured the national series win with the second place finish in round three.

Final result
1. Sami Munck – Mugen/Novarossi
2. Teemu Saarinen – Mugen/Novarossi
3. Tony Raikas – Mugen/ Novarossi
4. Alexandr Naumov – Xray/Novarossi
5. Niko Putkonen – Serpent/Xceed
6. Janne Vesterlund – Mugen/ Novarossi
7. Panu Vehniäinen – Mugen/Novarossi
8. Joonas Hyvärinen – Mugen/Novarossi
9. Jethro Lehtojärvi – Xray/Reds
10.Jari Valkola – Xray/Novarossi

Thanks to Teemu Saarinen for sending the report. Image: lehtojarvi.net