Völker & Ingwethvongsa win at TITC 2014
The 2014 Thailand International Touring Car Championship took place last weekend at the Huge RC Project track in Bangkok. In the Modified Touring Cat class Yokomo’s Naoto Matsukura and Ronald Völker where in a close battle for TQ while their Thai teammates Meen V. and Singpute where hot on their heels. Also in the mix was Xray’s Alexander Hagberg. At the end of the five qualifying rounds Naoto took a very close TQ from Ronald while Chavit and Meen ended tie on points in third and fourth. The Open Brushless class had Thainland’s Araya Ingwethvongsa taking the TQ from Mongkolpan Lomrose and Hong Kong based Stick King. Trin Tanongsakchaikul and Andreas Myrberg completed the top 5 result.
The finals of the Modified class Naoto ran out luck. The Yokomo driver pulled off the front in A1 with a full second gap to Ronald, but mid way through the race made an error through the chicane and gave up the lead to Ronald. Naoto was able to recover and chase back up to Ronald’s bumper, but with no passing opportunities available, an all-or-nothing finish looked to be shaping up as the seconds wound down. As both came around the last lap nose to tail, the expected happened, with both Ronald and Naoto punching it full throttle into the last corner toward the finish line, both cars flying through the air over the line and into pit lane. At the end Ronald won the first leg by 0.001 seconds from Naoto.
The start of A2 was a repeat of A1, with Naoto pulling off the front, and maintaining a 1.5 second gap over the field. But just when everyone began to think that Naoto would just cruise it home, it appeared his car hit a bump at the end of the straight, causing it to spin into the sweeper and back into the outside wall. Ronald, Chavit and Meen were there to finish 1st, 2nd, and 3rd to not give up any podium points, with Ronald picking up the overall win with one A-final to go.
With Ronald absent from the grid for A3, all Naoto had to do was bring it home to claim the second podium spot, but with the hard-charging Meen machine behind, it surely did not look easy. Fortunately his luck appeared to have returned to normal as he led Meen and Chavit to line for the win, completing a Yokomo sweep of the podium.
Touring Car Modified result
1. Ronald Völker
2. Naoto Matsukura
3. Meen Vejrak
4. Chavit Sirigupta
5. Marc Rheinard
6. Atsushi Hara
7. Alexander Hagberg
8. Nicholas Lee
9. Andy Moore
10.Wang Hai Feng
The finals of the highly contested Open Brushless class proofed to be very exiting too. Araya Ingwethvongsa capitalised on his pole start to take the win in A1, but a small bobble cost him the lead in A2 to finish 2nd. A3 was to decide the winner, and a rough start shuffled Araya back to 4th, but his A1 and A2 finishes were solid enough to bring home the win in front of Andreas Myrberg and Mongkolpan Lomrose. Kittipong R. and Natee Tirapipattanakui came in 4th and 5th respectively.
Source: Yokomo [teamyokomo.com]
