Daniel Kobbevik takes Norwegian 1/8th Buggy title
The final round of the Norwegian 1/8th Nitro Off-road Nationals was hosted by the KMBK Raceway in Kristiansand in nice weather conditions. The challenging astro turf track made for some close racing and the race for the championship was on between Bjorn Ivar Haug and Daniel Kobbevik – the latter only attended at two races but he won both of them so he was in a good position for the overall championship as Bjorn needed a win and Daniel a 2nd place to secure the championship. Bjorn Ivar opened the qualifiers with a TQ in round one while Daniel had to work his way through the field as there is no reseeding in the championship. He fought back in Q2 and Q3 though only to suffer from traffic in the final two qualifiers and so Bjorn Ivar took the TQ from Daniel in 2nd and Gisle Brovig 3rd.
After Sunday’s semifinals the top 2 positions would change as after a flawless run Daniel would obtain the pole position for the main final with Bjorn Ivar 2nd and Gisle 3rd. The final started off with Daniel trying to pull away from the field immediately. His strategy seemed to work out as Bjorn Ivar made some small mistakes on the first laps, and that put him right into the fight with Gisle and Egil. Hans Magne Berg was also in the fight for a time, but had a flame out after a while and lost a lot on that one, so he was not able to fight back for the podium. Up front Daniel just continued to go like a machine and did no mistakes, so the lead was getting bigger and bigger, and none of the drivers could keep up that speed without doing mistakes. About 25 minutes into the race Daniel was in the lead with a 2-laps margin on the 2nd and 3rd place fight, but then after a pit stop, his car stopped in the middle of the track and he had to be taken to the pits. Daniel lost over one lap on that one, but just continued with same speed as he did before the flameout and managed to increase the lead to up to three laps. Behind him there was a crazy fight for the remaining podium spots and in the end it was Egil who took the 2nd place in front of Gisle. With the win Daniel would also secure the overall championship title.
Final results:
1. Daniel Kobbevik – Xray/FX
2. Egil Amtedal – Serpent/O.S.
3. Gisle Brovig – Xray/O.S
4. Bjorn Ivar Haug – Kyosho/FX
5. Danny Kwiatkkowski – Kyosho/Picco
6. Hans Magne Berg – Mugen/Reds Racing
7. Knut Jorgen Myhre – Serpent/O.S.
8. Hans Olaf Moland – Serpent/O.S.
9. Morten Olaussen – Kyosho/O.S.
10.Dan Terje Bjornflaten – JQRacing/Reds Racing
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
