Xray Racing Series Germany Rd3 – Report
The Arena33 in Andernach recently hosted round three of the Xray Racing Series Germany. After lots of practice on Saturday, the racers were well prepared for race day at this permanent indoor track of Tonisport and the Rheinard family. For the qualification, the best of three heats were counted by laps and time, for the finals the points of the best two runs were added to the final ranking. Once again, Uwe Baldes race director and time keeper made it a smooth event.
The Touring Stock class with handout Xray 13.5T motors once again was the most popular class of the weekend. Beside the mandatory Hudy C1 tyres, the well-known Volante ETS tyres were also permitted. Melvin Diekmann, who missed the podium at the second round held in Adenau four weeks ago, surprisingly managed to capture the TQ position by only a tenth of a second ahead of Sven Soltau. Also, Tobias Hoefflin and Joerg Baldes completed 21 laps in their best heats.
In the first A-main Diekmann continued his performance and won with an advantage of half a second over Soltau with Baldes in 3rd. But in the second A-main things went wrong for Diekmann who had to retire from a nail-biting battle with Baldes. With the Xray driver at this tail for most of the time, Diekmann hit a barrier and had to stop with one minute on the clock. Baldes brought the victory home ahead of young Marc Stuebben and Hoefflin. So, the third final had to bring the decision. From pole position Diekmann stormed into the lead while Baldes coming from fourth had to make two passings first to fight his way back to the 4th of Diekmann’s Awesomatix. Finally, he ran a bit out of time but after an impressive performance he crossed the finish line just 0.186 seconds behind Diekmann with Hoefflin another half a second down in 3rd – the order of the podium. Baldes also received the trophy as the best 40-plus-racer, 17-year old Marc Stuebben was the best youth driver.
Touring Car Stock 13.5T final results:
1. Melvin Diekmann – Awesomatix
2. Joerg Baldes – Xray
3. Tobias Hoefflin – Xray
4. Marc Stuebben – Xray
5. Frank Hoeschler – Xray
6. Oliver Kaufmann – Mugen
7. Sven Soltau – Xray
8. Thomas Hallaschka – Awesomatix
9. Harald Schmittgen – VBC Racing
10.Daniel Toennessen – Mugen
In the 21.5T Formula class the fight for the overall win was on between 2017 XRS champion Daniel Schober and Jan Bohlen. But in the qualifiers as well as in the finals, it was Jan Bohlen driving his Xray onto first position giving Schober a hard time in his last race as a bachelor. Henri Mannes from Luxembourg in 3rd made it a 1-2-3 for Xray.
Formula 21.5T top 5 results:
1. Jan Bohlen – Xray
2. Daniel Schober – Xray
3. Henri Mannes – Xray
4. Jacky Mannes – Xray
5. Reinhard Mehl – Yokomo
Like at the second round, Bernd Wiesenberger showed a dominant performance in the 1/12th Stock class with 13.5T motors regarding to the new EFRA rules. Not only that he took the pole position with his CRC but he also won all three A-mains in style, the first and third main already with a one-lap advantage. David Ranft placed his Project Godspeed chassis on the 2nd spot in the grid after the qualification and also after the A-mains with some close fights against Michael Holla who ultimately entered the 3rd step of the podium. Wiesenberger was honoured as the best 40-plus racer.
1/12 Stock 13.5T top 5 results:
1. Bernd Wiesenberger – CRC
2. David Ranft, Project – Project Godspeed
3. Michael Holla – CRC
4. Alexander Seitter – Xray
5. Jacky Mannes – Xray
The promotion tour for the 1/12th GT Pan Cars with original looking GT bodies continued at the Arena33. Tobias Schuster with his Audi R8 took TQ and his second win. Bertram Kessler, at least a former 1/8 nitro European Champion, came in 2nd with his XRAY, changing from Audi to Ferrari and Porsche 911, the best-looking body as well as the one which offered he best handling of the car. His granddaughter Jody Scheckter made it to 3rd place with her deep-pink coloured Audi at her first ever electric on-road race.
1/12 GT 17.5T top 3 results:
1. Tobias Schuster – Team Associated
2. Bertram Kessler – Xray
3. Jody Scheckter – Xray
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
