| Tag zusammen,
Hier mein report von letzte woche.
Fur den zwischenstand, runden und alles, kennt ihr schon die verschiedene links von Basti, Fola usw usw.
Den Links stehen auch in der report
OEPS 2012 Round 3 Race Report
The third and final race of the 2012 OEPS season was held at the new location of Slotcraft’s Raceway Park in Troisdorf, Germany.
Though new to the OEPS, the ‘Big Bertha’ track promised to host an exciting race whereas many positions in the overall standings were far from certain, and judging from the amount of testsessions being put in by many teams, each position would be hardfought.
On Thursday many team were present already in full strength, as usual the whole Finnish delegation headed by Kai Kivekas was there, and already after an hour orso of practise they dipped below the 8,0sec mark. Plastikquäler (incl infamous laptop) was there, No Limits, BL Racing, Racing for Julia, RICH, NDW and many more.
Big Bertha soon proved to be relatively easy to learn for newcomers and despite it’s high speed nature, a very good track to keep overall view on things and not many big crashes occurred. A testament for the teams aswell as their cars.
In the weeks before the race, 7,5 sec times were reported, and before the end of Thursday, 7,6 done by No Limits and Plastikquäler proved their testing times.
Friday
12:00 was beginning of practise and immediately the track was filled with teams and marschalls. Many teams brought testbodies with them as is almost a necessity in OEPS. Both Sloefspeed teams seemed to struggle a little to find the right setup after having a very fast car in Trier.
Kaitserari clocked 7,7 times and later on did low 7,6, a really good improvement for them meaning they were only a couple of hundreds behind the topteams of Plastikquäler and No Limits.
Racing for Julia, Commandiert by Peter Juchem, had a very powerfull car again as they all season.
Low 7,7s also seen from GMS.
Slotfabrik seemed to hold back a little until Jorg Hardt really pushed the car and posted 7,6 times.
NDW Works took a long while to get into the 7,6 aswell.
Great to see the Carbon Hornets Rebellion Lola going around in a very respective way and surely this time they’d be able to avoid the last couple places.
D&G had yet again built a new Aston Martin Lola on a new chassis, lighter body and that certainly seemed to pay off.
4 teams from Holland, all juggling around the 7,9 laptimes.
Frank Biela and his team showed tremendous speed at times and were practising hard to make sure they could bring this pace on all lanes.
Overall the practise session went in a very orderly fashion, showing the high level of all the teams.
Fridaynight Handout.
A great compliment to all the teams, the preparation of all the cars was excellent and apart from the occasional 0,2 grams too light, nothing was reported during the technical inspection. Handout and testing of the motors and wheels went really smooth, most teams did not even need the full 15 minutes to put in their motor and mount the tyres.
All this meant we could start the Qualification 30 minutes earlier then initially scheduled.
The Qualifying order was determent by the actual overall standings in the championship, in reverse.
For the top 3 teams this meant that even the Qualfiying points could be decisive for the championship.
Great to see that within this OEPS championship, where development is at the forground and high-tech materials are getting more and more used, the top 16 teams qualified within 0,4 seconds.
For Qualifying results please refer to the enclosed sheets and or to the various Picasa links (below the report)
The handwritten numbers on the left are the lanes that the teams chose to start on.
Saturday
Group C
Given that we had 22 teams, we raced in 8-7-7 groups.
After a small driversbriefing before each group and a 2 minute warmup, the racing was on.
Carbon Hornets drove themselves to a deserved win in their group, finishing 4 laps ahead of Sloefspeed 1, who were having difficulties getting around the hard bend on Lane 1 ontop of the Carrousel, and precious time was lost. Matchbox lead the way for the dutch teams in their bright orange Lola. With a rubbing wheel pretty much since the start of the race they lacked slightly in topspeed, but with a surplus in grip they managed to keep their laptimes around the 8,0 seconds.
LemUa seemed to have difficulties with their lights if I understood correctly. The 21st position certainly did not reflect their laptimes seen in practise.
Group B
Great to see teams from Belgium, Denmark and Germany do hard battle in Group B, only separated by 1 or 2 laps at the end of the first day run. In the end D&G managed to stay ahead of the Audi R10 from Woodslot and the Lola from LRD1.
Slotfabrik, Kaitserrari and RICH all set a tremendous pace and had a good chance of moving up to Group A if any of them didn’t push for 100%.
Group A
One of the most exciting battles of the whole year happened right at the beginning of the race, as Janine, racing for NDW Works, took the lead at the green light and fended off Plastikquäler Basti’s attacks for some 10 minutes. Racing hard but fair and side by side for about 10 minutes, Basti eventually squeezed his way by.
Group A saw numerous position changes, ending up in Plastikquäler leading followed by No Limits, NDW Works and Racing for Julia separated only by half a lap and BL Racing and LRD2 dropping out of the fastest group. The speed and consistency in this group meant that every mistake however small, could lead to loss of positions.
For the standings after the first heat please refer to the enclosed sheets or the various Picasa links (below the report)
Regrouping
Group C
In this night section we had a small problem with the lapcounters, this took about 30 minutes to solve, but as we already some 20 minutes during the day, this had little effect on the timeschedule, and we were soon on our way again. Thanks to all the teams who all remained very calm and helpfull.
It was a little bit difficult for us to keep track on things as to what happened to who and why, apologies for this.
At least after regrouping we know that the LemUa took the win in Group C during the night section, with a steady run by the whole team. Followed by Art & Racing and Carbon Hornets.
Group B
LRD2 had a disastrous run, the lights were coming on and off and the car also slowed down a lot for no apparent reason. Trying hard to keep the car going, the team eventually decided to throw in the towel and not to hinder the other teams. Very unfortunate for such a fast team.
Woodslot suffered a case of severely hungry gears, as the spur gear lost many of it’s teeth and they had to change it. BL Racing, GMS and LRD1 were tied up in close battle but were eventually headed by D&G who took the win in Group B during the night.
Group A
NDW Works had a great run until…. Nick had to do lane 1. If it was the car or the driver is still not known, fact was they lost approx. 10 laps which meant they lost the connection to No Limits, who kept up their relentless pace and seemed safe for 2nd spot, only headed by the almost fast Plastikquäler.
Slotfabrik and Racing for Julia both had a troublefree run and passed NDW Works.
Kaitserrari showed they deserved to race in the fastest group and did not loose too many laps to the leading pack, and were only just passed by the black and green Acura from team RICH.
For the standings at Saturdaynight please refer to the enclosed sheets or the various Picasa links below the report.
Sunday
GroupC
LemUa showed their speed again and were done playing around ;) Pushing their blue Peugeot lap after lap they showed laptimes that only few teams in Group B were able to produce, and were only headed by Carbon Hornets, after a very steady drive from them, showing the great progress they’ve made during the 2012 season.
Art&Racing finally seemed to have a troublefree run, finishing 3rd in the group. Again all the dutch teams were very closely matched and only a few laps apart.
Group B
BL Racing’s Frank Biela set things straight and piloted their Aston Martin to 1st place in the group, closely followed by GMS and D&G.
Group A
Plastikquäler took the win again but not with a great margin, as the charge from the three pursuing team saw them ending up only about a lap short of the winning Audi R10.
No Limits’ 2nd spot was safe and so the battle raged between Racing for Julia, NDW Work and Slotfabrik. Slotfabrik had to back down after about 2 lanes, leaving the two others to put fireworks on the last lane, where RfJ had 3,5 laps ahead of NDW, but were on the slower lane 1, against NDW himself on the faster lane 3. Even after being ‘towed’ by Peter Oberbillig next to him, the NDW Works ended up only three seconds orso behind Michael Moes for Racing for Julia, who stayed cool, very cool on lane 1 Great battles again and great sportiveness amongst all the teams.
The combined laptotals can be found again on the enclosed sheets or the various Picasa links below the report.
A very exciting race came thus to it’s end and it was time to add up all the laps and points.
15 minutes later we could begin with the price giving ceremony.
This 2012 OEPS season has seen incredible races on the highest level, between teams of many different nations using many different chassis and bodies. The level of skill was only matched by the level of sportiveness. The high-tech nature of this series has seen great improvements in all areas. New chassis, new bodies, and accessibility to the teams have been vastly improved. Ever faster and ever more durable and wheel to wheel racing in a great atmosphere, that is what OEPS is all about, and I like to thank each and everyone of you for participating in this series.
From a personal point, I think the organisation of this year was a great improvement over last years, and of course nobody can do this alone. The amount of help that I have received this year on all possible areas was tremendous, and for that I would like to thank you all.
For many pictures:
Sebastian’s Picasa:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102874177382862549570/OEPSTroisdorf2012?noredirect=1#
Fola’s Picasa:
https://picasaweb.google.com/101204690762244135550/Oeps2012R3?noredirect=1#
OEPS will certainly continue on this great success, here are my plans for OEPS 2013:
I am always for stability in the technical rules, and after this year I see no reason the change the rules for 2013.
I did notice there is some slight confusion about the allowed cars for the 2013: Cars from 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 will be allowed in 2013.
The only change I’m currently thinking about is raising the ride height slightly, so that all cars should get home with only 1 set of tyres, as 95% is already doing now. This will also make it easier on the organisers as we currently are preparing many more sets then are actually used in the race. Of course there will be 5-10 spare sets in case of a bent wheel or something like that.
3 classes
In 2013 I want to attrackt more teams in the OEPS, and I want to give more teams something to race for. In 2013 there will be 3 classes: LMP1, LMP2 and GT.
The following are just basic ideas, these idea’s will ofcourse be tested and finetuned!
Racing probably on 11Volts
LMP1, rules unchanged except for possible 10t gear on the motor instead of 9. Only LMP1 cars.
LMP2, rules unchanged except for the motor. The SRP brand produces several versions of the current motor, and the 30.000 rpm or 35.000 rpm motor could be very well suited for LMP2. Only LMP2 cars.
GT. Rules very much the same as for the LMP’s, except the total weight will be 185 or 190 grams, and the motor will be the same as used in LMP2. Tyre diameter will be either 27,6 or 26,6.
The idea is to have beginning teams, teams that are still learning in GT, and faster teams that are at this moment, slightly slower then the ‘top’ teams, in LMP2, and LMP1 is really for the experts, and with 11 Volts with a 10t gear, the LMP1 cars will be faster then ever before. But just as an example, I don’t want Plastikquäler or No Limits in GT However, any team could enter in a class higher then where they’d maybe belong looking at their performance. What I mean is that I don’t want the GT and LMP2 class destroyed by teams that are much too fast to be in them.
All cars will race at the same time, they will not be separated in any way. On the computer it will be shown as following: (example)
LMP1 Plastikquäler
LMP1 No Limits
LMP2 Carbon Hornets
GT Matchbox
This will make it quite clear for everyone who is racing where and in what position they are in in their respective class.
The pointsystem will remain the same, and thus at the end of each race and at the end of the season, we will have 3 class winners.
Locations
We will have 3 races again in 2013. The dates and locations will announced hopefully mid January. Currently we are looking into a spot in Kopenhagen for around the summer time, so that teams could combine the race with a small vacation together with the family.
Entry and payments in 2013.
As last years, once the entry opens and I think this’ll be around end of January 2013, the teams will have 1 week to choose the car that they have raced in 2012. This to allow teams to use their 2012 car again. After this week, all is open for everyone and first come first serve.
One thing that will change, is that 8 weeks before a race, the teams’ payment will have to be received. 8 weeks before the race the entry closes, and no changes will be made. This to avoid the endless and very annoying changing of the schedules for the raceday.
Currently, all teams continuously ask me for the schedule, and on race day I am forced to change it due to teams changing their entry only days before the race, and then I’m critised for changing the schedule. This is unacceptable and the teams must understand that organising these big events is not done overnight, and that I need a firm yes or no from each team.
Website.
We have found a second webmaster for the website, so that the website will be updated more regularly.
I hope to see you all again and many more around the 2013 OEPS tracks!
Best wishes for the upcoming Christmas and NewYear
Nick de Wachter
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