LRP Column / August 2016

At last year’s European Championships in Portugal, our LRP team driver Ronald Völker was beaten by 0.7 seconds. He didn’t want that to happen for a second time. In the glaring heat of Trencin/Slovakia, our LRP team drivers aimed to compete for the title at 1/10 Electric Modified, Stock and Formula classes.

In Modified, a four-way fight developed right from the start between Ronald, Bruno Coelho, Marc Rheinard and Alexander Hagberg with Ronald being able to take the TQ. A collision with Bruno in round 6 ended all hopes for Ronald to take A-Main 1. Marc won ahead of Alexander and fellow LRP team driver Michal Orlowski. The second A-Main was almost similar for Ronald. A collision with Bruno denied him the victory, but he still managed to come in second behind Alexander, but ahead of Marc and Bruno. The last A-Main had to decide about the new champion. Nobody was able to overtake Ronald here, even when both Bruno and Alexander attempted with aggressive passes where cars touched again. This meant that the Champion had to be decided by race time. After loosing last year at the Euro by 0.7 seconds to Bruno, Ronald (Flow speedo, X20 motor, 5600 LCG P5 battery) managed to win the European Championship this time by 0.1 seconds over Alexander Hagberg due to his faster time in A-Main 2. What an incredibly close finish!

Equally impressive was fellow LRP team driver Jan Ratheisky’s week. After taking TQ in Stock and becoming the new European Stock Champion (Flow, X20 StockSpec, CCL battery) already after the second A-Main, he also set his aim for the title in the Formula competition. After finishing on the podium in Stock, German LRP team driver Mike Gosvig (Flow, X20, 4500 P5 battery) had taken the TQ in Formula ahead of David Ehrbar (X20) and Jan (Flow, X20, 4500 P5 battery). And A-Main 1 ended right in that order. Jan was able to secure the second A-Main, after a collision had slowed down Mike and David. Finishing second behind David in A-Main 3 was enough for Jan to also take home the European Formula title and the podium being completely owned by LRP X20 motors.

3 out of 3 European Champions were LRP team drivers! I still can’t believe that this really happened. Looking ahead, these Euro’s were the perfect preparation for the IFMAR TC Championships that are taking place in China in August. Just like the Euros, the Worlds will also be run on a big asphalt track– hopefully a great omen for Ronald!

The EFRA 1/8 Offroad European Championships were taking place in Spain, for me a great chance to combine the team support with a working visit to our LRP Spain office. Therefore I arrived on Wednesday at our Spanish office for a sales meeting with our Spanish staff and joined LRP team support Andy Krämer, who was there since Monday.

It was really a huge track and perfectly organised, but also scorching hot. We even had afternoon storms with blinding dust clouds drifting around. A total space of two LRP/AE team tents was at our disposal for the team support. Enough space to get all representatives from our distribution brands set up in there to offer the complete support. It was really a “who is who” of the RC scene. Craig Drescher and Richard Saxton did represent Team Associated, while John Piant was on site for JConcepts. But it didn’t end there. OS Engines had send Junichi Shimazaki , and Mark Pavidis from AKA tyres came to Spain.

There was also some racing going on, besides all the happening ;-)
LRP team drivers Neil Cragg and Davide Ongaro, both racing with LRP ZZ.21C Ceramic Long Stroke engine and Screamer-93 pipe, did both qualify for the Final, Neil also using our LRP Energy Power Fuel. For the final day, the complete LRP Spain employees had arrived at the track to support our drivers. In the Final, the pack was lead by Robert Battle and David Ronnefalk, ahead of Elliott Boots (Sanwa Exzes ZZ transmitter, SRG BZX Type R servo, LRP receiver battery) until 10 minutes before the end of the Final. Then, the throttle servos of Robert and David failed, while Elliott was able to continue untroubled with his Sanwa servo and secured the European Championship. LRP team drivers Neil Cragg and Davide Ongaro also had a great race with Neil making it onto the podium as third and Davide finishing sixth.

During the practice heats, the LRP support team headed by Andy put a lot of effort in finding the perfect engine-setup for the finals and also making it available to all drivers with a detailed setup-sheet that received lots of positive feedback from the drivers. The engines ran absolutely smooth, not failing once, making our team driver’s extremely happy.

As mentioned earlier, the Euros felt like a real happening with lots of people around the track. I am extremely happy how those two events turned out for LRP. Congratulations to everyone involved!