Harri Kervola sent us this report from round 3 of the Finnish National Championships.

‘The third round of the Finnish Championship was held in Vaasa. The hosting club was Vaasa´s UA, who already held a perfect Euros in 2007 and will be hosting 2011 Worlds. The weekend started on Friday the 10^th of September with a free practice. Saturday was a racing day of 2wd’s and Sunday was for 4wd’s.

Photo by finRC.com

On the sunday morning the weather was quite wet, because we had some slight overnight rain. I passed my first run of controlled practise, because the track was very wet and slippery. The weather and the track conditions got better all the time, so I run the second round of the controlled practise. The balance of the car felt great and I was very happy with my pace.

Round 1.

The track was drying and it would probably be the fastest round of the day as the track would get slightly slower, because more rain was coming. I hadn’t enough pace because I took the first round too carefully. I also made one mistake, and due to that I drove to a wet spot and spinned out. There was a tight battle of the first place so Karri Salmela and Jarno Siltanen dropped me to the 3^rd place.

Round 2.

At the start of the round 2 it started to rain. At first it didn’t really seem to make much difference to the track, but as it kept raining, the track started to become a little slippy. However my car felt great and I drove a clean heat. Also my pace was very fast, so I took the first place of the 2^nd round with a big difference compared to the others.

Round 3.

The track condition was the same as earlier. Once again I took a very fast and clean heat, so I won the second round. My fastest heat result was so fast, that no one could probably beat it. The TQ was very close now.

Round 4.

It started to rain more and more. Now the track was muddy and sticky. The balance of my car was totally wrong, there was too much rear traction and the car was slow. There was a tight battle of the first place and Jarno Siltanen dropped me to the 2^rd place.

Overall top 3:

A-Final 1.

The track was very muddy and sticky. When I was starting to get ready to the first A-final I was a bite nervous about my car balance. Couple of the first laps I took too carefully and dropped down to the third place. After that something happened to my car and I lost almost all power, so I had to stop driving. ESC had gone wet, damn! Jarno Siltanen won the A-finals and Karri Salmela took the second place.

In the pit I tried to prepair ESC, because I hadn’t enough time to change a new one. And miracle happened, it worked! So now I had to hope that the ESC would work through the rest of the finals. However now my car balance was good and I was very confident with my pace.

Result:

A1-Final video by finRC.com:

http://www.youtube.com/user/air2kfinland#p/c/FC09EC5798D9AA3B/3/sWEW-SOGoJk

A-Final 2.

The Track was heavily wet and muddy. Fingers crossed, work work ESC! Everything worked just fine and I took the win easily. In this final my toughest opponents Jarno Siltanen and Karri Salmela  had the same problems with electric device what I had had in the first final.

Result:

A2-Final video by finRC.com:

http://www.youtube.com/user/air2kfinland#p/c/FC09EC5798D9AA3B/4/RbqUxc8MMRE

Photo by Kim Bengs

A-Final 3.

The track condition was horrible. Now everyone got to the grid and the battle of the win could start. There were a lot happening in the first laps and the positions changed couple of times. It seemed that I or Jarno Siltanen would take the win. We had a tough battle of the win with Jarno Siltanen, but suddenly something happened and he dropped far behind. Now I had to drive without any mistakes and the win would be mine. And I took it! I won the race. =D

Result:

A3-Final video by finRC.com:

http://www.youtube.com/user/air2kfinland#p/c/FC09EC5798D9AA3B/5/a-Ju-O6-8CA

Photo by Kim Bengs

Overall result top 10:

Great results for Team Durango. We took the first, the second, the third, the fourth and the seventh places in the race results. =D

Photo by finRC.com

Finish Championship result after three rounds:

Team Durango holds the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the eight and the ninth places in the overall results when there is only one race left. =D

I want to thank for these videos and photos:

finRC.com in: http://www.youtube.com/air2kfinland

Kim Bengs’