2009 RD Touring Car Championship (STCC)

[Maurice Hurkmans]

Having last minute pc issues aswell. was doing fine until now I get discos all the time. Im trying hard to fix it, but dont know if i will be in time....

 

[Maurice Hurkmans]

Liked you already noticed, i didnt make it in time. Bah. Hope all you guys had a nice end of the season

 

[Mika Ukkonen]

This was not supposed to happen, but must have missed the log-in by a second or two :struggle: . Off course very sorry about that, and so clumsy of me, thank's anyway for this season. Taping this down and knowing your out there racing at this moment, and yes i fell very stupid :doh2:. Hope you have a fun race :smile:.

 

[Chris Rogerson]

good race for me, qualified 12th and finished 4th, just a few seconds behind 3rd (Aritan).

Had a great battle with Aritan but just couldn't hold him behind me....you were too fast.

Very pleased with my result anyway considering I only started practice 1 hour before the start, i was on the schleife all week.....a small event happened!!

Gz to podium anyhow.

 

[Frank Herfjord]

Things were looking bleak after putting in times near in practice and qual. But I had a great start and was soon fighting for 4/5. But then I started braking too late toward that nasty chicane before the strip. Not only did I mess up my line, but I got a total of three stop&go :-/

Tim: I am very sorry for hitting you at the last corner of L3. I thought you saw me making the move so that you had no room to turn in at speed.

huge thanks to RD for making this happen. I'm sad that it's all over.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

pity I couldn't follow you guys on live-timing or some such, hope you had a great race.
thx rd for an interesting and very well organized tournament, pity the new rules (stricter take on missing a race) turned out to rather scare people away, only a dozen or so left at the last races, including of course unforeseen technical troubles, like maurice and me ...

 

[Stefan Werner]

I entered tonight's race with no real hope of a good finish, since I really hadn't had a chance to prepare. Much like Chris, I did my first laps of this circuit less than an hour before the start of the event. Any ways...

Practice: (5th)

Much to my surprise, I found after a few laps that I have more pace in me than I thought. I finished this session in 5th and at this point decided that I wanted a top 5 finish to end the season.
​

Qualy: (8th)

I have never been a qualifier, especially not in the wet. So overall I was very much content with my 8th place, right about where I usually find myself.
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Warmup: (3rd)

Things just kept getting better despite the nasty conditions. Although it did remind of a previous race in this league that was shaping up nicely for me, only to see me DNS.
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Race: (5th)

I got a great start and sling shot around the outside of Aritan in T1. Then there was the T2 incident. I feel I am partially to blaim for this one, so sorry to everyone involved. Any ways, I was on the inside of the #12 car, whom I doubt could see me. We made contact and the #12 car was pushed into someone attempting a pass around the outside. The next thing I know Aritan hit me and there were cars spinning all over the place. I rejoined in last (14th).

I regained positions quickly, clearly having made the right tire choice with wets. I found myself in 7th place within 2 or 3 laps. I was now behind David Gardner. I passed him several times and each time I followed it with a mistake allowing him to retake me. All that work for nothing. lol. Eventually I did find my way past him and was then involved in battle with Aritan for a couple of laps. Sorry for pushing you wide at the chicane, Aritan. I broke to late and dove for the incide in order to avoid hitting you.

Once I got threw and clear of Aritan I somehow found myself in 3rd. I finally pulled into the pits at the end of lap 20. My pit stop was horrible. I had the hardest time attempting to change my pit preset from slicks to wet tyres. Looking at the replay, I lost a good 20-25 seconds in the pits. I rejoined the field in 8th and proceed to fight my way back up to 5th.

I then had a long stint where I was alone, with no one else in sight. I was watching the gap between myself, Aritan and Chris. I was holding pretty steady at about 17 seconds for the longest time.

Two laps from the checkered I was finally lapped. Gaeton brought a little surprise with him though in the form of Jay. Jay was clearly much faster than me at this stage of the race. My tires were fired and was short shifting much of the time to keep the wheels from spinning. I made myself as wide as I possibly could and some how managed to hang on to take 5th, about 20 seconds behind Chris.

I am very pleased with this result and am happy to say I achieved my goal. I really enjoyed this race and had many great battles.
​

Thanks to RD for putting together this great league for us. This really has been a quality league filled with a great bunch of guys.

 

[João Andias]

Nice final championship race, was very, very... random

As posted earlier, I invested more on other compromises than on this race, so I basically logged today to the server 1.5hr earlier to have my "practice" time of the past 15 days :wink2:

From early on, judging by the Honda (Saturday) times and by the own times of the people with me at the server, I knew that in "Normal" circumstances (no rain) I would be toasted regarding a possibility of a top 3 or even top 5 finish.

So luck was with me again, and with practice weather all over the place I was presented with a "Wet" event.

Qualify (7th)

Wet practice, but I didn't have a wet setup yet, so just took out fuel from my "dump" setup and changed to "wets" and went for it and didn't risk it, so end up with 7th a middle field position.
​

Race (2nd)

Not too much to talk about... joined the grid late as I was doing a "wet" setup on those last few seconds to green.

As the "reds" went away, did a good start and gained a position. On the 2nd corner got bumped from rear right (from a mirror no view angle). Unfortunately this started a "chain reaction" of bumps and 2 of front racers lost quite a few positions from this event

Very early ended up in 3rd and with Tim in 2nd but with slicks on... Not much time before I went by as he struggled with lack of grip.

The next early laps I pushed a bit to see if Gaeten had the pace in him... he had, went into relax mode and from here the all race was done in a “no man’s land” while most of the guys were having lots of "fun" fighting from 3rd to 8th.

Did a few corner entry mistakes but as the track had quite a room for them and I was alone, nothing much came of them.

Delayed the pit-stop much just to see if the track went to “dump” conditions and actually lost even more time to Gaeten. The race finishd, was 2nd, the best I could have achieved today and well above my expectations for this race.


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Congratulations to Gaeten for his secure win (and championship podium), congratulations to Tim for his championship as he looked well in control all along the full season and congratulations to Aritan for a well fought 3rd (an interesting and pleasing fact is that all people who did the endurance race yesterday did well today in this 50 mins “sprint” ).

Congratulations and thanks to every one of you who along the full season gave me very good (many close) and fun races:good:.

Thanks RD and race staff for another good championship completed :thanks:.

 

[Aritan Maia]

Man, this event was interesting!!!!

Quali: 6th
I had medium quali, but I think everyone had the same thing, so...

Race: 3rd
When I saw wet rack and dry forecast I immediately thought the track would dry out, so I put the dry setup with wet tyres. And when I saw the track was 50% wet, I thought "WRONG CHOICE!!!!".
Ok, let try to run 100% brake pressure in the race with harder setup and all, lets see.
Awfull start, lost 2 positions and went into T2 very carefully when I saw the mess. Couldn't get a clean T2 and got a little bump. Spun and went to last place.
In the chicane before the straight, another mess and I won 1 or 2 positions. Now my surprises started... The 1st one was noticing that I had a great race pace comparing to the other guys. the 2nd one was when I saw Tim in 9th right in front of me. What happened, Tim? Were you in dry tyres? Well, I passed him pretty easily, what's definately intriguing...
Then I started to shorten the gap to the 2 group (from 3rd to 7th) and fastly I was right behing everyone. Started to find some space to pass each one, but everyone was in a good pace, so it was very hard.
The first one I passed I think was Stefan when he made a mistake, but he was very fast also and we had a good battle. Stefan, in the chicane, I saw you were too fast, so I pulled the car to the right so you could pass through the left and straight through the chicane. Thx for avoiding me, very smart move. We could have done a strong crash there.
So I went hunting the others and passed one and another. Then I was behing Chris Rogerson but made a mistake and I think Stefan, that has passed all the other like me, passed me and I was 6th or 5th again.
Did my pitstop and got back in 5th, but someone in front of me haven't stopped yet. When he stopped, I was 4th, right behind Chris again.
From this point on we had a great battle, during lots of laps. I tried to pass him in some points, but couldn't manage and Chris was not making big mistakes. When he did a small mistake, I did too. Veru nice battle and made my race!!! Thx for that Chris!!!
Finally I managed to pass Chris, can't even remeber where. LOL. And then I started to increase the gap for a very nice 3rd place.

Grats to Gaetan for the 1st place and for the champ podium. Grats to João, always a pleasure to race with you, my friend. Very nice wet pace and very regular. Grats for that.

And huge grats to Tim for the champ. Thx a lot for letting us compete a little without you in front!!!

Thx a lot RD for this league. Very nice and I learnt a lot with this FWD car, my first FWD ever.

Thx Bram, Yves and all the staff that put an effort here.

Thx alot to all the drivers who made this a great League. I'm already looking forward to the next touring champ.

Cya, folks.

 

[João Andias]

Just droped by to congartulate the championeship podium (Peter, another 2nd/Yoeri 3rd) and Simon Trendell for his overall win.:victory:

 

[Ignacio Genta]

hello MATES,

First of all,thank you Yoeri,Bram el al at RD for your efforts in making this happen.I enjoyed it a lot.

My 1st race?.Forget it.In QUALY I dont know why I couldnt enter the car so I remained with a slow lap time.I think I could have been a little bit faster.
During the race Ive been battling beautifully with many of you,amazing and clean drivers,but unfortunately I put wrong tyres so I cruised to finish.
In spite of this I had a good time racing with you guys.
Thank you!!

Nacho

 

[Jari Vinnari]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tej1Sroc3Xs[/ame]

peace
Jari

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Super fast Jari!! Thanks a million again..

We need to make a round up post with all the league vids of this season! incredible how much time you have spend again on vids, huge thank :thumb:

 

[Yoeri Gijsen]

RDTCC S3 - The Winners

After seven weekends of close front-wheel drive racing these drivers have come on top of the competition.

Saturday Cup
1st: Simon Trendell - 114 points (4 wins - 6 podiums)
2nd: Peter Duivelaar - 97 points (3 wins - 4 podiums)
3rd: Yoeri Gijsen - 69 points (4 podiums)

Sunday Cup
1st: Tim Hogendoorn - 128 points (4 wins - 6 podiums)
2nd: João Andias - 88 points (4 podiums)
3rd: Gaetan Legastelois - 78 points (1 win - 3 podiums)

Congratulations guys!

 

[Warren Dawes]

Congratulations guys, well done.

Nice to see Simon take a win too. :victory:

 

[Sander Hogendoorn]

Grats Simon & Tim

--

What about Peter Duivelaar? Must have missed something

 

[Frank Herfjord]

Congratulations!

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

Grats Simon and Tim!

Grats Simon & Tim

--

What about Peter Duivelaar? Must have missed something

My real name is Peter, not Patrick

 

[Gaëtan Legastelois]

Fantastic evening for me, that did not nevertheless announce so well.
My team-mate Gregory was very fast, and when I saw the rain I thought well that everything was finished for me. Not of setup for the rain, no training in these conditions.


Qualif : 2nd
I retouch briefly the setup, but I am not very bright for that, it is Gregory who makes our setup, I change values more the feeling than the other thing. Nevertheless that works because I arrive, in spite of several small errors, to set the 2nd places, but of little, Jay is really close (2 thousandth, no?).


Race : 1th
The sky is blue but the track is announced wet, I do not wish to set of risk and I choose tires rain. Very good choice because dices the departure I leave spot Tim. I look a little at what it spends it behind and quickly I see that Joao also has taken good tires.
In spite of conditions of precarious tracks I feel well the car, it goes gliding slightly in the brakings and the big curves but I do not feel in danger (this light glide help me a little bit then I takes advantage of it) and I attack serenely.
Little by little a distance racks itself between me and Joao. I watch all the same worriedly the temperature of my tires, if the track dries, it will be necessary to react quickly. But the first one stop arrives and tires stand firm, the track does not seem to dry, I program a stop in rain tires.
Crossed 25min I wonder if I am going not to delay my stop because tires will still hold some laps, only I make one little errors and go out wide in the bend before pits, I take advantage of it to bring in. I go out 3rd and I worry not to see Joao returning in his turn (is he going to make a stop?), he finished all the same to return and I get back my first place.
A small blow of eye in tires, the temperature is good, I have enough fuel and a comfortable advance on Joao, the last 15 minutes are very long and I count the seconds.
The blue flags are very well respected and we leave me the passage in good place (thank you very much to all those that I doubled, no one slowed down to me, and nevertheless in these conditions the blue flags were not evident to manage)As we facilitate me the passage I have no other choice than to continue on my rhythm not to block those who allow me to pass him, so much the better that allows me of remained concentrated.
I pray all the gods who exist to have no problem by the end of the race (an internet cut, the PC which warms, a cat psychopath... yeah I have not of these nasty animals )
Finally the relief, the last lap, and the finish line, I am sweaty but the luck was with me. If Tim had taken good tires I would not certainly have won, and about the others which also made a mistake would have me given surely some problems (it's a pity Gregory).
It's a pity that Keith was not there to defend her places in the championship, he deserved well the podium. But I am all the same very satisfied to finish the championship on the 3rd place.


Thanks to the organizers who allowed this and the competitors who participated.


Sorry again for my bad english and for the next time on the raceway

 

[Tim Hogendoorn]

What happened, Tim? Were you in dry tyres?

Yeah, I did put slicks on... stupid me :th_sur:
Changed to rain tires at my pitstop to set the fastest lap :male-fighter2:
Although there were just 12 drivers this last race, it was one of the most close and exciting races of the championship!

Awesome championship guys, great racing.