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I arrived at the track at AMC Hildesheim (in North West Germany) on the Sunday morning with one intention, and that was to win the 235mm European Championship. After a long journey from England it was a day to relax to try to recover and prepare for the week ahead.
On Monday we
had practice time to run in some new engine’s. All was going well,
the track was very fast and flowing and things were looking good.
Track layout from the club's website. On Tuesday we woke up to heavy rain so there were no cars on the track at all. I wished I had a remote control boat with me because the track was under water!!! Wednesday and the weather had cleared. The track was dry with no rain in sight so we all had some lost practice time to make up. I had a good day setting up the car and made what I felt were some good lap times, so late on I called it a day. By Thursday a lot more people arrived and once out on the track their car’s seemed to be quicker than mine. Whatever I did to my car I still couldn’t get close to their lap times which left me scratching my head!!!Friday came and all cars were in for technical inspection. It soon emerged that there were a few drivers using converted Serpent 720 cars. This meant they had 4 wheel braking which is illegal in the 235mm class. This made me feel a little better about my car’s performance. Ronald from Serpent sent me 2 of the new Mega ZX15SB DSII+ engines. The design is a 5 port 0.15 based on the small block ZX12 motors.
I put one in the car, ran 2 tanks on the starter box full rich, then straight on the track at maximum speed. First impressions of the new engine were fantastic, quicker than the engine’s I had brought with me. I’m now looking forward to the 1st round of qualifying. Round 1. I was lucky to get a clean 5 min run. The engine ran very well and gave good fuel economy. The result was a provisional pole position! Now that’s a good start in anyone’s book. (Unfortunately Glyn's time for that run is not shown on the club results).Later that afternoon saw the opening ceremony, then the organizing club put on a meal for all drivers and guests. A great night was had by all. Round 2, Saturday morning. My Pole position was lost to Robin D’Hondt and I dropped to second overall. I needed to go quicker! Round 3. I was doing great until I was taken out by another competitor and was unable to finish. So I dropped another place on the grid to 3rd. Round 4 the car was very good again but I was held up by a back marker for 3 laps and when I tried to pass got taken out again!!!! Another DNF and only 6 laps completed. I did set my single fastest lap in qualifying, but I needed to get another clean run in. Down another place to 4th on the grid. One more round to try and win back pole position. Round 5 (Final Round) I improved on time in this run but it wasn’t enough for Pole. However I did enough to hold on to 4th overall, less than a second ahead of Gerhard Kandelhart, allowing me to go straight through to the main final. I was relieved to avoid the lottery of the semi-finals. We had finished racing for the day so this gave me time to completely strip the car and rebuild it myself. I gave my mechanic, Chris Daft, the afternoon off, too good to him aren’t I? I woke Sunday morning bright and early to finish setting up the car ready for the final. The top 4 qualifier’s had 15 minutes of practice between the semi’s and the car was even better than before, so I came off very pleased with the car after just a short run. It looked like Robin D’Hondt and Alain Levy were having problems with their cars, as they both stayed out for the full 15 minutes of practice. The two semi’s were soon over and unfortunately none of the other Brits had made it through to the main. Here are their Results: Semi Final B
Semi Final A
The Main Final Approaching 2pm, I’m on my way to the rostrum and the nerves kicked in. My 2 mechanics seemed calm, which helped.
The A Finalists At the start of the 45 minute final Robin D’Hondt had an engine cut and had to start from the pit lane, so I had one less car to pass. Alain Levy lead away closely followed by Thomas Ploger and then myself. On lap 3 I passed both Alain and Thomas to take the lead and then pulled away from the field. Robin retired after 7mins due to radio problems. My car was going great, the engine was running well and I managed to pull one lap clear by the 20mins mark. I had a small problem in the pits at this stage. A car stopped in front of me in the pit lane which pushed the front of the body shell on top of the bumper. So I came back in on following lap for the mechanics to pull the body shell out. My 1 lap lead was now cut to just 6 seconds, and 5th place qualifier Jens Stark was having a real push in second place to close me down. The gap was still just 6 seconds at 30 minutes, but I could still push the car to achieve very fast lap times and the gap grew to 13 seconds by the end. The race was finally over and my dream had come true, I was the 2007 235mm European champion. Before I knew it everyone was congratulating me and the trophy placed in my arms.
A Happy Glyn with his Trophy!I’d like to thank to my 2 mechanics, Chris Daft and Martin Thurston, also my sponsors Elite RC, Serpent, Helgar Racing and KO Propo . Glyn used GP Speed Tyres, 38 shore fronts at 66mm Diameter and 36 shore rears at 71mm diameter. His Mega engines used a Mega M12 polished pipe, EFRA #2602 with a conical manifold and Elite Power fuel. Glyn uses a KO type R Gold radio with PS2173 Servo for steering and a PS2174 for Throttle Main Final Result:
Full results can be seen on the club’s website here: HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR GLYN |
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