For those who cant be there, and want to have a peek.......see the link below.


for the "Daheimgebliebenen" there is a webcam -> http://www.renncenter-hamburg.de/~webcam

Tschüss

Zien we die mannen ook nog in een live versie de bocht uitvliegen

Greetz Gert: Die het Team Hals und Beinbruch wenst, met de Mission impossible

Hello Guys

The car is ready we're of to Hamburg


If you want to follow the race ,there are live updates of the Hamburg 12 hrs at the GermanScale-slot forum

We'll post here as well if we get the change to go online

well is it really an enzo?
whats under it?

p.s. may i remind you of the gears and etc.?

Hello Guys

here the first update from Hamburg.

Things havent started very well.
First there was the german autobahn. normaly a haeven of speed...but on friday afternoon it was full with traffic.

We did the 450 k´s in an average of 80 km p/hr

Then we open the trunk and noticed that we forgot the box with ALL THE TYRES; CONTROLLERS AND GEAR:o

So one off us will have to drive back tonight

At least we found on clubmember who has been so kind to meet us half point.

We just did the first installation laps with the Enzo...9.20 was the fasted lap time, but we know we have to get down to 8.8 to be competitive.
So Nick has started to work on the car


more info later

p.s.

Orange The Enzo has a plafit exel chassis, your stuff gear etc has been send

Just saw that there was a wrong link to the german forum.

here is the correct link

The link in my other post has been corrected as well.

P.s. I`ve just eaten my first Hamburger, hamburger

What the laptimes are right now

Hope all is going well


Greetz Gert

hello guys,
whats happening ?i would like to know how does the enzo handle on the track.
is the track wood or plastic?
i think you guys were so excited to test the car that you forgot to load your gear in the trunk .
well tamar,does a hamburg hamburger taste different to a normal hamburger?
i like them too .
maybe you'd be able to taste some Frankfurt frankfurters.

my regards to all of you ....and good racing!!!!!

Hello guys...back again with some updates

We did a number of turns on all lanes with different set ups. Its a bit improvising with all our gear is missing.

Gabriel and Willem just left to pick up the gear, a 4 hr, 225 km round trip, Willem was not pleased.
He would have preferred to stay in Hamburg and work on the car.
I owe Henry big time for being so nice to meet the boys half way, just great!!!

The good news is: We did found some speed, Nick and Willem were able to lap in the low 9´s, with Nick able to turn out the occasional 8,90 (8,96).
We also managed to borrow some tyres from the Swedish team. With the Black magic tyres lap times improved and the car was more stable. Actually the car handles great.

The bad news is: its just not fast enough, there are at least 3 team that were able to lap sub 9´s on most lanes.

X-rookies are able to lap 8.9 on all lanes.
The home "werks team" is playing hide and seek, not completing full laps with there race car, but the car runs fast and smoothly.
Then there is the ever fast team from Trier......

The Enzo has picked up a strange "jutter" in the corners that is costing us time. So far we have no clue how to cure it.
Nick is now back in the pits lowering the front of the car and adjusting the guide hight. I´ll round of the tyres


Last resort will be to go from a stiff body mount to a soft set-up with the standard sponge.


We´ll continue till 01:00 then head for the Hotel... by that time Willem and gabriel will have met henry and turn back to Hamburg.....




P.s Hamburg has a wooden routed track, with prehistoric braids...which are really bad.

Back again.....five minutes for the technical control

While Willem and gabriel raced up and down back to Holland to get the tyres, Nick and I changed the body mounts from rigid to flex (reglueing thew body with standard sponge)

a few hours sleep and at 09.15 we were back at the Renncentre.


Question was ...would the set-up change work?

Well the car was quiter...no more jutter...but now we had to much grip! There´s more speed but the handling has worsened.... the car is unpredictable :o


Time was running out, a last change in set up. With the sponge body mounts the whole car was to soft....so we changed the springload on the chassis, made it stiffer by added some extra spacers.

While nick was doing the chassis I was working flat out to prepare the tyres "flown in" from Holland.

10.45. only 10 minutes of practice left.
Nick starts running on lane black on the new tyres and with the latest set-uß change...............tension mounts as we all look at the monitor.

The car looks more stable, good grip but not too much..... firts lap times 9.28....Jessss"!

Contineuing on lane red Nick goes faster and faster, 8,96 and 894 on white.

End of training....Its not as fast as we´d hoped, but at least we´re much closer to the running pace.

Willem has five minutes to mount the race motor and hand in the car for TC. we`re already at risk to get our first penalty...



Phhhew!!! we made it just in time.



:P

i race on wood tamar...
everything you set -up seems to be right.
please try to have less 'flop' in the body holder (the H SHAPE ALUMINUM WHERE THE MOUNTING SCREWS GO)hey i'm not yelling just excited.try to have the front part tighter than the back .spacers on top instead of in -between.less weight on the front if possible(depends on body balance.
i hope this helps.
just a try from me.

good racing and have some rest/sleep before you drive home.

Back again

We made the T.c in time and passed with flying colours. So at least we're in.

A very thin ray off sunlight shines on our mission impossible, which we celebrated with a nice cup of coffee.....that is until there was a cry from Race control...Racing for Holland...Qualifying...Now:o


We run to the track, which lane..who has already qualified? what are the times? too late...time is running. Nick starts his first Flying laps...

Qualifying........
Gone in 60 seconds!........

2 crashes and 8 laps later...Nick dove under the 9' and did 8.967sec!!

Now the waiting game begins. can we make the top 5?

Next to qualify is Peter Oberlinge of Renncenter Trier. Ai these guys were running sub 9's in practice!
Peter opens with a 9.22 and slowly works his way down to 9..04 but somehow there his progress stops!

Next Team Austria, their car which was running smoothly in practice now has the same jutter as we had yesterday. 9.41 that's two

Baltic racers, are still working on their car as qualifying starts, once on track they run a 9.49

Then it was time for the home team, Werks fahrer Matthias Parke runs the Toyota in anger for the first time, now we'll see what there pace really is...
He opens with a crash in the carrousell..... Oke so they're not unfaillable after all.

Immidiatly the safty program kicks in and matthias starts realing out the laps, 8.9, 8.88, 8.85 The clock finally stops at 8.806.
but that was what we expected after all!

Next up is X-rookies, Michael Niemas is a top qualifier, their car is extremely smooth and quit.
it looks so easy the way he runs a 8.868

So now we're 3rd

Next up is the second home team, BS Power. Skottie himself drives the car and for 50 seconds it looks like we'll stay 3rd, but in the last lap he does a 8.966!

We're 4th by a 1000th of a sec, but at least we made the fast group.

lets hope we'll stay there



Time for a well deserved Lunch

We're back, the first group has run all lanes,

Pos
1 team Asustria 1105
2 Rookie team 1102
3 Scaleteam 1047
4 baltic racers
5 Ace of race (Sweden) 826


2 minutes and then ..........Showtime!!!!!



Unfortunately Nick our star driver has come down with a serious case of(chicken?) flue!!!!

Lets roll

First ten minutes of our race ...
Gabriel running on lane red (Hamburg has 5 lanes so that's lane 4)
Due to our test problems he has had the least time "in" the car, so he has to find his pace, he's currently lapping in the low 9.20s a bit to fast as he's had several offs, but lets hope he finds his pace.

We're currently 5th (red lane)
BS power 4th (white lane)
Trier 3rd (black lane)
X-rookies 2nd (blue lane)
Werks team 1st (yellow lane) with Matthias driving now has 100laps

The gap 1-5 is 5 laps

2:04 am OZ time
how big is the track?
8.880 is a very fast time on our track.
what motors and gear ratio are youn using?
12.8+ volts?
i'll be on line as long as my wife doesn't call me to bed.

GO tamar GO!!!!!

Renn center Trier in the pits....missing two bodyscrews..no big deal...unless they have to be brought up from the basement. :P
They lose 10 laps in the mayhem to find spare screws.

We're back in 4th, I'll have too start in 2 minutes

p.s. (later added) Orange: The Hamburg track is a very old and heavily used 52m 5 laner. Both slot and track braids are more ragged that the Great barrier reef. We've taped the complete bottom of the chassis, even at 1.2 mm groundclearance there are arc weld sparks as the car slides over the slot.

Motors are "Black Carrera" Bühler (a Bison predecessor with less grunt and top) run at 19,5 volts

made 220 laps in first stint
Tamar now racing in blue lane, 107 laps after a short pit stop...
my turn for marshall duty.
-g

PS: gearing is 14:41 Bühler motor 26.5 black magic tires

you guys should have a nice cup of coffee ,
a scone and a small cup of ice cream.

i wish i was there with you guys ,although i'm on the other side of the globe,i still am one of your mates from downunder.
this is a good news for the track when i race today at OZ time 2:00pm
its 3:03am .
i'll catch you later as my little girl,wants me.
i'll be in touch when i get up this arvo.

enjoy your racing:gun:

I just finished my first 35 min....

What can I say.....I didn't do that well, only 216 laps which is not enough.
Had several pitstops, a cable loom came disattached and was rubbing against the track...that took us 3 stops and 6 laps to fasten.
Then after 20 minutes.... Oops no brakes, controller faillure.
Lucky enough I had a spare one with me....at the track!
But it doesn't help to get in to your ryhtem.

So we're back in 5th, time to look over our shoulder. The fastest team in the first heat (Team Austria) did 222 laps average. Lets see if we can do better than that.
After 2 lanes we were at 436.

Willem's driving now, he'll do a double stint .(yellow and white) On the fastest lane he's doing 9.10-9.20 slowly picking up the pace.

Positions so far

1st X-rookies 521 laps (white lane)
2nd Werks team 512 laps (black lane)
3rd Trier 505 laps (blue lane)
4th BS power 502 laps (red lane)
5th RfH 498 laps (yellow lane)

There's a lot that can be said about Willem, a guy that picked "Gross Maul" (big mouth) as username on the german forum. And true sometime he can be a real pain in the ...rear diffuser. But....

When he gets "into the groove" he can drive a car fast and safe.
At the moment he's on a roll, low 9's all the way and no offs. He just did RfH's first race sub 9 (8.98)

Oke, we're on the fast yellow lane, but BS Power is on red wich is by no means slow, actually red lane is a bit easier to drive, but at least we've made up 2 laps.

Racing is really close, more of a sprint pace than a long endurance.


Pos so far
1st X-Rookies 665 laps, Micheal Niemas running fast laps on white
2nd 647 laps, Werks team having some troubble on black, several offs and bad braids just one lap ahead of.....
3rd 646 laps RC Trier, Peter Oberlinge now on more familiar ground in lane blue, pushing real hard to overtake the Werks Toyota.
4th 641 laps BS Power car running smoothly again after gear change, able to match our laptime but then on red, but more offs.
5th RFH 637 laps, Willem running, so we still have a fighting change as long as we can follow the pace of the fast movers!

Results after 3 lanes

1st X-rookies 692 laps
2nd RC Trier 672 laps
3rd Werks team 672 laps really close
4th BS power 668 laps
5th RfH 664 laps, so now were only 3 laps down on average, Willem continues on White.

Two great stints from Willem at 228 and 224 laps, totalling at 888

Nick racing now on black lane at a steady pace around 9.10 and less...


Classification after four stints:
1. X-Rookies - 916
2. Trier - 903
3. Werksteam - 899
4. BS-Power - 896
5. RfH - 888

Back again half point, RfH is 5th ...we stay in the fast heat

After Willems steady double stint, Nick had to drive lane black. Would his speed be affected by his serious cold? I think that in the dark his nose will shine like a brakelight, its strawberry red

Starting the last stint with low 9.20 it takes Nick 5 minutes to get into the groove.. and his laptimes come down to the low 9's. I was marshalling so with my left eye on the monitor and the right on the track I could give him the lap times lap by lap.

The Enzo is finally running fast and stable, be it very low. Tyre wear has been more than we expected, specially the first 3 stints, but now it seams to stabilise at a 0,05 mm p/half hr.
At the last check we were 0.87 mm, 0.80 is the minimum, so its going to be close.

10 minutes into the last stint and Nick is having a nice battle with Gunther Riehl (X-Rookies) on Red lane.
As Nick closes in on the X-rookies Porsche, Gunther ups the pace and by doing so becomes the hare for our Enzo........
Yes........ Nick does a 8.98 on black
And another, now their both circulating in the low 9.05-07. Its a great spectacle to watch them running together!


Hmmmmm, Matthias Parke has noticed the hightened pace of the Enzo as well....watching both cars.
He might consider checking the ground clearance before the end of the stint. And the way Nick is now throwing the Enzo around we might be just a little bit low

We decide to change tyres at 10 min to the finish, but opt for low profiles (26,2 on 22mm rims instead of 22,6 on 21mm rims) and a quick once over, (braid cleaning and some oil).

Willem assists me with the pitstop. In and out in 42 seconds...or 5 laps give or take a few secs.

Then it becomes reallly close at the finish.
Team Austria did 1105 laps in the first heat, with one minute to go we cross that mark...we stay in the faste group...again a close call.


Results at half point:

1st X-rookies 1140.41 laps, and have changed tyres.

2nd RC Trier 1132.36 laps, no tyre change, but they are on no stop strategy.

3rd Werks team 1130.56 Their car was exactly 0.80mm groundclearance, so they have to come in for new tyres.

4th BS power 1124 laps, they had some troubble but as the race progresses the "home advantage" kicks in, they've got more confidence going in the turns, which is were we loose some time.

5th RfH 11109.71 laps. The Enzo is running well, new tyres and oil so we can run to the end. If Gabriel and me pick up some more speed our only realistic target could be the BS Power Porsche!

6th Team Austria 1105 laps, Close behind we still need to keep looking over our shoulder. There are some heavy hitters in the Austrian team, I mean these are big guys, and besides some meccanical trouble, running fast laps on yellow and blue.

7th Rookie team 1102.05, just 3 laps behind Austria, I hope that these two will keep each other busy.

8th Scale Team Berlin 1047.91
9th Baltic racer 1029,20
10th Ace of Race Sweden 876.49

These three have dropped out of contention, body damage and tech failures will determine the ranking between these 3.


Night part has started, looks like the pace has come down to 9.30's for the group that runs now, hope we'll do better in the dark.

Its now 20:28 Willem and Gabe have hit the sack, I'll do the same after this post.
We're due to start around 22:00 hrs

Back again, didn't get a change to catch some sleep. its like a 48 hrs compressed in one day.
The "slow" heat just finished their night race

Team Austria did 1070 laps, so we need to do 1066 laps to be 5th....and come back here next year for another 24hrs.

We must be crazy.......but lets race, another 3 hrs to go!

Running for 20 minutes and the fight is on.
Das "Werksteam" lost 20 laps when their lights went down.

Nick's back on lane black and is battling with Thomas Springer of BS Power on red lane.
Its good to see them running close lap after lap, and they are on the same lap as well. Nick's trying every trick in the book to get an edge......

And now has half a lap advantage, that's in this heat of course, but at least we're on race pace and on par with the other teams in our group.

Gabriel (running on red) has a hard time in the night but is holding on, showing some real back bone here.
Trying to keep our needed average above 214,5 laps each stint

Then all of a sudden Gabriel's lap times shoot up into the 9.7's !
A slight panic, What's the problem ?A sudden loss of grip, mysterious lack of speed. Nick looks for the hot pit in vain, somebody has moved it to make place for the cold buffet!.


Pit stop for a quick check...don't see anything, all seems fine so we send Gabriel back out again, still the same problems, no change and back in the pits the next lap.
Frantic activity, we decide to change the tyres, but ..... just as we're about to change the wheels Nick discovers the problem.......

A black lane sticker lost earlier by the Werks team got stuck on our left rear wheel......das "Werk" strikes b(l)ack?!

Just finished the longest 35 minutes of my slotrace live.......

Trouble
Started on lane blue and immidiatly ran into serious trouble.....
Low battery warning for the cpu.......of my brain!

Somewhere the synchronisation between the optical nerve and my trigger finger is lost!
When your tired the brain slows down, bad timing when you are racing and the car is fast!

From the pits my team mates try to reset my cpu to run in safety mode: Only ten minutes to go...you can do it!

Somehow I manage to run 219 laps, but boy did I had to dig deep.
Even writing this post is difficult, my english quickly deteriorates, as well as my number of key strokes.

But it looks like we can accomplish our goal, and will make the cut for next years 24 hrs.

Nick's running on yellow, his change to run some hot laps, but seems to suffer from the same CPU problem, being that his seems to be infected by "virus" trouble. Reset to safety mode he drops into the 9.20s but makes 222 laps.
It looks like everybody is tired, all lanes now running well above the 9 sec.

While I was struggling on blue disaster struck for X-rookies, they've been leading for almost 2 hrs but then the motor came unstuck.
Losing some 40 laps they dropped down to 3rd

Pos right now (unofficial as I'm having trouble adding the laps)

1st Rc Trier
2nd BS Power
3rd X-rookies
4th Werks team
5th RfH

But then again, it ain't over till the fat lady sings.

Hope I'll be awake come finish time

Great keep on going!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finish!!!!!!

I'm still awake, even had to Marshall at the carrousel. Besides from seeing ghost cars crashing that weren't there. I survived!

Willem did a great final stint 225 laps, even diving into the low 9.07's at the end of his stint.
Amazing... we've made it. Mission Imppossible accomplished...or did we!?

After the final Technical Inspection we're finally too low, has to do something with Willem, he always runs too low

A ten lap penalty...oh... is that' all?.... we still make the cut, but......

First placed RC Trier is also to low and their penalty has just cost them the victory

Provisional result Hamburg 12 hrs

1st BS power 2252 laps
2nd RC Trier 2246 laps (2256 minus 10 lap penalty)
3rd X-rookies 2244 laps
4th Werks team 2240 laps
5th RfH 2198 laps (2208 minus 10 lap penalty)
the above teams are qualified for the 2005 Hamburg 24hrs.

6th Team Austria 2167 laps
7th Scale team berlin 2077 laps
8th Baltic racer 2068 laps
9th rookies team 1877 laps
10 Ace of Race Sweden 1653 laps

we're packing and head back to Holland
Mission Impossible part 1: accomplished!

signing of

48 hrs, 1000kms and 2218 laps later.....we're back in Amsterdam. Gabriel and Willem drove the final stints to get us back home.

We dumped our gear and Enzo at the club

Its been a very long week, we're satisfied to have qualified. it might seem odd to you guys, but 5th this year was a whole lot better than last year's 4th.

...Enzo doesn't agree, thought he could have done better......

...its amazing... just 3 small scratches, there's hardly a mark on him .
Enzo seems have survived the Hamburg trip in far better shape than its Rfh crew

Time to crashzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... finally

as if it had never ran (almost)
(take the original fotos and see if you can spot the differences from before and after the race)
cheerio,
-g

a hint where to look for scratches...

and another one

I'm extending my thanks and gratitude to the team mates for helping making this a really crazy but fun weekend!
1. Tamar for being crazy enough dropping everything for the last 10 days and focusing on the car - and what a beautiful car it is
2. Nick for being crazy enough dropping his one source of income to be able to participate and of course also building/setting up/testing a great chassis - even with the *VERY* limited time.
3. Willem for being crazy enough to come along against all common sense and better knowing
4. myself for being crazy enough for "going the extra mile" literally

All in all another race to have gained good memories and perhaps some learnings...
I for sure did get to know my team mates a bit better and I'm truly thankfull for that.

Can't wait for Mission Impossible II

-g

last but not least!!!! Henri van Gool (aka slotmad on this forum) for being crazy enough in driving up to Winschoten (north of Holland) half way to meet us coming from Hamburg to hand over the box we forgot in Amsterdam... Henri you've earned ever lasting honours with me and the rest of the team!!! A true slotmad

to all you guys for sharing this posting to all readers and subscribers of this forum.

SPECIALLY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

i have pointed this site to many australian racers that are within my reach ,because i have a racing series formatted similar to your rules,and IMCA.

if you check the old threads it may explain some querries.

GOOD RACING TO ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!

Hereby I would like to thank the team-members: Nick, Gabriel and Tamar for putting in a great effort resulting in a qualification for next year.

From a modelcar slotrace point of view this is the highest standard you can possibly find at this stage I quess.

The quality of the cars as well as the drivers was on a very high standard.

Driver skill, preparation and experience were the ingredients which needed to be from an excellent quality to be succesfull in a race like this.

To rate our team performance on a scale from 1 to 10 I would say the following:

Driver skill: 6,5
Preparation: 8,0
Experience: 7.0

Taken into account that the car was setup in only 1 week, this was a great effort.

I really did have fun outhere challenging the german top modelcar racers.

Cheers

on Renncenter Hamburg's web site one can find a short video ( http://www.renncenter-hamburg.de/~webcam/video.htm ) of the race in action - with Willem in lane yellow (last rider), Trier (in the ready to start for a 100 meters dash position) next to Willem and X-Rookies. I'm marschalling at the curve after the carousel...

WOW, finally able to breath a bit.
a crunchy nose, swollen eyes, head-ache and being out of work now was all more then worth it.

I really enjoyed myself this weekend altough the car's set-up was bad.

It was a heavily fought race, with it all the neccesary ingredients to make it as exciting as possible, trouble has struck everyone so that the overall standings were not set just a few minutes after the start.

I want to thank my team for putting on a great effort.

WE WILL BE BACK!

Quote:

Originally posted by tamar 48 hrs, 1000kms and 2218 laps later.....we're back in Amsterdam. Gabriel and Willem drove the final stints to get us back home. We dumped our gear and Enzo at the club Its been a very long week, we're satisfied to have qualified. it might seem odd to you guys, but 5th this year was a whole lot better than last year's 4th. ...Enzo doesn't agree, thought he could have done better...... ...its amazing... just 3 small scratches, there's hardly a mark on him . Enzo seems have survived the Hamburg trip in far better shape than its Rfh crew Time to crashzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... finally

Hello Fola

Glad you liked the race report.
Hamburg.....yeah, that was last Februari, but feels like it was so long ago.

Anyhow...

More pictures of thew RFH Enzo can be found in the Hamburg 12 hrs Gallery and in the International News Sectoin of this Site.

And about the RFH homepage...........well your looking at it

thanks for the info..... nice site ... and i must say you write really well- I like your style(and just love you car!!)
I am building an Enzo.. dedicated to RFH, or if you prefer, a copy of RFH will be a Tamiya (SH**) only because i buoght it before realising what a pain it is/will be to build. WHERE THERES A WILL THERES A WAY.. right? ill keep you posted.

regards Fola