Once again team RFH is packing its bags to head of to Hamburg.
It will be our 3rd participation in what has truely become to be a "classic" Endurance event in the North German Territories.

Our first attempt was a bit dissapointing mainly because, the roadholding capabilities of our Nissan 390 "longtail" started to resemble those of an aircraft carrier as the race progressed.

The second time round we tried something "different" and although the Enzo did achieve its goal (qualifying for the 2005 event) just one week preparation time meant that all was not as it should have been.

So for our 3rd attempt chief mechanic Nick de Wachter has burried himself for the past weeks in the Hot Slot basement.
The result...3 state of the art Nissan R90"s with some nice gizmo's as allowed under the liberal SLP rules.



If it will work...who knows, I certainly hope so.

As we say in Dutch: 3 keer is Scheeps recht" which can be best translated as "3 times Lucky"?

Anyhow...we"ll use this forum to give you live uodates were possible of the Hamburg 12hrs

Tamar

Hello Folks
Well we finally made it to Hamburg, I'll spare you the usual nagging about friday afternoon traffic jams on the German Autobahn.
At the moment we're trying to figure out the controller connections on the new track.
Everybody ( meaning all the german teams) is trying to feel its way around the new lay-out.

First indications of what the race pace should be.....Well I'f already seen laptimes in the low 6.7 seconds.

Time flies when you're having fun
Time for an update after 4 hours of free practice.

Fastest on the track is Team No limits.. with laptimes in the low 6.7's they went for a bite.
Martin (Bartelmes) convident that they are on the pace has just opened a beer and strolls relaxed through the renncenter.

We've been trying several gearings, starting with 14x42 we first went much longer to try 16x44.
Nick immidiately improved his laptimes and dived under the 7 sec ending with a best of 6.84 on lane blue.
But the car was a bit tricky for Gabriel and me, so next we tried 16X 46 and this gave more confidence on the middle lanes.
Still its a long way to get to the 6.7.
Next on our target list is to get a bit more grip on the exit.

Hope the race will be a good race

Qualification results.

No Limits 6,814
Racing for Holland 6,825
BS-PowerSports 6,863
X-Rookies 6,876
Felgendreher 6,891

Team 24 7,003
Team Baltic 7,06
Ace of Race 7,089
Matchbox 7,121
Scale Team Berlin 7,165

A quick update on the qualification results.

As expected the boys from Trier took pole, but only by the smallest margin of 11/100ths.
The new handout motors have leveled the performance off all teams, there's but 0.30sec between 1st and 10th.
More of a suprise was that Nick set second fastesf ahead of Local Team BS-Powersports and X-Rookies.



Peter Reijerkerk took qualifying honours for Matchbox and, with a personal best time of 7.12, put the 2nd Nissan on 9th place

Positions after 3 stints.

Team 24 796 laps
Matchbox 777 laps
Team Baltic 765 laps
Ace of Race 758 laps
Scale Team Berlin 684 laps

Matchbox has climbed from 9th to 7th place. With just 3 pilots, Mack is double stinting on lane 2 and 1 ( Blue and yellow outerlane). Peter will now do a doubble stint as he prefers not to drive in the dark. With 35 minute stints all drivers finally get a chance to get into some kind of rithym. Those 3 minute practice sessions were just way to hectic.
Peter is now running on lane Red (4) and already does a 7.18 in the race.




Laptimes range from just below the 7 sec to 7,50. Mack just came in and reported that the car was running fine. Tyrewear was 2/10ths in the 1st hour then it dropped to 5/100ths for the second hr?!. Looks like the grip levels are building fast.

Results of the first group
1st Team 24 1323,41
2nd Team Baltic 1298,20
3rd Matchbox 1283,36
4th Ace of Race 1188,43
5th Scale Team Berlin 1174,43

The Swedish were the first team to run into real trouble. They lost 60 laps as the lights failed on the "Ace of Race" R8.
Complaining that the car felt "a bit heavy" (they have a standard carrera body ) they did an ""Audi and changed the complete rear, lower gearing and new tyres.

Baltic passed Matchbox for 2nd in the group, with both cars running at similar speeds it al depended on staying on the track.
Matchbox took new tyres with 6 minutes left in the last stint. Working as 2 mechanics Nick and Gabriel turned the 83 Nissan back out on track in 17 sec.


Update 2nd group

At 15:30 the second group started their race. X Rookies took the lead followed by BS power and RFH.
First in the pit was No limits their car wouldn't lap under the 7,20 on lane 1 (yellow) it turned out to be guides
The RFH Nissan became unstable as more and more grip came on the track resulting in a lot more offs than the other 4 teams. 2 pitstops to change to different tyres didnt bring the wanted result. at the moment it looks like we will drop down to 6th place.

Eaten raw with ketchup on the side

Wat is de klassering van onze twee top LMS teams in Hamburg?