Dear readers,
It has been a while since we have something to write about on our website…. so here is the report from our sole race this year, the Nitrolympx in Hockenheim.
Because we did not race last year and this season began without us, we decided to practice our routine on Thursday without any kind of stress….the team is the same as the past couple of years and we realized pretty fast, that our routine is as good and quick off the mark as ever, as if we never had taken a break from racing!
We were pleased to be back racing again, but the first qualification on Friday was a surprise for us….Peter was the only driver in the class that managed a 5 sec. run (5.96 sec.)…with lots of wheelspin! The traction of the track, well let’s put it this way, was “not as we would have expected and hoped for”. The second run of the day with some changes to the setup resulted in 5.65 sec. which was faster but only taking us to 2nd position on the qualification list behind Timo Habermann (5.57 sec.).
Saturday midday we had our 3rd quali run with a 5.98 sec.! The track was worse than Friday…with immediate loss of traction at the startline this third run set us back to the 3rd place on the quali list. The fourth quali run in the afternoon bought us the desired improvement with 5.56 sec. however the final qualifying standing was as follows: top qualifier with 5.55 sec. Dennis Habermann, 2nd qualifier with 5.56 sec. Peter Schöfer and 3rd qualifier with 5.57 sec Timo Habermann. After the last run of the day we did our usual work to the car up into the late evening in order to get the Dragster ready for raceday.
Saturday night it rained but the track was dry next morning and everything continued as scheduled. The first elimination run was against Stefan Gunnarsson, we had lane choice due to the faster qualifying time and we decided to take the left lane, what turned out to be the right decision, because Peter def. Stefan with 5.64 to 6.23 sec. Though Peter drifted a little back and forth in his lane which looked more spectacular than it actually was, it still concerned us a little. We quickly picked up Peter from the shut down area and went back to our pit, to get ready for the half finals. This run was at 3.30pm and again we decided to take the left lane and defeated Timo Habermann. Peter 5.63 sec. to Timo’s 5.92 sec. Now things started to get hectic! After we reached our pit area, we were informed that the finals would be in 1 hour, it is nearly impossible to turn the Dragster around and do the necessary routine tasks so we were given an additional 30 minutes time…our opponent in the finals Chris Polidano also requested this extra time. As we pulled up into the staging lanes on time, all the other class finals were carried out before us, so that we had to wait half an hour…so we could have actually saved ourselves the hectic, but that’s life! Due to Peter having the slower e.t. in the half finals (as Chris Polidano), Chris had lane choice and decided to take the left lane. We sensed it and the run confirmed it: Chris def. Peter in the Finals with 5.63 sec. to Peter’s 5.87 sec. Peter’s Dragster lost traction shortly after the start line and could not catch up on Chris after that.
The video of the final run can be viewed under “videos” and you can access the photos here
We finished the event with a pleasing position as runner-up…we are very satisfied, especially after not competing for such a long period of time!
See you soon
Peter and Team