Hellquist doubled at Swedish Championship

0 March 17, 2016, 3:10 p.m.

By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

Race report from XRAY:
www.teamxray.com

Another weekend has come to an end, as well as an extra day for some rest and evaluation. Processing this race has been more of a challenge than normal. Coming into the race me and my dad were very optimistic. The race being the Swedish Championship (Riksmästerskap), running 5 different classes, we both felt we wanted to compete in more than one.

We decided to make it a real challenge and figure out if it was possible to race 1:10th modifed, 12th scale modified and formula 1 all in one race. We also knew we had the option to withdraw from one class, if it ended up being too much.

My goal for the race was to back up my Swedish Championship title in touring from last year. The dream was of course to win all three classes. Touring I felt quite confident in, after the last months of continuous success.12th scale on the other hand I've never won a race in before, and regarding F1 I had only had a few battery packs of testing coming into the race.

Coming into the race I managed to TQ both touring and F1 in a pretty confident fashion, winning all the qualifiers in both. In 12th scale we weren't on pace for the first few rounds of qualifying, struggling with the car quite a bit. But in the 4th qualification round we managed to get it all right, and it was a huge surprise for both me and my father, that it was good enough to taking the Overall TQ in 12th scale as well.

Coming into the Sunday finals it felt great. Being in the top in all classes was amazing and gave me tons of confidence. There were close battles in every class, so I always had to drive my best without mistakes, to just keep that little edge. That little edge however gave me the overall victory in both touring and F1 during the 2 first finals, so I could put those cars aside and only focus on the 12th scale, where I had one victory, and the second placed car had one victory. It was all going to be decided in the last final.

Experience from the past finals said that the second car was much quicker than me in the beginning, but I improved and became faster the longer the race went on for. This last final my car was a little bit better than before, and I was able to get a slight gap in the early stages, and it took a few minutes before the car behind came up close. Sadly it ended up a bit too close, and I was taken out from behind, loosing valuable seconds. The car ahead was free from any interference by the referee and I knew I had to drive as fast as I could to get back in the race, and keeping my chance to win the overall race. I drove better than ever before, making close to no mistakes, and driving as fast as I could almost every lap. I was not far away when I unfortunately was taken out again by another car, loosing all the time I fought for the laps before. I did not give up, and continued to drive as fast as I possibly could to narrow down the 3-4 second gap, but in the end I was one second short, and was never able to challenge for the victory.

Of course I was disappointed after the last final. Losing the overall victory due to what I saw as an unfair overtake. But sometimes that is racing. It's not always possible to win. In the end those fights are still what makes me love racing. The adrenaline rush, the constant fight for being slightly ahead of the others. Having the heart beat faster during the most intense moments in racing. It is what makes all this worth doing.

As a summary for the weekend this was one of the best race weekends I've had, and one of the most successful ones as well. I will look back on it as something incredible.

More classes is maximum fun is something Jan Ratheisky always says, and I guess there are some true to this madness of trying to drive as much as possible at once smile emoticon

This was my last race for this indoor season, and I will continue to drive more when the snow melts, and when the tracks are warmer.

Big thanks as always to my sponsors Minicars Hobby Distribution AB XRAY HUDY Team ORCA

1:10 Touring Modified
Place Driver Points Car
1 Markus Hellquist 2 Xray
2 Jonas Andersson 3 Tamiya
3 Niclas Nilsson 5 Schumacher
4 Alexander Andersson7 Yokomo
5 Daniel Carlsson 7 Yokomo
6 Stefan Andersson 11 Awesomatix
7 Andreas Book 13 Xray
8 Erik Ström 13 Xray
9 Hugo Bjurman 15 Xray
10 Andreas Johansson 18 Serpent

1:12 Modified 
Place Driver Points Car
1 Alexander Andersson2 Yokomo
2 Markus Hellquist 3 Xray
3 Magnus Hedlund 6 Xray
4 Mickael Brandt 8 Xray
5 Per Carlsson 10 Serpent
6 Nikolaj Hviid 10 CRC
7 Jon Pedersen 14 CRC
8 Alexander Passot 14 TOP
9 Jörgen Elwing 16
10 Peter Bohman 20 Serpent

 F1 21.5t
Place Driver Points Car
1 Markus Hellquist 2 Xray X1
2 Fredrik Von elling 3 Xray X1
3 Mickael Brandt 6 Xray X1
4 Mattias Trotte 7 Xray X1
5 Jens Olsson 9 Xray X1
6 Klasse Bredberg 9 Xray X1
7 Gunter von Elling 10 Xray X1
8 Mats Österberg 12 Xray X1
9 Robin Zetterström 16 Xray X1
10 Albin Piispanen 18 Xray X1
11 Johan Sjögren 2 Xray X1
12 Ronnie Pettersson 4 Xray X1