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Volker, Hoppe, and Rathiesky win ETS opener in Hrotovice

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Aaron Waldron

0 Dec. 8, 2014, 7:42 a.m.

Main Photo: Volker, Hoppe, and Rathiesky win ETS opener in Hrotovice

12/8/2014
By Aaron Waldron

LiveRC.com

Race report from XRAY:

www.teamxray.com

The first race of the 2014/2015 ETS season was held in the small village of Hrotovice, Czech Republic. A completely sold out event saw some 350 competitors crowded into the sport hall where a temporary (and very big) carpet track was built up.

I have to say that I really liked the track layout this year, as well as the improvement of the lightning made to the hall. It made the event of even higher quality than last year.

Our European team was fully present and expecting to do well in all three categories. A lot of time and effort was spent on the Formula category as the brand new X1 kit was finished just in time for the event, and run by three drivers - Juraj Hudy, Francesco Martini and the reigning ETS Formula champion Jan Ratheisky. The team proved to be succesful in this category as Jan managed to take the TQ & win after a solid drive. Francesco, after very unlucky finals, managed to finish 4th, but definitely had the pace to step on the podium. I know that the public has been very excited about the release of the X1, and thus we were particularly proud to achieve this good result.

In the Pro Stock class, the winner Lars Hoppe was long gone and out of reach for any of the other drivers throughout qualifying and finals, however, XRAY had a few drivers in the A-main fighthing for the remaining podium positions. In the end it was Jan Ratheisky who managed to take the 2nd place, in front of the very fast Valentin Hettrich, also running an XRAY car. Mike Gosvig finished 4th which made it 3 XRAY cars in the top 5 positions. A very respectable result. Marek Cerny also had the speed to fight for the top but did not have the luck with him this time as he was struggling with a tweaked car, most likely as a result of a bad set of tires. XRAY was the most represented brand in the A-final with 4 cars.

Modified was going to be an exciting affair as always, with most of the worlds best drivers present. Qualifying came down to the last round where it was Marc who managed to TQ in front of Ronald, and myself (as we were tied on points). I TQ'ed Q2 and came close in Q3 as well but unfortunately had to settle for 3rd. I improved my car a lot from Friday to Saturday after some minor setup changes including going to stiffer springs front and rear. I was really happy with the fast and consistent handling of my car throughout the weekend. With a bit better driving in the finals I could have won, but in the end, finished 2nd behind Ronald as Marc made mistakes in the finals. I gave all I could in A2 and A3 to catch Ronald but it wasn't to be this time. I will do my best to fight back at the upcoming events. The T4'15 is working very well! XRAY was the most represented brand in the A-final with 3 cars.

It was also impressive to see Bruno Coelho qualify into the ETS A-final only in his 2nd ever carpet event. Bruno did well in the finals, advancing into 6th place overall after some nice overtakings. Furthermore, it was great to see the team manager Martin Hudy back into the ETS A-final again after a solid drive in qualifying!

Thank you all XRAY drivers for you presence and great effort! Looking forward to seeing you all at the next ETS rounds!