published: 2015-07-23 23:16:58 (61719) Author: Willy Wuyts |
35th EFRA European 1/8 IC Off Road Championship at Sacile, Italy |
| EFRA's Chairman Report of a great race... |
 This year, Italy has been chosen by the member federations, more precise Sacile, in a small town in the Pordenone region also known with the nickname: The Garden of Venice. The local club, the Ongaroring, has already a good reputation at EFRA level as they were able to manage the weather inclemences at EFRA Euro B 2013 pretty well , handling the EC A now in 2015, they have fully confirmed their good reputation. Obviously it has not only been the club, but as well the Italian Federation AMSCI, all the crew involved in the organization has worked at an excellent level during the event, improving each day. |
 To mention individuals will be unfair, ALL OF THEM, with no exception, has raised at the highest level possible. The economic effort made by the organizer has given all of us pretty good facilities, the huge paddock tenth able to allocate more than 300 drivers has working spots for 200 people, two corners, one for charging and one for F1 entertainment, the sponsors village, the beer square (highly frequented by some neighbours) and the controlled access have been a new state of art incorporations to a good facility. The Press facilities had been improved as well making the life of our friends much better day by day, with double cabin surface and a huge filming tower and double the internet available so that all have worked quite well. |
 The Cafeteria, rather fast and reasonable on prices, was facing an enormeous prize giving presentation scenario, a huge improvent for our trophy presentation, and that in the back of a good public stand tribune facing the track. Besides it, a brand new parking areas with all the Caravan Circus placed there as well with extra toilets and showers. The well known Sacile Track, named Ongaroring following the mood of some F1 facilities has been improved for this event to make it perfect for an EC A. Massive improvements on the drainage of the track, which proved to be a real achievement during the week together with some vision enhancement works, in order to give equal chances to all drivers, and a nice fencing & painting job to make it look like an EFRA level track had been carried out by the club, all crowned by a huge result board raised by a truck lift. |
 The program of the race started on Monday with registration, EFRA arrived to the track on Sunday just to see the massive anti-mosquito treatment carried out by the club members, all the green surface at the premises was sprayed several times in order to make our week-life affordable and I have to say it worked quite well. Spraying to avoid mosquitos with 42 degrees temperatures at the start of the week, has been an excellent decision. |
 Tuesday was the Free practice day in our EFRA EC A format, with the first Team Manager meeting held early in the morning, and then track opened for practice in groups with 4 different track times, first one a short one, then a larger one and later in the day 2 normal ones. As we normally say we learn more from mistakes than from any other activity and we learned at the track that watering before the start of the day was a big mistake, which grown to the bigger one as the last batch of dirt added to the track surface seemed to come from the pig headquarters of a farm nearby. smelly issues for the cars hitting the track in the early groups. Wednesday was our Controlled Practice day and it had also room for the Opening Ceremony and thanks to the Club for a wellcome cocktail as well. The controlled practice was carried out counting the 3 best consecutive laps inside the last 5 minutes of practice as a choice done by Race Director Mr. Teo Spagnolo. With the best result in points out of any of the two rounds of controlled practice the Timekeeper official prepared the Qualifying groups divided in the 3 levels of quality making 5 similar groups at each of the packages allowing the use of common sense to move drivers to avoid conflicts, conflicts like too many drivers from one single country at one group or driver and mechanics in the same or consecutive groups and similar ones. |
 While Race Control was working over this, another part of the Race Crew worked on the Parade of the Opening Ceremony, time for anthems and pictures and good memories with a short opening speech from the EFRA Section Chairman. Some other decisions were made during the day, among those the selection of the finish line by the Timekeeper not following EFRA Advice, which proven later in the week to be a wrong decision. In the afternoon EFRA TV arrived, the people from Rc Racing TV tried to place their satellite antenna but it was not working properly. Later on a Tornado hit the next town with winds on 320 kph (200mph) and with its tail hitting our facilities and watering the whole region with floods due to a huge amount of water in a few hours. |
 Thursday morning not even a tinny drizzle rain, but the track looked to have resisted the effects of the rain, the EFRA TV crew was ready to operate thanks to the due diligence of EFRA who provided them with a 3rd internet line dedicated for them as the satellite antenna was broken by the tornado, and there were some considerations over the shake down round, to run it or not.
Lucky the final decision has been to run it and it has proven to be the best decision possible. Qualifying at EC A 1/8th IC Buggy consists in 5 rounds, 3 to be run on Thursday and the last 2 on Friday with 3 counting out of 5, all in points system, so it is not only to be fast but to be consistently fast, a rocket round means nearly nothing. From 1981 up to 1999 there was the curse of the Poleman, whoever made Pole Position never won the Championship, until Mr. Daniel Vega came with his Mugen and made it at Barcelona 99, this year the pole position has gone to the Kyosho driver Elliot Boots from the U.K. who has been Poleman at several big international events including IFMAR World Championships, but never succeed after it. |
 But this year has been finally an Elliot year, after making into the Main final, a car breakage at the starting grid by one of the main contenders, Robert Batlle, gives the british driver a nearly 10 % more chances of victory. Then at The Race his consistency on tires and its driving tactic lead him to the victory despite going to 1 fuel stop more than some of his contenders and make the final victory for a Poleman again. The funny thing out of Elliots day has been that he started the day being another guy! At Breakfast at Ca Brugnera Hotel he was wearing unwillingly a T-shirt with the name of one of his mechanics, Liam Galvin, after some laughts he changed to his proper outfit and later on won his first ever European Championship. If he is supersticious, from now on he must wear a wrong T-shirt every final morning at a big event, lets see if he does it. |
 The prize giving ceremony was quite Italian and that means with a lot of care and interest taken by the organizers and special trophies for participants, like the ladies and JuanMa Guillen. The huge tribune for that played its role and everyone was portrayed as he deserves. There Italy has been crowed as the Nations Cup 2015 EC A Winner Team with the young Davide Ongaro being awarded as the EFRA Youth Champion ECA 2015 ahead of Riccardo Berton & Marco Baruffolo. All exhibition finals got top 3 trophies and pictures over the 3 step rostrum. |
 Positive and negatives after the event?
Obviuosly there are some, most of those will bring us proposals for next EFRA AGM in order to improve our rules and our race format, we have to learn from mistakes made, and we have to learn as well from conversations with drivers and experiences achieved. Anyhow EFRA must thank the Italian Federation AMSCI for the collaboration wih the Organizer in order to have an excellent event. Daniele Neri, you are a NUMBER ONE and a star, many thanks for your work. Teo Spagnolo & Andrea Vasseli, grazie per un bello laboro. BRAVO! Massimo & the rest of the Ongaroring crew... EXCELLENT WORK, GRAZIE RAGAZZI. All race results can be found at : http://ongaroring.jimdo.com/italiano/results-european-championship/ |