2nd 2001 KWC race
07 Nov 2006

Ramiro Franco wins all. Again flawless driving and consistency gives him another 1st place.

The second race took place the 22 October 2000 at the CRO track. The weather was wonderful in spite of rain and bad weather during the week. I was expecting to drive on the wet, but surprisingly Saturday and Sunday were perfect days for racing.

The temperatures were around 18º with a track temperature of 23º during the qualify sessions. And off we go.

My car had been assembled the night before. I had to flatten the chassis (big time) and everything got in the way during the week, leaving this task for the last minute. I had disassembled the complete front and rear suspensions, and I guessed that all the angles were right. And they were!

No race would take place if it wasn't for Ana. It's not just the drivers and the cars. She is the responsible for the timing system. Here with a strange smile after avoiding the camera for a while...

This time we only had 11 drivers, but it was the best and the most competitive race I've seen (and that I've been in). We had 3 qualify sessions, divided in two groups, leading to a final with 11 cars. That's a crowd. But it is really intense.

1st Qualify

Not bad. The first time that I made this track (we run clockwise in one race and counter clockwise on the next one and so on) my best time was 29.6.. On the first qualify I made 27! The car was very good and I only noticed some lack of grip before the tires got warm. I was using medium hard tires in the front (40) and medium soft tires in the back (30). I decided to make a reading on the temperature track just to see if the choice was adequate. A temperature of 23º told me that I could go with 30 on the front and 25 on the back. An uneventful qualify, and that's good.

2nd Qualify

The second qualify was even better. I lapped below 27 for the first time (26.88) which made me think that I had a correct tire choice. The car had no bad tendencies whatsoever and I won this second qualify with 11 laps. My first win (al least is something).

You will notice that I didn't touch the angles and I didn't let anybody do it either. I try not to make the same mistake twice.

3rd Qualify

I didn't do my best time here because I was having problem with the steering. One of the screws of the right steering post became loose and I had a very sloppy car in the turns.
However, this was the one I liked the most because I had a hard duel with Helder Peres, a sort of cat and mouse thing.

Helder was using a Dodge Viper at the beginning of the day and the car was terrible. He tried angles, spring, everything and the car was terrible. For the last qualify he installed the Mercedes CLK body and made the 6th time on the grid. After all the rounds I would start in 7th place, and Luis was in 9th place.

All things considered it was a very good start and I was really happy with the car and with my driving skills. No mistakes and no chances. Just plain old stable driving. My strategy? The same as always -  first I have to finish and in the end we'll see in what position it was...

Pedro Dias - An excellent qualify and a 1st class race. He's got skills and the car is awesome.

Who were the ones going fast? The usual group. Ribeiro father and son, Ramiro Franco and Pedro Dias that was doing a heck of a qualify. This race was showing a level of driving above the usual. No loud crashes and everybody doing their best to do good laps. The race would show a similar trend. If you compare with the first race, you can see better lap times and 2 more laps for the winner in the end on the race. Even I would go above the 60 lap mark. But read on...

My league is the one that runs for 2 to 4th place in the end. And there are a lot of contenders for these places. The Ribeiros (Luís and Joao), José Vale, the driver that is always in my second, Helder Peres and me. 5 drivers for three places. Some of them can reach 1st place, but I'm not able to do it yet.

The race

And here we go. I never do good starts, but this one was not bad at all. I gained one or two places just to see the "usual" pile of cars in front of me. Brakes, slalom and those places were lost. I was 9th on the 1st lap. No problem, because I know I'll catch some of them. Relax and enjoy.

José Vale was saying that the level of this race was very good. He just lost a little time in the beggining and that was it. Half a lap a the rest of the race on the throttle to catch the first group.

On the 5 minute mark I was 6th and improving. No problems no crashes and a very consistent speed. My best lap during the race was 26.90, just 2 hundredths of a second above my best on the qualify. It's becoming an habit.

I was gaining places with some ease. On minute 15 I was 5th and on minute 20 I was 4th and gaining some advantage on the 5th. My car was perfect. Very predictable and with an excellent top speed. The ratios were 17/20 and the original spurs (40/43).

The only problem I'm having is the duration of a tank. My tank lasts exactly 7 minutes and this leaves 2 minutes to rum at the end of the 4 refuel. I tried to slow down on the last tank, but it was impossible. I had to stop just because of two minutes. I need to get at least 7:30 or 8 minutes with a tank. This is making me loose unnecessary time.

After this last stop for refuel, the car wasn't gaining speed as it used to, and the second gear was not engaging correctly. I tried to make those last 4 or 5 laps the best I could without the usual top speed. The steering was also getting sloppy just before the end.

Wrap up

Yours truly receiving the cup for the 4th (brilliant I might add) place.

It was an excellent race. The times reflect the competitiveness of this race. The guys were going like mad and you could see fights (in the good sense) in groups of three cars. In fact there was this little skirmish I had with Helder Peres, because I got the inside of a curve, and in the exit when accelerating, my car goes toward the outside and he was there. He had made the entire curve beside me. He lost some time with that maneuver, and I managed to escape unhurt. Of course there were some jokes thrown at each other on the stand.

I'm looking forward to the next race. Let's hope it is this good.

And what about my friend Luís Gonçalves? He also finished to assemble the car the night before at 3 AM. He missed some details. One of them was the shocks, specifically the springs. He mounted soft springs in the front and hard on the back. He ran all day with the car like that.

Only at the end of the race he noticed that "small" detail. You see, is better to do things with time and awake.

The magnificent duo. Look for them on the top 3. Surely they are there. This time Luís was unlucky and finished 6th.

Paulo Reis was very unlucky during the day. Troubled with engine problems he tried everything to make a good race. He almost won a 1/10 200 race that I saw with very good driving. I hope he does better next time.

The Results - 2nd Race - 10/22/2000

Championship Standings

The 3rd Race

It seems that when I don't take pictures of races my results are better...

I won! A terrible day to contrast with the previous race days. Fog, rain and a temperature around 13º were the set for the race.
The track was wet, really wet with puddles in two turns. A trajectory error and we were in a pool.

I was considering not to race (other racers had the same feeling) but I managed to get 2 balloons, for the pack and the receiver. When I left home I decided to carry a set of unglued threaded tires, just in case...

At the track I glued them and there I went for the first qualify. This time the ratios were 16/20 pinions with 43/39 spurs, a fairly unusual combination because of a difference of more than 3 teeth. Also a cut of 7mm on the manifold made the engine rev up much faster.

1st Qualify

With my faithful rain tires, I made 10 laps and a best lap almost two seconds faster than the fastest guy of the pack. The amount of water that the tires were spreading was enormous compared to the slicks that everybody else was running. After this result, at least 2 other drivers asked me if I had another spare set of tires...

Everybody was fighting the terrible conditions with soft trigger finger and a lot of praying. But even so, problems with crashes and electronics happened once or twice during the qualify. The difference was so pronounced that I could catch any car with half lap in front of me in one or two laps. Really amazing

The setup was the same as ever. If it works don't fix it.

2nd Qualify 

The same story. This time I only did 9 laps, but with a better lap. The best lap time of the day was made by Pedro Dias (30.00) also with threaded tires and I was lapping in 31 consistently. The car was so fast that I had to brake in several turns, unlike on a normal day in which we have to brake only in one or two turns.

3rd Qualify

This time I only did 2nd. Pedro Dias was driving really well and my brakes decided not to cooperate. The amount of water was causing the brake pads to "inflate" making my car very slow due to the constant rubbing of the disc against them. Several other drivers had the same problem, and we tried the best we could to adjust the brake clearance in order to compensate for this volume increasing of the pads.

I made the 2nd place on the grid with all this driving.
Just before the race I noticed that my carburetor needle could not be closed anymore and the engine was still rich. It was ruined. Fortunately Luis Gonçalves had a complete needle for the car and I installed it. António Gato a former KWC driver tuned my carburetor to perfection and just before the race the car was ballistic. He was saying that it was the fastest on the long straight. I was too busy trying to keep the car on the road to notice it...

The race

Strategy?
The old one. Try to avoid crashes and do regular laps. No madness at all.

The first start had be be declared null, because a bunch of drivers just started 3 second before the signal. The second start was ok and I managed to be in 3rd on the first turn. Then the madness started. This time I was using Kyosho slicks, because the track was drying and the lap times were improving with these conditions. However it was not dry enough. Cars were crashing left and right and I also managed to stop my car on it's roof. Fortunately someone helped me to put it right and by this time I was 4th. I just didn't want to crash. If someone was faster than me, I would let him through.  The rhythm was very different of a normal race and I didn't have the time to check how many minutes a tank could do, so I agreed to stop at minute 10 to refuel and see if I could do some more minutes with one tank.

On the first refueling stop I was 3rd, with José Vale and Ramiro Franco in front of me. My pit man (António Gato) told me that I had still at least one quarter  of the tank, and I pointed for the next refuel at 25 or 26 minutes. This would allow just one more stop.

Suddenly I found myself passing by Ramiro Franco in the intricate part of the circuit and I was second. There was a turn where my car would do a complete spin and go on like nothing happened. The engine was so well tuned that responded immediately to my orders and the power was too sudden causing those nice spins. After the second refuel, a mere 8 minutes before the end, José Vale was returning to the track after a spin, and I hit him badly at the end of the straight.
Luck also plays a very important role in this competition, and I was able to continue unhurt, unlike his car that lost something due to the crash (José Vale please forgive me!).

I was in first! Ramiro Franco was close and once or twice I could see him just a few feet away from me. But my car was doing everything and forgiving everything. I could go by him with an incredible ease on the interior straight.

I managed to gain half lap and I just drove maintaining that difference with a soft finger. I could not believe myself. Instead of 4 stops to refuel I did two and I made the 3rd best lap time.

A victory to remember.

Of course I couldn't do it if it wasn't for Luís Gonçalves and António Gato that helped immensely.

The Results - 3rd Race - 11/19/2000

Championship Standings