The Nov 3 European Plafit Championship was held during the Spanish Nationals at Igualada Spain. With more than 700 pilots in various classes ranging from 1/32 rally to 1/24 Dragracing the Spanish nats are one of the biggest slot events in southern Europe.
The "Circuito de Cheste" as it was officially baptized, had been specially designed for the event on which a total 12 teams from 3 countries contested the EPC Race.

Practice makes perfect.
With plenty of free practice sessions on Friday and Saturday the teams could familiarize themselves with the 6 lane Concept track.
Circuit Designer Ivan Basas was complimented by all teams on the track layout. Besides offering a track that was new to all teams (no home advantage for the Spanish) its layout had a challenging combination of fast sweeping curves and some tricky technical combinations.


Saturday night ended with the concourse d' Elegance during which the 12 team cars were displayed on the 1/24 grid. Unlike the LMS the majority of the cars were Group C, but this did not stop the builders of putting a lot of time and effort in detailing them.
Rock Racing took its second Concourse on a row. After the Stars&stripes Porsche at the DPM, they now won with an IMSA Porsche 962 (first right in the row)


Warming up for the Race
On Sunday morning 8.30 the competition started in earnest. The 2 warm-up sessions of 15 minutes showed that Saturday's grip had vanished with the night cleaners. Although actually intended to be run without grip additives the teams were allowed to use Zip grip to get some traction out of their brand new tyres. After the warm-up a tri language racebriefing was given by Race directors Tamar Nelwan (LMS) Ivan Basas (ACS) and Kurt Petry (FNS) followed by the Technical inspection off all cars.
For the EPC the technical commission comprised one T.C form each country.

Qualifications
Qualifying consisted of 1 min. sessions in which a pilot had to set a fast laptime. Per team 2 pilots had to qualify. The lap times were added and divided by 2, thus arriving at the teams Qualification average. Top 3 qualifiers were Rock Racing (8,711), Slotweb 24 (8,723) and Igualada 1 (8,753)
With just 4/100th of a second dividing the top 3 it promised to be a tight race.

EPC Endurance: First Run
The endurance would be contested in 2 heats running all lanes twice. Heat composition was made on Qualification ranking with the lowest ranked group running first. In the first run stint track time per lane was 10 minutes.
In the first heat both Modelslot and Gass set out to rectify their low qualification result. In the opening laps Modelslot improved 1,5 sec. over their qualification time and set a heat record of 8.687 on lane 3.
In the second heat polesetter Rock racing set a stunning laprecord (8,423) on lane 1 and eked out a 4 lap lead on Slotweb 24 on lane 3. Through out the heat the 2 Porsche continued their battle

Small differences between the Spanish and English rulebooks took some hefty explanations on both sides of the table.

and ended up a good 12 laps clear off X-rookies in 3rd. In the overall classification after the first run this became 4th as Modelslot had run the same number of laps in the first heat, but 10 track segments more.

EPC Endurance: Second Run
After some hectic discussions on the mid race technical control the second run started at 4 in the afternoon. Unfortunately this meant that the track time had to be shortened to 8 minutes to keep a runaway timeschedule under control.
In the 1 1/2 hrs intermission the track had cooled down and collected a thin layer of dust, opening laps in the first heat were above the 9.sec.

This time it was the Racing for Holland BMW that took the lead. After a successful training their streak of bad luck continued in Igaulada race. A loose spurgear and broken spoiler had lost them 20 laps in the first run, so they were desperate to get back into the top six. Although they won their heat it was not to be. A stop and go penalty (10 sec. for Marshall in the wrong place) and an extra stop to re- glue their battered spoiler ended their race 9 laps short off sixth.

With the reduced track time both the Slotweb 24 Porsche and the Modelslot Toyota GT one were all fired up eliminate Rock racing's 5 lap lead. Modelslot took an early lead with 54 laps on 3 and a personal record of 8,621, Slotweb 24 followed with 52 laps. Rock racing's pit stop for new tyres meant they did only 47 laps, the race was wide open.
With all three cars averaging around 51 laps p/8 min, breakpoint of the race come when Rock racing had to pit to get its body above the 1mm min ground clearance.

After 1 hrs and 48 min, Slotweb 24 "From A" Porsche 962, won the race by 7 laps over the Young Germans. It had been a close run course with strong and consistent driving off all the top 3 finishers.

Tamar Nelwan




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