WIENER NEUSTADT, AUSTRIA
Austria was the destination for the 2018 EFRA 1:10 Electric Championships and for the first time in recent years the event attracted a capacity entry over the 3-classes titles that were up for grabs. Hosted by the home club of Dominic Vogl, 1.MRC Wiener Neustadt, our Pro-Stock front runner decided to step up for his home race and join Marc in Modified class. As has become a regular element of outdoor racing in Europe this season, rain would play its part in restructuring the timetable with drivers arriving to a track that was literally underwater! Thankfully with the rain subsiding and the track drying things could get underway after lunch on Thursday with a single round of practice followed by two seeding rounds. For Marc, the weekend started out strong with him able to set the third fastest 3-consecutive laps with just 4/100ths of a second covering the Top 3 drivers. Dominic would seed in the second fastest heat after recording the 16th fastest time.
With the first round of Modified qualifying due to conclude the first day of action, the rain decided to return with only 3 heats needed to complete the round. Frustrating, but despite putting on a well organised event the weather is one thing outside the club's control! After a round of free practice Friday morning, qualifying would start with Q2, the opening round rescheduled to run at the end of the day. Marc got a P4 for his first effort but an error in Q3 resulted in a P8. Coming back strong with a P3 in Q4, this ended up being his best run of the weekend and combined with another P4 run the fifth round, it secured 5th overall on the grid for Saturday's finals. For Dominic, while he showed good speed in qualifying he had some bad luck when on target for top time and the result was he ended up 6th on the grid for the B-Main.
While Marc had good speed at the start of each run, he faced a big drop off in pace towards the end of the 5-minutes. In the finals this meant, after starting out strong, he soon found himself having to defend his position. Finishing A1 as he started, in A2 and A3 he would finish both races 4th but overall his 2018 European Championships would end with 5th overall while Dominic was classified 17th. For sure not the results Marc and Dominic had hoped for, we thank them both for their efforts in representing the Infinity Family at the Euros.
