Participating with the bobcar at the European championship in Uersfeld (D), this is for us one of the main events for the year. I will try to regularly post on the progression of this championship from my personal objective.
Day 1 (Tech inspection) unsorted picture page. Here
Day 2 (Warm-up + first run) unsorted picture page. Here
Day 3 (2nd and 3th run) unsorted picture page. Here
Day 3 Award ceremony photo's from JP. Here
A set with all kind of drive-by videos of the 2nd and 3th day. Here
I would like to thank Jean-Paul, Olivier, Steve, Nora and the others for the pictures.
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29-07-2009
I found the time to make a small compilation of the European Championship at Uersfeld. Don’t bother about the quality, it was the first time that I used that Windows Movie Maker stuff.
27-07-2009
A general collection of pictures of the 3th day at Uersfeld can be found here.
The third day at the European Championship started well, with a good run resulting in a third position overall. A video compilation of this decent can be seen in the next YouTube link.
The 4th and final decent in the afternoon was not that good as we hit slightly a straw-bale in one of the corners and this has slew us down resulting in 0.8 seconds slower run causing us to drop 2 positions and ending 5th overall with the Bob.
A set of remarkable drive-by’s can be found in the next table.
The pictures below shows the slight hit in the fourth run which caused us to lose our 3th position.
25-07-2009(8.20pm)
The day was long and stressful, but in the end quite satisfying as we are in 5th/ 26 position right now with the bob and JP is 12th on a 46 participant’s strong field. Below a few videos are given of drive-bys of the bob and JP in the C4 category, Olivier broke a wheel in the 7th corner and crashed slightly, and a few other impressive drive-bys I shot today. We now know both that the result will depend on the madness to drive through the 6-7 corner combination where the speed is around 70kph and a heavy braking zone is making it the most challenging and kicking part of the track.
I also added a special page with all kind of photos taken during the day. You can find it here.
The next photo's are from the bob during the 2nd and 7th corners.
Drivers meeting in the early morning and JP in the second corner
25-07-2009(5.30am)
Clearly the tension is coming, the night was short and I didn’t really sleep well. Some heavy clouds are still hanging around and without wind it will probably stay wet for a while. After the first run of 9am. most of this stress-tension will be gone as the first decent will learn a lot. Jean-Paul and I will leave for the track now, preparing the soapboxes and making some pictures of the first guys passing while analysing their soapbox behaviour on the slightly wet underground.
24-07-2009 (7pm)
I'm not really in the mood for writing a lot of comment, but the photos speak for themselves. References to last year’s race can be found on the European Championship 2008 page.
First, made a compilation of a previous testing day at On with some nice drive-by's
Even with a lot of differences, Francophone and Flemish people in Belgium can cope together as a team. On the picture, same team mate as last year; Jean Paul Vicqueray who will drive in C4 on the left and Olivier Germay (which is actually a direct competitor but we are sharing quite a lot of information). My co-pilot; Karine Gilson, isn't on the picture, but as the weekend is evolving this will probably change. So I see our self as a large team multi cultural team representing Belgium.
Jean-Paul pretended to have a scooter at home and drive it frequently, but using mine for track-recognisance was quite a tricky job at the beginning. During the recognisance we where passing the people who are responsible the brake-test during the technical inspection series. They are the parents of Benoit, from whom I expect quite a lot of on this championship.
Track recognisance is something you should do with your co-pilot. They then at least will now what to expect when they are out of control and the pilot is going down as a brick.
Preparing and queuing for the technical inspection.
As good driving is dependent of a good night sleeping, we are not sleeping on the camping (sorry guys ;-) but say at a hotel near Cochem. A view on the superb castle.
