pererik.nu

So it's getting close to the Swedish Championships at my home track. It kicks off on friday 30th of July with 2WD on saturday 31st and 4WD on sunday the 1st of august.

Not too many competitors signed up for the race, but level of those signed up is higher than ever. This will probably be the closest national race all season as well as the fastest one. My target is to hit the podium in both classes although winning 2WD would feel really good.

Having spent most of the evening today working on my RB-5 SP2 car, preparations are well under way.My starting setups will be quite close to what I used at the nordics in even though. A rather big concern is the weather, rain is predicted for the whole weekend at the moment, so things does not look too good.

Since the last race in Eskilstuna I've lost a little bit of motivation as there's such a big gap in the calendar between these two races, just practicing with no racing is so boring, I'm starting to get fired up about the race now though.

One new thing is the fact that I'm now on Twitter! Follow http://twitter.com/pererikno

It's been a while since my previous post from the nordics, I've attended one more race during the time passed.

It was the swedish cup round 1 held in Eskilstuna on their 1/8th scale track. A really big one for 1/10th buggy which proved quite difficult for some people and not too bad for others.

Before the race a few things were quite clear.

1. Magnus Vässmar & Tommy Bergfelt were going to be super-fast in 4WD
2. The race management was going to be somewhat different
3. I wouldn't go home happy from the race. My history of racing in Eskilstuna pretty much underlines that statement

The race week was hectic as always since a lot of work had piled up after the nordics which were the previous weekend. Both the SP2 and FS2 cars were not prepared, the last one to arrive was the SP2 that I picked up on wednesday. I built that one on friday wanting to test a few things with the new chassis for the race, with my target to use it as a race-car for all dirt tracks including the euros, it felt important to try it out as soon as possible. I finished the last few details other than a few setup steps such as camber and ride height on friday evening, not leaving the track until very late. I only got a couple of runs of practice on friday since I wanted to get my new car ready, the track was not too easy to find the fastest way around in just a couple of runs since it was soo big, but I managed ok anyway.

The car was ready on time for the first timed practice on saturday, everything felt good, I opted to use the longer ball ends for my rear shocks and stick with the standard SP2 single mouting hole suspension arms with great success it seemed. My pace was ok in practice heading into qualifying everything felt good. A poorly glued tyre kept me from competing in Q1, Q2 on the other hand really turned the tables with proper tyres I set the TQ time with 7 seconds margin and a fastest lap time 1,2 seconds ahead of Otto Ausfelt's best lap. The remaining 3 runs was all about figuring out how the Proline Caliber tyres were working since it was my first time using them, a superb tyre indeed!

Finals went smooth except for another poorly glued tyre in A-main 2 (really embarrassing) made the race go to the third final were I handed Otto the lead for 2 laps until the order was restored and I was back on top.

I won the race ahead of Otto and the youngster Oskar Levin grabbing the last podium spot ahead of Daniel Persson.

Sunday's 4WD event was one to forget really, I found it hard to focus and couldn't really keep my head down during the day, neither was the car working very well feeling extremely loose through every type of corner, a bit understeery on entry and anything could happened while on power, not a very preferable scenario. Anyway I qualified third behind Magnus and Tommy as one would expect really. The last qualication round was cancelled since the rain started falling heavy from the skies allowing the finals to start earlier not to make the track too wet.

Once a-main 1 started the track was really wet making a boat seem more appropriate for that kind of racing. Anyway all cars made it to the start, 4 cars didn't make a full first lap and another 4 cars including mine broke down through the rest of the final. The first a-main was the last heat of the day since it proved too dangerous for the electronics to continue. Johannes Edren did the best job in the rain and won the race ahead of Tomas Karlsson and myself finishing in third place. For me it's a good result to come from the race with a win and a third spot, especially since the big guns in 4WD were still behind me, things are looking rather good in the Swedish Cup which also ranks for the Worlds next year.

My next race is the swedish championships on home soil on about one months time. The cars feel ok, both easy to drive, but I'm not expecting to be the fastest man out there, stability might prove decisive to my advantage on the other hand.

Finally home after a long trip home and a few hours at work, after driving home 13 hours it still feels like I'm moving ;)

Last weekend the Nordics were held in Radøy (Norway), a 1000km drive from Stockholm were I live. The track was made out of astroturf similar to the surface at Green Hill but featured different difficulties than at home make it quite exciting to drive. My main target with the race was to claim the 2wd title as I missed out big time last year at my home track. I put a lot of effort into preparing myself for the race even though it was a really stressed out week with loads of things to do at work before I could leave for Norway.

We arrived quite late on thursday but I got 3 hours of sleep ahead of friday's practice rounds. The cars felt really good straight away even though the track was a bit slippery, one thing I didn't get right in my preparations was getting my hands on the blue and green compounds of the Schumacher Mini-spike2 tyres, luckily there was a shop track side with such tyres for sale so I got some running with both green and blue rubber ahead of qualifying.

Going into saturdays 2wd race the track was wet and the rain kept on coming until Q2 when the track started to dry up. I was second fastest after Kjell-Gunnar Guttormsen from Norway who looked really consistent even though he was not the fastest man out there. In Q1 I made a one rather big mistake which caused me to miss out on the fastest time and ending the round in P4. Q2 featured more mistakes even though the car felt better after adding some weight to the rear of the chassis. In Q3 the track had dried up nicely and traction was higher than ever seen until that point during the weekend making a brand new track for the ones who had never been at the track before, including myself.

I won the round with quite some margin as everything was just spot on, I made the right choice regarding foams and tires which proved really important on this track. Q4 featured a few mistakes but my pace ensured another round win and with it overall TQ! :)

Finals was really exciting as the track kept changing through the day when the sun came on and off all the time, even during runs. An early mistake saw me chasing down and passing Kjell-Gunnar who qualified in P2 which eventually gave me the win in A-main 1. A-main 2 went down in a similar fashion before a broken rear axle put an end to my run when I was in P4, making it not too relevant, a big disappointment for me as I had a little too much will-power, collecting my feelings was the key feature for grabbing the win.

A-main 3 was quite nice as I led the race from start to finish with a chasing David Ronnefalk in second making me the 2010 Nordic 2WD Off road champion! :)

1. PerErik Nordman
2. Kjell-Gunnar Guttormsen
3. Ketil Pettersen

Big congrats to Johanes Edrén and Kenneth Malkusson woh both did really strong races where they proved some serious driving skills in all conditions through the 2WD race, congratulations boys!

Moving to 4WD, practice showed quite early that this was going to be a Kyosho battle between myself and David Ronnefalk who found the 4WD as his stronger side when it comes to electric off road racing. Basicly nothing separated us in practice making qualiying really interesting. The only driver to get anywhere near was 2008 Swedish Champion Otto Ausfelt with his Yokomo.

Qualiying started with a tight round which went David's way as I struggled with understeer caused by a bad front tyre choice, David finished the round 2 seconds ahead of me. Q2 saw a kick-back from myself with proper tyres again reversing the order as David ended in second 2 seconds off my run. In Q3 David once again proved strong and I couldn't do anything about him. I went for new tyres in Q4 which proved effective at the same time as David made more mistakes I could grab the second round win. With 2 rounds to count out of 4 we were both on 0 points, but I had a 0,6s faster run that handed me TQ! :)

The finals were really set for some close racing. In A-main 1 David got the better of me as I struggled with too many mistakes. Unfortunately for me A-main 2 went down pretty much the same way making David the champion, it was a really close race and I honestly did not think I could ever match the young 8th scale in pace, but I did and it's a great feeling :)

A-main 3 was all about deciding P2 and P3 on the podium as Otto looked to be my rival for P2, we got a clean start and Otto early came through the field and joined me and David at the front making it a 3-way battle for the win. I made a mistake after one minute handing Otto the lead with myself in second and David in third, I got a good run on Otto down the main straight and got the inside through the first couple of turns bumping myself into P1, Otto and David had a really exciting fight for P2 for the rest of the final as I coasted to the win.


An all swedish podium:
1. David Ronnefalk
2. PerErik Nordman
3. Otto Ausfelt



To summarize, I had a great weekend with a lot of fun both on and off track, I feel really encouraged by my pace in 4WD which was a big surprise. 4WD gave quite a preview of what to expect at the Swedish Championships in Stockholm later this summer where Magnus Vässmar and Tommy Bergfeldt will be strong contenders as well. I'd like to thank the team of course for a great weekend along with Mr O Racing for great foams that helped me with this result! :)


I'm part of the Kyosho Sweden team this year which is working really great, Ronnefalks and Daniel are perfect team mates :). I'm looking forward to seeing a little bit more of Mikael Johansson through the remainder of the season though.



That's it for this time, on friday I'm heading for eskilstuna for the first round of the Swedish Cup, some crazy stuff is going on as they haven't ever hosted an electric off road event before, plus they are a bit 'special' so interpretation of the rules is nowhere near what one can imagine, I'm trying my best not to get too upset over it but it's not all that easy. The old saying "you can't win an argument over and idiot" really comes into play in this case.

Cul!

The nordics in Radoy, Norway, is really closing up. Me and Johannes Edrén are leaving on thursday making a brief pit stop in Eskilstuna for tires and some other goods ahead of the race :)

Preparations are well on the way with both cars ready to take on the probably wet astro track, I've reverted most setup changes that I tried at the last practice except for the softer oil in the RB-5 (now running 30wt in the front and 25wt in the rear) which felt like an improvement.

I paid a visit to Kyosho today and picked up the recently released Lazer ZX-5 FS2!


The new bits include a new chassis with closed battery mounts and more space for lipo batteries aswell as the SP2 rear end. Now standard is the alloy rear suspension mounts.


Better get back to my pit table.. kind of organized chaos going on here :)


It's kind of unknown about what kind of internet connection is available at the race, but if there is one, I'll keep you posted :)

Last weekend saw mixed weather conditions which only allowed for practice on friday evening and on sunday, I did get some good running though in the progress of making the cars faster in general and getting used to my new Futaba 4PK radio transmitter.

Setups on all 3 cars are starting to really settle in and lap times were pretty much decided by the conditions of the tires rather than anything else, my driving was quite ok but I still need a little bit more consistency through a 5 minute run. The radio is absolutely fantastic! Such good feel and the response is a lot better than my old 3PK, even though it has worked flawlessly all the time.

On sunday we hade the lap timing equipment all set up so response on setup changes and weather conditions could really be tracked through the day, quite interesting to see how the track temperature affects lap times, you can't really feel it when driving but the lap times changes quite a bit from 20 to 27 degrees in the astroturf.

More practice is coming up this weekend to get 100% prepared for the nordics next week, it feels ok going in to the race but the competition will be really tough as drives such as David Ronnefalk, Mikael Johansson and Robert Gustafsson will also be in attendance.

Practice pictures can be found in the Gallery (see the link in the right side menu). Now I gotta get back to preparing my cars for the weekend, cheers!