Robin d’Hondt wins Dutch 2nd round

Round 2 of the Dutch 1/8th scale nationals was held last weekend on the fast MAC de Baanbrekers track in Rucphen, and fast it was, on the Saturday the fast guys like Van Gastel, d’Hondt, Ermen and Rick V were driving laps under 13.0 seconds giving an example how the competition will be. On Sunday it was dry but the track was still a bit slippery at some points because of the rain the night before which caused a lot of braking problems and one or two serious crashes and the track was for sure not as fast as on Saturday.

In the NK class it was Ilia v. Gastel that took the pole position with 32 laps in 7:04 and an average lap time of 13.25 sec. He was followed by Robin d’Hondt, John Ermen and Rick V. In the final Ilia and Robin were up front and showed some very close racing changing the lead many times. A small distance behind was John Ermen en RickV, who were fighting for the 3rd place. Ilia changed tires at half time and Robin some minutes later and still both were on the lead. Rick V could hold the 3rd place because John had some small problems. Rick also lost some time due to a thirsty engine, a 3.5 minute pit stop was too critical so he had to swap to a 3 minute pits top. Robin d’Hondt finally took the race win followed by v. Gastel just 0.35 seconds behind and with a 2 lap gap back to Rick V in the 3rd spot.

In the NOMAC it was Belgium driver Tom Smolderen taking the pole followed by Remo Franssen, Glen v. Oversteeg and last year Promo winner Luigi Pili. In the final Tom had a clean start and was leading all the way. He won the race with 6 laps ahead of Stanley Bauer and on the 3rd place Richard Engbersen who claimed his first ever national podium.

Thanks to Roelof Tooms for the report.