TopRC Winter Electro Challenge – Report

The first ever TopRC Winter Electro Challenge took place with 39 competitors in attendance at the indoor race track in Trieste. Saturday started with free practise followed by a “Cash for dash” race which was won by Jan Popič (Xray) in 1/10 Stock 13.5T, Alojzij Osvald (Serpent) in 1/10 Open and Luka Školaris (Serpent) in 1/12 Open. On Sunday a 1 hour free practice was run followed by 3 rounds of qualifying that had Jan Popič taking TQ in 13.5T, Alojzij Osvald in 1/10 Open and Lovro Šušteršič (Xray) in 1/12 Open.

After the lunch break it was time for the main finals. Right from the start it was obvious that the big battle in the 1/10 Stock 13.5T A-main was on between the TQ setter Jan Popič and the young Italian driver Andrea Ghilotti. Jan secured the 1st leg win and he looked like the winner in leg 2 also, but he clipped a corner and had to settle for 2nd place. With one A-final to go Jan and Andrea where tie on points. First Jan was leading the race, but Andrea passed Jan while he was running into trouble while lapping backmarkers with only 2 laps to go. Jan tried a pass on Andrea in the closing stages but failed and so he came in only 0.2 seconds down, handing Andrea the overall win.

1/10 Touring Stock A-main
1. Andrea Ghilotti
2. Jan Popič
3. Denis Fink
4. Stefano Sinopoli
5. Luca Bosa
6. Vladimir Knehtl
7. Robert Simčić

In the 1/10 Open category it was Alojzij Osvald (Serpent) having a race by his own, winning leg 1 and 2 and sitting out the final A-main. Domen Lipnik (Serpent) who was 2nd fastest after qualifying was very fast also, but many mistakes made his race more complicated. By winning the last race he secured the overall 2nd place in the 1/10 Open A-main.

1/10 Touring Open A-main
1. Alojzij Osvald
2. Domen Lipnik
3. Miha Holc
4. Gabriel Benvenuti
5. Luka Školaris
6. Alessandro Freno
7. Goran Vignjevič
8. Roberto de Vecchi
9. Davide Abbrescia
10.Massimo Gratton

Also the 1/12 Open final was going to be an interesting after race 1 winner Luka Školaris (Serpent) ran into a bearing failure in race 2 while leading the race. In the last leg Luka managed to win and this secured his overall win in 1/12 Open A-main.

1/12 Open A-main
1. Luka Školaris
2. Alen Rožič
3. Denis Fink
4. Lovro Šušteršič
5. Domen Lipnik
6. Borut Rožič

Source: TopRC [toprc.eu]