Day 5 - Sunday

Picture Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phlim

Well this is the day of semis and main finals. It was fantastic. The weather was great. The racing was keen and dramatic. Once of these days, if I can find enough paid subscribers, I'll rig up a live video streaming service to show the race live online. But, today, that will stay as a dream.

Okay first off, about our very own Mr Tay, he qualified 4th in the 10th scale qualifiers. That means he do not need to race in the semi finals. Tay told me that his best results came from Run 4, where he used his own GQ tires, so for the final, that is what he will use. But Alas, during the final, his radio glitch problems came back to haunt him. He had it in Run 2, but was okay thereafter, so he thought it would be okay, but well, that's racing. Tay finished 6th overall. A very decent effort, especially when he had to fight off his radio glitching for a full 60 minutes. After the final, I found out from him that his radio is already more than 2 years old, I told him that RC fliers gets their radio checked every year, and this was a hugh track.

A few drivers were using the Spektrum DSM modules in the M8s and M11s, they all had no problems. Most common radio brand is Sanwa, followed by Futaba.

10th scale was won by Bertin. He put on a superb performance. He placed his bet on 45 degree tires, so he ran the full hour on 1 set of tires. He started off rather badly, starting postion was 2nd but ended up 8th in lap1, he had about 2 flame outs and I think, the 45 degree tires also means that he has to be careful on the trottle, while all the rest of the drivers were flying around with 37 degree tires. By the 30th minute, Bertin was already caught up to 2nd and was 3 laps behind the leader Iwamoto. Iwamoto had to change his tires and that's where his problem starts. His team took almost 4 laps to complete the tire change and by the time Iwamoto got back onto the track, he was already 1 lap behind Bertin, on top of that Bertin was just 1 straight behind him. His fresh tires were not warm enough - these GP drivers don't seem to believe in tire warmers, so he lost 2 more laps. By then, Bertin's 45 degree tire is running at optimum size and temperature, so he was pacing Iwamoto all the way till the end. So the final reuslts are:

Adrien Bertin, Kyosho, Sirio, 219 laps, 1 hour 0.502 seconds, best lap 15.074s - he is awarded the title of International FEMCA Champion.

Toshiyuki Iwamoto, 215 laps, 1 hour 6.313s, best lap 15.077s - he was awarded the title of 2006 FEMCA Champion.

2nd Tadahiro Ando
3rd Taiwan Chang Chia Chuang
4th Masao Tanaka
5th Qiong Zhi Chen
6th Singapore C. H. Tay
7th Philipine Pancho Clemente
8th Philipine Abello Raffy
9th Taiwan Lee

Abello told me that his name is spanish so the proper pronounciation is "A-bell-yo".

The 8th scale champion is Masao Tanaka. He drowe a brillant race, clocking a fastest lap time of 13.637s. However, it was Kazuya Yuruki that really crack up the taiwan local drivers with his fastest lap time of 13.371s - a new track record for the Titan Speedway. The old record was a 13.4XXs. In the final results:

1st Masao Tanaka (TQ), 243 laps, 1 hour 11.583s
3rd Kazuya Yuruki, 232 laps, 1 hour 11.057s
8th Choi Nak-Sung, 128 laps, 34:58.356
10th Leigh Dytor, 92 laps, 23:02.220

All the rest of the positions were won by Taiwan drivers.

I'll add in the pictures a little later.