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2000 European Championship, G-27 & G-7
Zlin, Czech Republic.

Zlin in the Czec Republic was the host for the G-27 and G-7 European Championships.

Travelling
The raceway was situated in the east corner of CZ and I was close to have a problem finding the place.
In my map I found Zilin but it was about 60 Km further east than I thought. Zilin or Zlin should be, just a matter of spelling in the maps or?
Well, it seems that the town Gottwaldow that existed in my map was Zlin.
When the country Czechoslovakia was divided in two they changed the name of towns and Gottwaldow became Zlin.

I showed the map to "Cahoza" and he said it was correct. He knew since he lives just 60 Km. from there?!

Vlado knew better and explained the changed names for me.

Anders Gustafson and I drove by car from Sweden. We left on Tuesday and took the ferry from Trelleborg to Rostock. It was scheduled to arrive at 03,30 so we set the alarm to 03,00. It was an hour late but we were awake and tired.

Already at 09,30 we were in Dresden and stopped, as usual, at Conrads and I bought myself a small scale that do measures in 0,1-gram steps. My old "0,2 gram" one is for sale now.
Then we ate breakfast, as done before, at our MacDonalds outside Dresden.
We were at the border to CZ at 11,00 but had to wait a long time due to the CZs custom people.

Because of the big bankmeeting in Praha the Police checked all people coming in.
We did not have any nationality "S"-sign on our car, which became a problem. I have to thank the previous owner of my car. In the papers for the car I found an "S" sticker. We were lucky that we didn't have to turn back into Germany and sit in that cue again.

The Finns had the same problem. Luckily for them, Juha had a sticker on his box that he could peel off and put on the car.

The roads are on places very slow due to heavy truck traffic.
For a long time we were stuck behind a truck that had a heavy cargo of apples.

Late in the evening we arrived in Zlin. I was to tired to do any testing so we just talked with some people and then headed for dinner and sleep.

The raceway is the best one I have seen so far. Uden normally stands out as really nice and here we had something similar.
What made it so good was that on the second floor spectators could watch the track and there was also the cafeteria/pub.
Restrooms are often a sorry story but not here. They were shining.

Racing
It was the smallest entry field I have seen in a European Championship but it had, I believe, the best, toughest, starting field for a long time.
Besides the Europeans came three Brazilians. Norba who is the Brazilian Champion. Gugu who was second in the Worlds this year and also second in the U.S. Nats and Jose Serra who were in the main in the Worlds.

In G-27 Vlado won in front of Horky.

I finished sixth and that's okay for me. I wasn't faster than that in G-27 and I am happy that I could reach the main and get valuable testing.

In my second heat I lost a magnet after a crash and had to change motor in the middle of the heat and at the end of the race I had to change tires due to an overheated motor.

G-27 MAIN

G-7 saw a qualifying where Horky did not managed to produce a single lap.

Vlado won with 1,812 lap followed by:
Mario 1,812, Pavel Herman 1,836, Gugu 1,868, Vaclav Sole 1,871, Anders G. 1,901, Norba 1,915, Juha Y. 1,932, Frank M. 1,944, Lasse Å. 1,947.

In the semifinal Vlado had a lot of handling problems and it looked sure that he would miss the main.

Anders sad that it looked bad but if it is possible to catch up than Vlado is the one that can do that and Vlado did that. A strong thing to do.

The main started in a high pace. Mario took the lead followed by Lasse and Vlado.

Vlado took over the lead in the second heat followed by Lasse and Horky. Mario had a problem after a crash with Juha and lost a lot of laps.

Juha suffered a lot of braid/tire problem. In the beginning of the heats, the first laps, he often burned his braid.

The third heat saw Vlado still in the lead followed by Horky and Lasse.

In heat four Vlado lost the lead after a bad red lane. New leader became Horky and he held the lead to the end.

Lasse was now second followed by Mario, Gugu and Vlado. Those three only separated by two laps.

Fifth heat. Horky in the lead. Lasse second and Mario third.

Sixth heat. Mario is now only one lap behind Lasse.

Seventh heat. Lasse took some laps from Mario and is now second seven laps ahead of Mario but with red lane to do.

Eight heat. Lasse faced the braid problem Juha had had during the main. His car ran for about two laps slow but working and the braid had to be changed. After that the car was to stuck and Lasse fell back in the field.

Gugu on a good lane managed to pass Vlado who for a while had third place.

G-7 MAIN Results

The prize ceremony was nice and Jiri Micec and all people that have made this possible got a big applaud.

It was nice to see a nice face in the main. Pforzheims own Frank Mueller made the main in this strong starting field and finished really good. He drove strong and besides a few problems when he had to pit in the middle of the heats it was a good solid race.

When the race was done Anders and me had to pack everything down and hit the road since we had more than 1500 Kilometres to drive. Our first halt came north of Dresden at a 175-DM hotel whose guests often are BASF people.

Next season
Next year the European Championships will, probably, be in Uden. There is a smoking matter that has to be solved first.
In the U.S Nats rules as well as in the E.S.R.O.C rules and Brazilian rules it is stated that no smoking is allowed in the racing room.
In Holland it is said that "everyone" smokes. If it's so than it is a problem to be solved some way.
Udens place is one big room. One year has 365 days. If 362 days could be with smoking and 3 days without smoking there is no problem.

 You can see more result at Zlins website.