Lasse's slotpage

by Lasse Åberg

RL Nats, Mönsterås, Sweden, May 24-26 2001.

The annual RL Nats, hosted by Team21 and Rolf Lundberg, were held in Mönsterås, and as often before, with Andy Wasserman as race director.

Andy Wasserman counting bills.

Thursday

The racing started on Thursday evening with a G-7 warm-up race.

Lasse Åberg won the qualifying after good results in both rounds, 1,849 and was by that directly moved to the main.
After two semis we saw familiar names in the main. Stefan Törnfeldt and Lasse Åberg started well in a close race. There were the normal crashes and ill handling cars that can be found early in a race weekend.
Stefan Törnfeldt drove well and was not really challenged for the lead. Behind him the drivers moved up and down in order.
Before the last heat Stefan looked certain to win with Mikael Landrud in second place. Juha's third place was not that secure and he fought a close battle with Lasse until the end. Lasse got third place one lap ahead of Juha Yli-Sipola.

1. Stefan Törnfeldt 535
2. Mikael Landrud 523
3. Lasse Åberg 518
4. Juha Yli-Sipola 517
5. Marko Pirinen 450
6. Per Persson 273
7. Anders Gustafson 133
8. Kimmo Rautama 25

Friday

Friday saw a new race for the RL Nat's weekend. A G-7 one motor race was introduced.
One motor meant one motor for the semi-final and another for the those who drove the main.
Regular glue was used and Andy took close looks so that no one cheated.

In the semi Stefan Törnfeldt run into problem but stormed back showing what sort of pace he could drive with one motor.

In the main he kept that pace and raced home to a convincing win.
Henric Carlsson drove to a good second place followed by Lasse Åberg in third place.

1. Stefan Törnfeldt 533
2. Henric Carlsson 497
3. Lasse Åberg 481
4. Daniel Nylund 464
5. Pekka Sippola 451
6. Anders Gustafson 367
7. Mikael Landrud 358
8. Marko Pirinen 316

Sture Carlsson, mechanic, and Henric Carlsson, driver.

This introduction with a one motor race was not that bad. What could be bad is if someone is unlucky, let's say very early in a race and knocks a magnet out and can't race anymore.
Maybe a race like this would allow one "spare" motor that you have to leave to the race director and if you need to use it you either have to change motor during the race or have a laps deducted if you use the spare.
I could imagine that a 30 lap deduction would prevent racers from misusing this spare but allow people to at least be able to compete to the end.
Anyhow something that is worth thinking about for the future.

Qualifying

Qualifying in G-27 was faster than normal and it was close that the 2 second barrier had been broken. Robert Karlsson won the qualifying with a 2.01 time.

There were even drivers here in G-27 that were faster than some G-7 drivers.

In G-7 Anders Gustafson drove a 1.818. Lasse Åberg managed to do the exact time to the thousands of a second.

In the bye round Juha Yli-Sipola drove a 1.759 and even that both Lasse Åberg and Stefan Törnfeldt bettered their times and drove below 1.80 they could not reach Juha.