Thrilling Final Leg for the Austrian Nationals

Thomas Mayr and Pro-Line Blockade tires Austrian Champion!

The third and final leg for the Austrian Nationals in 1:8 Off-road was held last weekend at WMW Fehring track – EC-A track for 2012.

The arrangement after the first 2 races was that only 3 drivers can become Austrian champion (Dominic Bauer, Thomas Mayr and Andreas Scharinger). In Qualifying, Dominic Bauer was dominating – winning 3 from 4 rounds – so we had following qualifying result:

1. Dominic Bauer Mugen/Novarossi/Pro-Line Blockade M2

2. Martin Karner Agama/Go/VP-Pro

3. Hupo Hönigl Durango/LRP/Pro-Line Blockade M2

4. Jürgen Trieb Crono/OS/ProCircuit

Thomas Mayr (Mugen/Novarossi/Pro-Line) had problems and became only 7^th after qualifying. The third title candidate, Andreas Scharinger (TLR/Novarossi/Pro-Line) was in the 11^th position.

During lunch break, Hupo Honigl made a complete rebuild of this Durango car putting more weight in the front to correct the steering. Much to his surprise in Semi Final A the car was working perfect and Hupo made a new lap record with 36.582 sec (Pro-Line Blockade M2) and easily won before Dominic Bauer and Thomas Mayr, who both had to run around 5 minutes with electronic problems where sometimes they had no steering in left corners! Slower Semi final B was won by Patrick Schweinzer before Rene Kargl and Martin Karner.

Hupo Honigl should start from pole position for the 45 minute final, but while revving up his LRP motor a few seconds before the start the conrod broke with a big ping – so Dominic Bauer was easily leading the final. Thomas Mayr, starting from position 6, managed to become second by lap 3 and was pushing hard to close the gap on Dominic – both where running at full risk just like in qualifying and at first pit stop it was clear that Dominic had to refuel one time more than Thomas, both were running so fast that they had already lapped the complete field at 25 minutes mark. The lead was only changing during different refuel strategy but Thomas managed to close the gap more and more and got into the lead. Both drivers were fighting hard but fair for the lead and the title! In the end, Dominic had to make his additional refuel 3 minutes before the end – and so Thomas was running save for the last minutes and allowed Dominic to close the gap and became second with 2 seconds back.
1. Thomas Mayr Mugen/Novarossi/Pro-Line Blockade M2 70 45:15.504 36.727

2. Dominic Bauer Mugen/Novarossi/Pro-Line Blockade M2 70 45:17.828 36.773

3. Jürgen Trieb Crono/OS/ProCicuit 69 45:30.781 36.867

Final result for the Austrian championship is same than the day result:

1. Thomas Mayr Mugen/Novarossi/Pro-Line Blockade M2 600 points

2. Dominic Bauer Mugen/Novarossi/Pro-Line Blockade M2 580 points (Austrian Junior champion)

3. Jürgen Trieb Crono/OS/ProCicuit 520 points