The resilience of the EOS “Family” has been proven as competitors from all over Europe and beyond descended onto the single door entrance into the race venue at 7am this morning. A queue developed briefly as each person’s infection status was confirmed – but nobody was waiting more than 30 seconds – testament to how the system can work well with excellent forward planning from the Tonisport team.
As the pit benches filled and the ambient noise level rose there were clearly some high profile drivers missing from their designated tables. Martin Bayer & 4wd World Champ Bruno Coehlo will not be participating along with several of their Xray team mates in this round of the EOS. An incident occurred in a ETS A Main last week which there is an ongoing dispute regarding – the details of which are not common knowledge, so as by-standers we can only hope that it is sorted out without any hard feelings and that Team XRAY return to the series after so many years of featuring at the very top of the time sheets.
Let’s move on to who IS here and who to keep an eye on over the whole weekend:
Lee Martin very nearly didn’t make it here to represent Yokomo after missing a flight yesterday due to an emergency motorway closure – after a total of 14 hours travelling he made it to the hotel late last night.
Xray will be represented very competently by Bartosz Zalewski – this very young driver making big progress over the last few years.
Michal Orlowski and Jorn Neumann head up the Schumacher challenge as usual and are supported by new-boy Riccardo Berton, Wesley van Helmond, and Pekko Iivonen.
Elias Johansson is the top Serpent driver here and in timed practice featured well up in the top 10.
Joona Haatenan, Clement Boda and Jasper Rasmussen are here representing Team Associated. Paul Crompton also driving Associated.
Elliot Boots and Micha Widmaier head up the Sworkz challenge. There 2wd has featured here before at pervious events, so we expect big things. After 2 rounds of timed practice, Micha is has the fastest time over 2 consequtive laps.
And there are several other drivers who can all stick it in the A main on their given day.
On the hunt for news around the pits we can see that Team Associated has adopted a Yokomo style front shock arrangement on their 2wd. There is also a driver in a scarf, the rest of us are in t-shirts. And we also have to mention a top driver who is sporting two now gold earings… sparkle-sparkle!
Thanks the news for now, back later.