The 2016 European Championships where held in Valladolid, Spain. It was a dirt track and the jumps where covered by astroturf. After the warm up race the club removed the stone parts of the track and filled it with dirt. It made the track much better for 1/10Electric racing then before.

Monday started with 7 Rounds of free practice. My Team Orion powered Serpent was great and only needed some small tweaks due the hot tempratures, after practice I was 2nd. Tuesday were another 2 Rounds of controlled practice and 3 Rounds of qualifying. I was able to TQ the 1st Round, 2nd in Round 2 and another TQ in the 3rd Round. That gave me the overnight TQ going into the finals day on wednesday. I could TQ the 4th Round, but Neil Cragg got the 5th Round and was 0.1sec faster then my time and I was only 2nd Overall.

The finals. A1 I had a good start but, 3rd place driver tried to pass me but we crashed. I fall back to 3rd, but worked my way back up to 2nd.

A2 This time I was very close to Neil after the start and I could follow him around closly until he made a mistake over the triple, which gave me the lead. I never looked back and took the leg victory.

A3 The deciding leg. A clean start and I was again close at Neil´s back, I tried to follow him again. After the bridge, I had slighlty more speed, but it was no room to try a pass on Neil, so I decided to brake harder that we not crash, but unfortunately I braked to hard and spun out. After that I had no chance to take the win anymore. Overall I finished 2nd place in 2WD with the new version Serpent Spyder SRX2.

4WD again 7 Rounds of free practice. My car was very good for a 5min run. Overall after practice where the best 2 laps counted I was 5th. Going into qualifying on Friday I was very confident with my hole package. In Round 1 I got a 2nd place, Round 2 a 5th place and 4th in Round 3. Overall I was 3rd after 3 Rounds. 

I had more pace in my package then this, but always small issues held me back.

On Saturday, the day started out good with a 2nd place in Round 4 and a 3rd in Round 5. Overall I stayed in 3rd place.

A1 I should started in 3rd, but as the others had issues before the start 3rd was actually the TQ spot. I was able to build a gap to the others over the first couple laps and take the win.

A2 I had a few small mistakes over the run and finished 2nd place. Which already secured a podium spot.

A3 I knew I needed to win this final to take the Overall victory. I had a very good start and could pass Neil on the second corner. After that I was right at the back of Bruno for a coupe of laps until I passed him on the inside before the chicane. Bruno made an error and fall back to 4th. I had a 3 seconds lead over Neil with 2 min to go. I knew I just need to keep it on the wheels and I would take the 4WD European Title. That was exactly what happend and I was crowned the new 4WD European Champion after coming so close in 2WD.   My Serpent Spyder SDX4  shaftdrive production prototype worked very well !!  

Thanks to all my Sponsors, without their support it wouldnt be possible to archieve such great results.

Serpent (Cars)

Team Orion (Speedo, Motor, batteries)

Proline (Tires)

K-Power (Servos)

Arrowmax (Best looking tools)

Muchmore (accessoires) 

Stickit1 (shirts and decals)

WTF (cooling fan´s)

Maxima

2-Speed

In the weekend of 23/24 July we’ve had the Benelux+ race at the beautiful track of MAC de Baanbrekers in Rucphen (NL). Looking at the weather forecasts it was going to be a sunny and hot weekend.

The track was already open on Friday for some free practise. Practise was used by a good number of drivers! This year I drove in the F1 class. Good number of entries with 25 people showing up to race. This class was raced with 21.5turns blinky. Race was on Ride tyres and we all had 1 set to race on for the whole race.

On the Saturday we had 1heat of practise and thereafter there was a reseating for the qualifications.

I could manage to get P5 after the practise so I could start with the top 10 in qualifying.  There were 4 rounds of qualifying planned on the Saturday.  Steve managed to get a P1 in the first 3 rounds of the qualification. Patrick was on a solid P2 with 3 P2 runs. I was on a nice P4 with 3x P4. In Q4 Steve sat out. Patrick would take P1 and I could get a P2. That meant that I was only 1 point behind the number 3.

On Sunday we would have 1 more round of qualifying and then 3 finals with best 2 count.

In the last round of qualifying Patrick and Steve both sat out. Because of that I had an opportunity to take P1 in qualifying and I did. So after qualifications it was Serpent on P1,2 and 3! Serpent top3.

In the finals it was clear that we 3 could drive away from the rest of the field. It was a nice fight between Steve, Patrick and me for the first 3 spots. In Final 1 Patrick and Steve unlucky got in touch with each other and I could drive away from them. That would result in a P1 for me in the first final. Steve came in 2^nd and Patrick 4^th.

Final2 we had a great start and we could drive away from the field. It was a nice battle first between Patrick and Steve and in the last part of the final I had a nice battle with Patrick. We came in as we started. Steve on P1 and Patrick in 2^ndand myself in 3^rd.

Final3 we started again very nice. Resulting in pulling a little bit away from the rest of the field. Early way in the final Steve had a problem and got out of the track. Patrick would take over the lead in the final. Half way the final I got passed Patrick and we would have a nice battle till the end. Resulting in myself P1 and Patrick 2^nd this final.

Overall I was on P1!  Steve would get P2 and Patrick P3. That means a whole Serpent podium! Car was working great and the fastest this weekend! Thanks to Serpent for that great car!

Also big thanks to the whole organisation for this very nice race!

Serpent 748 1st and 2nd at round 1 of Dutch Nationals
The first round of the Dutch National championship was held at the famous Heemstede track. A track where setup is always a compromise between the high speed section and the twisty infield. This year a new spec tire was selected and on Saturday all racers were searching for a good setup.
Come Sunday a lot of the hard work would prove of little worth as we had 4 seasons in a day! We were treated to rain, wet snow, hail, sunshine in differing combinations. In the end only the wet qualifications would count as not all drivers had been able to run on a completely dry track. It would be Daan Jacobs that claimed the TQ. Julius Kolff almost missed the final but scraped through on 9th position.
The finals at the Dutch nationals are of the ABC type but run as 2 separate 20 minute runs that are added up for the final result. The first final series would be dry, and everyone franticly reset their cars to dry setup. As a lot of the grip had washed away everyone was a bit in the dark with tire wear and that would lead to differing performances throughout the field.
Daan Jacobs would lead away from pole closely followed by Pedro Rombouts who had been very quick on Saturday practice. Julius had made a great start and slotted in third after the first lap. Slowly Daan and Pedro pulled away in the first 5 minutes. Then Pedro took over the lead. After the halfway mark Pedro lost a little speed and Daan was able to retake the lead. Julius would get quicker as the final went on and had an intense battle with Pedro for the last 7 minutes, in the end picking up 2nd spot.
About 10 minutes before the start of the 2nd A main a big shower hit the track. Although the rain stopped and the sun came out the track would be wet and drying for the second A main. Everyone started on rain tires. The drying track would catch many driver out as the conditions changed every lap. Again it was Daan that took the lead at first, but was caught by Roy Bakker who was really quick in the wet. After an incident at the first lap Julius had to work his way back up to the front. When Roy crashed out due to water in the receiver, it was Daan and Julius back in front. Julius found some extra pace and started to close on Daan. Daan suspected a tire was coming loose on the straight and had to give up the lead. Julius would win final number 2 with Daan second and Milan Holthuis in third.
After the results of the two finals were added up it would be Dan Jacobs that took the overall win, with Julius only 0.9 seconds behind in third. Pedro Rombouts would take 3rd for the day.
All-in all a perfect start for team Serpent, where we showed our pace in dry and wet conditions. Onward to the next race in Genk on the last weekend of May!

The 3rd round of Indonesian 1/10 GP National Championship was held at SIS Track. Grip was medium due to sugared water result by the 

organizer by the beginning of the day. At the end of qualifying, my REX Legend .12R powered Serpent secured the TQ spot, scored a 25 laps

@ 7.08 in front of Muhammad Izzah with 24 laps @ 7.05. Christian Mamesah lined up 3rd, just 0,4 secs behind Izzah. 

Unfortunately, just 30 minutes before the A main final run, rain poured heavily which means the end of the raceday by the mother nature, final result was taken by the

qualifying result.

1/10 GP A Main result (Top 5) :

1. Bowie Ginting (Serpent 748 Natrix TQ)

2. Muhammad Izzah

3. Christian Mamesah (Serpent 748 Natrix TQ)

4. Haryo

5. Fayakhun Andriadi

The 2016 Pacific Cup was held this past weekend. The fast track offered high speed sweepers, a wide open chicane and a couple of hairpins, making it tricky to find the best setup in order to go fast but not destroy the tyres, specially in the GT class. The schedule was pretty straight forward with practice on Friday, qualifiers on Saturday and finals on Sunday. In the GT class the race was on between Fabrizio Martello and Paolo Morganti, the later having some setup issues during the qualifiers so Paolo had to go through the semifinal which gave him some extra time to work on the adjustments. Both ran 1-2 in the opening stages of the main final until Fabrizio ran into some problems. This gave Paolo the lead and the ability to focus on build an advantage and at the same time save as much tyre as possible. The strategy paid off and after a trouble free one hour final, Paolo was able to take the win from Fabrizio Martello in second and Rino Lino in third.