Hockenheim…….
We came to Germany and Hockenheim with high expectations, the weather where supposed to be sunny, no rain in sight. Some rumors regarding the track started to circulate on our way to the track, that they had some kind of a race one week ago…and there was no traction…we just ignored it, as we always do with other peoples opinions regarding a track. As our mentor tells us.. Just stay coo l boys….and we did….
When we had installed us in the prostock pit, we went up to look at the track, so we could start to tune the car. This was Wednesday night. It was no rubber on the track, no shiny, sticky surface that we just love racing on, only plain asphalt with loads of trackbite on it. As the beginners in prostock we are, and the trackpreparation boys we dont are, we just thougt that they would drag some slicks on the track, and that they had a plan regarding getting the track ready for a championship event. We went back Thursday morning, and no still no activity on the track. Now we are starting to be concerned…. Why are they painting checkerflags on the startingarea instead of dragging slicks on the track. The rumors and answer was simple…they didn’t have any slicks to use.
The problem with the track was that due to safety regulations to the FIA Formula one race, they needed to sandblaster the whole track, and then they cleaned it so througly that the binding in the asphalt disappeared. This seemed to destroy the whole surface, and the rubber couldn’t stick to the asphalt. This should have been noticed and taking care of a long time ago if they had a plan, we don’t think that they had.
There was no qualifications on Friday, canceled by the hockenheim staff. On Saturday it was planned to be 3 qualification rounds in FIA car classes, but most of the teams only went out once just to get a approved qualification round. We had some problems in the first 2 rounds mainly cause of the track condition, we have never driven our car on a surface like this, and both the driver and crew didn’t really know to handle the situation, and when we broke every golden rule in dragracing, to do the same procedure every time…but on this track that didn’t work…it ended up with a 9,90s and 275km/h (this was topspeed in prostock this weekend) in the third run, that took us to 3d place in the qualification. On the evening they canceled the elimination rounds for the Sunday, and the race for us where over.
Leaving Hockenheim as poinleader and gained 3 points against Jimmy is nice…but not to race for the points take the edge of that little happiness. This weekend sucked bigtime, For all racers and crew who spend a lot of time, effort and money to go to this poorly arranged championship event….it sucked bigtime for all our fans and the 50 000 people that where on the grandstands. The thing that we are most disappointed at is the lack of interest from the Hockenheim staff…No info what so ever during the whole weekend. This is truly the worst event we ever been at. We hope that they, and all the teams, and all the organisations that is involved in this maybe can learn something.
Been there done that.