Schäfer And Weihert Win In Wiesbaden
The last weekend saw the first German Championship Central Qualifier of 2010 which was held at the nice track of Wiesbaden where the European Championship B will take place in 2011. The race attracted 45 drivers in total, among them were Shepherd factory driver Oliver Mack and Shepherd front man Patrick Schäfer. Both were starting in the 1:8 scale expert class as well as the 1:10 scale 200mm class.
The Saturday was sunny and the track was open for free practice. In the 1:10 class reigning European Champion Dirk Wischnewski had the fastest lap times, Schäfer and Mack followed about 0.2 sec down. In the 1:8 scale expert class it was clear from the beginning that Schäfer and Mack were fighting for the victory.
Unfortunately on Sunday morning rain arrived at the track and all the qualifying rounds were run on a wet track. Because of the bad weather many drivers decided not to start so only in the amateur class a semi-final was needed. The first race after the lunch break was the 1:8 scale expert final. Already during the warm-up Oliver noticed some technical problems and right after the start he had to enter the pits for a short repair. Patrick Schäfer took the lead and never looked back. With an impressive gap of 6 laps he won in front of his Shepherd/Novarossi team-mate Peter Poldvere, Sascha Sanchez took third place.
The next final was the 1:10 200mm class final. Wischnewski took over the early lead and increased the gap constantly. Schäfer and Mack had a bad start and had to catch up some time but unfortunately both were hit by technical problems. Oliver had to retire, Patrick joined back in fourth position, but he lost to much time to get back to the front. Dirk won the race one lap in front of Patrick Gassauer and German Vice-Champion Simon Balk.
The last race of the day was the final of the 1:8 scale amateur class. Leading from the start to the end it was Oliver Mack’s mechanic Armin Weihert taking the victory with his Novarossi powered Velox V8 in front of Patrick Schuster and Martin Holdermann who was also using the powerful Velox/Novarossi combination.
Source: Team Shepherd
