Mack and Weihert Win R2 of Central German 1:8 Champs

Last weekend, the second round of the Central German 1:8 Scale Championship was held at the MSC Kirchhain track, some 100km north of Frankfurt. It was a good weekend for Team Shepherd as they took the double with wins in the expert as well as in the amateur class. Qualifying in the morning was dry, while rain showers effected the finals in the afternoon. For the Expert final the weather changed quickly with the sun out again and the track dried for the start of the Expert final. From the beginning of the 30-minute final, it was a close battle between the Shepherd factory driver Oliver Mack and team leader Patrick Schäfer with the advantage slightly on Schäfer’s side as he planned to do one pit stop less both using the new Novarossi Flash .21PTS engine. By the middle of the race, Schäfer had a lead of nearly one lap but than he collided with a backmarker and damaged his body. The repair took a while and Mack passed him for the lead. Schäfer tried to close the gap on Mack, but another collision in the pitlane ended all hopes for the victory. Mack took the victory two laps in front of Schäfer with Jörg Wäldle finishing third another five laps down although he was out fuel two laps before the end of the race.

At the start of the 30-minute Amateur final, the track was dry but after ten minutes of racing it started to rain again. The running order at that time was Alex Mehl followed by the Shepherd/Novarossi duo of Armin Weihert and Florian Wagner. Weihert was the first one to change to rain tyres and took over the lead quickly. Also Florian Wagner changed to rain tyres, but he couldn’t close the gap to Weihert so he decided to retire after some minutes as all other finalists except Weihert had already stopped when the rain had started. For the rest of the final, Armin Weihert cruised to an unchallenged victory, Florian Wagner took second in front of Alex Mehl on third.

Source: Shepherd Micro Racing