Team Shepherd Report from the EFRA 1:8 Euro B
Last week, the European Championship B for 1:8 scale took place at AMC Hildesheim in Germany. From Monday onwards, Team Shepherd was at the track to support all Velox drivers attending the event, among them local hero Lars Hoppe and young racer Maxi Vogl both from the German Shepherd Team.
During practice, both Hoppe and Vogl showed strong pace battling for the fastest lap times with Serpent’s experienced Andreas Giesa and young Italian Mirko Salemi racing an Mugen MRX-4. In qualifying, the Shepherd drivers could be found at the top of the list with his Novarossi-powered Velox V8 “eleven” Hoppe claimed the TQ spot in front of Giesa and Salemi. Vogl had some bad luck lapping slower cars, but managed the set the fifth fastest time behind Toni Gruber in fourth place. With Jürg Nydegger and Andy Geisser from Switzerland, two other Shepherd drivers qualified directly for the semi final in ninth and 11th places respectively. A little bit unlucky was Velox racer Timo Schröder who missed the semi by only 0.12 of a second in 15th place.As decided by EFRA, the lower finals were run on the Saturday. Timo Schröder had a good run in the quarter final A and bumped up into the semi A where he joined team mates Hoppe, Vogl, Nydegger and Geisser. From the start of the semi final, it was a battle between Hoppe and Salemi for the lead. But as nobody wanted to risk a broken car, both drove very carefully with Hoppe winning the semi final in front of Salemi, Püpke and Hepp. As the semi final A was much faster than the semi B, Nydegger in fifth and Schröder in sixth advanced to the final. Unfortunately, Vogl had a broken rim after a few laps and couldn’t make up the time to have a chance to reach the final. The drivers bumping up from the semi B were Niklas Johannson, Mattia Pesenti, Merlin Depta and Jens Stark while Andreas Giesa had to retire because of technical problems.
With three Shepherd cars in the final and the TQ of Hoppe, it was already a good result for Team Shepherd, but of course the ultimate goal was the victory. Everybody was excited to watch the battle between Hoppe and Salemi. The 45-minute final saw a clean start with Hoppe defending the lead in front of Salemi. But in lap five bad luck struck Team Shepherd when the battery lead of Hoppe’s car became disconnected and he rolled into the grass. The marshal placed the car back on the track, but with no electricity there was nothing Hoppe could do. Unfortunately Schröder hit the stranded Velox at full speed and destroyed his front end. Hoppe’s pit crew consisting of Shepherd team leader Patrick Schäfer and top factory driver Daniele Ielasi repaired his car, but being ten laps down on the leader, the chance on the win was gone. Mirko Salemi never looked back and crossed the finishing line in first position. Starting from fifth place, Shepherd’s Jürg Nydegger showed an excellent performance and managed to take the runner-up spot in front of Mattia Pesenti in third place. Pole man Lars Hoppe recovered a little bit and finished in sixth place while Timo Schröder in tenth was crowned the European Junior Champion.
The full results can be found here.
Source: Shepherd Racing
