Team Xray's Bruno Coelho wins at Portuguese Nationals!

0 June 9, 2016, 8:45 p.m.

By Joe Adragna
LiveRC.com

Race results from Team XRAY:
www.teamxray.com

NT1 wins at Portuguese Nationals Round 3

The past weekend the 3rd round of the Portuguese Nationals was held in Maia,Porto, with the presence of the world champion, Bruno Coelho. And my first race with XRAY RX8 2014.

Saturday was a busy day, I wasn’t able to get the right setup, being 2 seconds slower than the normal time on the 1/10, and in the 1/8 I was doing average times. Sunday came and in the morning I was able to do 3rd overall in the 1/10 and get the superpole, in the 1/8 I was 6th place due to some problems on my setup. Bruno TQ both classes.

The evening came, and I made some adjustments on the 1/8, making the car perfect, drooping 0.6 seconds on my regular time, so I passed my 1/8 semifinal starting 4th on the grid, then I jumped straight to the 1/10, there was when my luck started to appear, all went good until the last 15 minutes, after the refuel, my engine flamed out, and got rich, passing to 3rd place, then when I was 1 second behind the 2nd place, my differential broke and I spanned out, losing 1 lap, having no more chances of getting 2nd place, finishing 3rd.

In the 1/8 class the things were different, it started of with me having no battery for the final, because I had the 1/8 semi and right after the 1/10 final, so I wasn’t able to pick the car and charge my battery, I had to ask for 10 minutes and started 11th on the grid, due to the changes I did on my car I started to chase the "big drivers" and when I was 4th, my luck came in, but this time the error was mine, I hit one of the tires and my servo lever broke and I had 4 laps in advance of the 5th, but the laps wasn’t enough to race again so I had to give up.

Bruno:

“This weekend happened the 3rd Round of Portuguese nationals 1/10 and 1/8 Nitro. It happened in Maia north of Portugal and the weather was perfect. The first race of the year without rain was very good with a great atmosphere between drivers. In the qualification everything was good for me and I made TQ in both classes. In the finals I was able to finish in 1st position in 1/10 class with 6 laps ahead to the second driver, my car was great all the time. In 1/8 all was different, starting first and with a strong driver Hugo Exposto behind forcing me to push harder and overtaking me at the 11th minute by my mistake, than start the real problem for me, my second gear broke after I had a crash with stopped car on the track pushing me to the 5th position, until the end I pushed hard to finish in the best position possible and I was able to finish in second.”

Final Results:

1/8 Class:

1st José Félix

2nd Bruno Coelho- XRAY RX8 2016

3rd Hugo Exposto

4rd Paulo Mota

5th António Guedes

6th Nuno almeida

7th Jorge Azinheira

8th Pedro Silva

9th Carlos Manuel- XRAY RX8 2014

10th Nuno Silva