Joel Valander of Team EuroRC sweeps Model Expo

Last weekend (11-12.4.2015) the last race of the Finnish National 1/10th off-road series Winterjumps was held. The race took place in the yearly Model Expo fair. Combined with all the expos there was over 40k people visiting the fair center which is always a great place to show our exciting hobby to new people.

Team EuroRC was naturally on site and having enormous success during the weekend. Especially with the junior members stepping it up a notch. On Saturday the 2wd class was raced and the 4wd on Sunday. Both classes had 40 signups with all the fastest drivers attending.The race was held on concrete with carpet on the jumps. The track was quite slippery.

Picture credit: PKSRCA Ry

Saturday 2wd:

the format of the day was 2 warmup heats 3 qualifiers and 3 finals.

Joel Valander controls the qualifiers and secures a TQ after 2 Qualifiers by being fastest in both. Team mate Lari Jäppinen starts second from the grid as he took home the third qualifier just before rival Joona Haatanen. In total there is 6 (out of 10) Team EuroRC drivers in the A-final.

In the first final Joel leads to the very last minute. However there is plenty of traffic ahead of him and not enough communication from the race control. A couple of bad collisions and Joel drops to third when Joona drives to victory with Lari coming in second.

In the second final the race control keeps everyone informed and Joel is making sure not to make the same mistake again. He is able to cruise to a relatively easy victory 5 seconds ahead of team mate Lari who is second and Joona comes in as third.

Everything is open in the third final where Joona gets a lead in the start. After some battle for positions Joel comes in as the winner as Joona has to retire. Junior driver Tuomo Otsavaara who has been having a great day picks up second place in the final.

Final standings 2wd
Joel Valander (Team EuroRC, Yokomo)
Joona Haatanen (Associated)
Lari Jäppinen (Team EuroRC, Yokomo)
Tuomo Otsavaara (Team EuroRC, Yokomo)
Markku Honkanen (Durango)
Juha Aromaa (Team EuroRC, Yokomo)
Touko Silpola (Associated)
Jani Hovi (Team EuroRC, Yokomo)
Jarmo Halme (Associated)
Tomi Mairue (Team EuroRC, TeamC)

Sunday 4wd:

For 4wd the race format was the same 2 practice heats, 3 qualifiers and 3 finals. Joel had a great day and he showed that the win on Saturday was no fluke.

Ari Heinonen was the only one able to keep up with Joel’s pace in 4wd. They split the wins for the 2 first qualifiers but Joel is the fastest in the last one and picks up the TQ.

The finals where super intense as Joel was leading tone to tone in the first final but keeping his cool with Ari pressuring him for the whole 5minutes. Joel has been racing plenty of ETS races and it surely shows as the youngster is able to drive stone cold just like the Iceman while keeping an insane speed.

Well not even Joel is perfect and a small error in the second final puts him back a couple of spots but he is able to finish second.

For the third final everything is open and there is 3 drivers contending for the win. Joel makes a valiant effort to win the race but is unable to take the checkered flag before Ari. Ari however finished after Joel in the 2 first finals so Joel’s first final result wins the tiebreakers and secures him the win.

Final standings:
Joel Valander (Team EuroRC, Yokomo)
Ari Heinonen (Durango)
Markku Honkanen (Durango)
Juho Rajaniemi (Durango)
Joona Haatanen (Associated)
Karri Salmela (Associated)
Lauri Ruotsalainen (Durango)
Jarno Halonen (Hotbodies)
Juha Aromaa (Team EuroRC, Yokomo)
Antti Silvennoinen (Team EuroRC, Yokomo)

Congratulations to Joel for sweeping the last race of the Winterjumps series and doing it in style with TQ and win in both classes. We asked Joel about his feelings on Monday the day after the race and this is what he had to say about the race: “ I had a great weekend racing close races with Joona Haatanen and Ari Heinonen. I had plenty of preparation for the race and the cars were dialed and easy to drive on the slippery surface. With the cars feeling so good I was able to just focus on driving my best from the first heat on. Special thanks to my main sponsor EuroRC for making it possible.”

Additional pictures:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.82353898...

Complete results:

http://www.myrcm.ch/myrcm/report/en/19993/147853
http://www.myrcm.ch/myrcm/report/en/19993/147851