39th EUROPEAN G7 WING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP - LAHIA (SF), March 15-16 - IOC RACE

LEO HONGISTO WINS HIS 3RD WING CAR EURONATS

March 17, 2008 - Up to yesterday the following racers won three times the European G7 Wing Car Championship: Bernd Möbus (D) in 1973-1981-1985; Lasse Åberg (S) in 1986-1987-1988; Vladimir Horky (CZ) in 2000-2002-2004 and Juha Yli-Sipola (SF) in 1995-1996-2007. Only Mario "MSP" Schöne (D) won four times: in 1990-1991-1997 -1998. Now we have a fifth racer having won three times the European G7 World Championship. It concerns Finland's Leo Hongisto who won earlier in 1995 and 1996. Shortly after his second win Hongisto quit wing car racing and switched to R/C racing. In 2004 he made his come-back reaching a first summi end 2007 when he won the German Wing Car Masters ahead over Vladimir Horky. Yesterday, on the "slow" Blue King of Lahia in Finland he could beat Horky again, winning his third European Championship.
We found 31 racers at the start, half of them (15) being from Finland. Sweden was present with 6 racers (Lasse Aberg being absent). From the 10 others 2 came from Czechia (Josef Korec being absent), 2 from Germany, 2 from the USA (Skinner and Mack), 1 from Slovakia and 1 from Brazil. Biggest deception was that Mario "MSP" Schöne (D) didn' show at Lahia (whilst at the end of 2007 he was present at the German Wing Car Masters in Brühl). Another important absentee was Petteri Pirhonen (SF).  The poverty of European wing car racing was once more evident at Lahia, since wing car racing remains restricted to Finland, Sweden, Czechia, Germany and Slovakoia. Compared to 25 years ago we lost wing car racers from Holland, from Portugal, from Spain, from Austria, from Switzerland, from France, from Italy and from Norway. We cannot be blind for the anaemia of wing car racing. Earlier this year only six racers showed at the famous Barnburner in the States. Especially in Europe number of Blue King tracks dropped from year to year. Symptomatic for the crisis in wing car racing is that IMCA finds nobody who wishes to receive for free a brand new ultra fast Blue King, even not at Zlin, having closed its doors. The major problem is that a Blue King track needs a large race location, that the rents for such locations are high, and that the number of typical wing car racers in Europe drops from year to year. The success of wing car racing in Finland and Sweden cannot hide that wing car racing is dying in the rest of Europe, where scale racing and model car racing are several times more popular.

Contrarily to previous years we received not the smallest information concerning the European Championships. Indeed organisers preferred to inform ... an American web site but not the most consulted web site in ... Europe: IMCA's. Strange organisers who try to tell the rest of the world that this were only the 30th Wing Car EuroNats in history. As can be seen at our page on earlier results, the Wing Car EuroNats are the oldest in the world, with a first edition in 1970 (whilst the oldest G7 USRA Nats dates from 1971).

26th EUROPEAN G27 WING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP - LAHIA (SF), March 15 - IOC RACE

GOOD OLD VLADO OKALI WINS G27 EURONATS

March 17, 2008 - One can hardly say that the organisers of the ESROC Nats respected the traditional press relations ESROC always had. Results were even not published on their proper web site but exclusively at the OWH. But at the OWH we could only read the names of the 8 first in G27 (even the number of achieved laps or the number of entrants at the ESROC G27 were not published). All we know is that Vlado Okali (SVK) won ahead over Bill W.H. Skinner (USA) and Mikaél Silen (S). Earlier a One Motor Group 7 race with 33 entrants was contested. Here Vladimir Horky (CZ) was the winner ahead over Vlado Okali (SVK) and Mikaél Silén (S). The complete result of the ESROC OMO Race can be found on Paul Kassens's OWH. [JPVR]

32nd AUSTRALIAN G7 WING CAR NATS - DANDENONG, VICTORIA (AU), March 22-23 - IOC RACE

"MISTER TIM" TYLER DOES IT AGAIN!

He wins the best attended Australian Nats of the last 20 years!

April 3, 2008 - After having won the Australian Nats in 2003 and 2006, Tim Tyler finished last year as third to Ivan Wearne. Earlier, in 2005 he was runner-up to Vlado Okali in 2005. In 2004 he finished as runner-up to Geoff Little. In 2002 he was runner-up to Peter Dight. That means that at all entries he finished among the top-3. This year, in the best attended Australian Nats since at least 210 years, he had no ^problem to beat Brazil's Jose Mario Serra and good old Wayne Bramble. The last one is together with Dennis Traeger and Peter Dight one of the icons of Australian wing car racing. Tim Tyler seems on his way to join the famous trio. After the 32nd Australian Nats Tyler is the best ranked Australian racer in the IOC-list. He collected already 131 IOC points (against 168.5 for Wayne Bramble). Tyler is also a good model car racer. At the upcoming IMCA Worlds he can win enough IOC-points to pass Bramble as best IOC-ranked Australian racer.
This year all the best Australian wing car racers, being still active, were at the start. Among them also the 2007 Australian champion Ivan Wearne. Unfortunattely he missed the main final for 33 laps in Semi A. Two other well-known Australian racers - "Stumpy" and Geoff Little - missed the main too. In the main - full of crashes - Tim Tyler had no problems to let Jose Mario Serra nearly 100 laps behind.
At the 32nd Australian Wing Car Nats, the old 1"633 record has been improved by Carl Nielsen, realising a fastest lap in 1"592. No other racers went under the old record. [JPVR]