14th WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 124 MODEL CAR RACING

UDEN, AUGUST 26, 2004 (NL)

Nick de Wachter beats Welter jr & 'Piki'

4 Philip de Vries cars in Main - 5 Yougsters in Main

September 2 - At the 14th 124 Model Car Worlds, contested at the MRTU Blue King in Uden (NL), 28 racers were allowed to start: 15 experts, 7 youngsters (the 7 best at the Mello Yello) and 6 amateurs (the 6 best at the Amateurs Worlds). Of the Brazilians, Australians, Americans and Kiwis only one - Chris Radisich - was qualified to start. Paul 'Split' Heath, Kieran Dale and John Emmons all failed. Of the 10 American wing car racers, not one tried to qualify. The Brazilians preferred to go to the Belgian F1 Grand Prix at Spa instead of entering. The Aussies all went home without try. Eventually the following nations were represented at the start: Belgium with 6 racers, Holland with 6 racers, Spain with 3 racers, Sweden with 3 racers, Finland with 2 racers, Czechia with 2 racers, Italy with 2 racers, Denmark with 1 racer, Switzerland with 1 racer, New Zealand with 1 racer and England with 1 racer.
Already after the qualifications it became obvious that none of the 5 cars prepaired by the Dutch wizzard Philip de Vries should be able to compete with the hyperfast Ford Motorcraft of young Nick de Wachter - a former disciple od De Vries. Indeed with a fastest lap in 7"819 and having plenty of reserves, only Yves Welter jr and his Ford Rubbermaid Sharpies (7"825) seemed able to follow. 'Piki' van Rossem - the defending world champion - was already 1/10th of a second slower. However on such an easy track as the Blue King, where deslotting is rather exceptional - a lack of speed cannot be undone. The conclusion was that the De Vries cars were not so exceptional as last year. With a car prepaired by Francesc Reyes, Salvatore Noviello (I) realised nearly the same time as 'Piki' with a De Vries car.

Eventually 4 cars were free from contesting the Consis: those of Nick de Wachter, Yves Welter jr, 'Piki' van Rossem and Tamar Nelwan - thus 2 De Vries cars and 2 Hot Slot cars.
At the Consis we lost the 3 Swedes (Gustafson, Törnfeldt and Landrud), but also the lonely Briton (Kimber), one of the Italians (Malangone), one of the Spaniards (Reyes: with bent rear axle!), the lonely Kiwi (Radisich), the no longer motivated JPVR, the amateur's world champion (Inäbnit), a Dutch amateur (Reijerkerk) and as biggest surprise the IOC #1 Vladimir Horky. Of the 16 semi-finalists 6 were driving a Dodge, 7 a Chevrolet and 3 a Ford. Of them 5 were mounted on a Momo chassis (Noviello, Korec, M. Garcia, E. Fyhr, Gonzalez), 11 on the antique PlaFit chassis.
At the Semis a very tired Tamar Nelwan made a driving error and decided to retire his Chevrolet Valvoline. That means that only 1 of the 4 Hot Slot cars (De Wachter, Nelwan, Inäbnit and Gilles Dohogne) remained in competition: De Wachter's.
Biggest surprise of the Semis was the non-qualification of Josef Korec, the #2 IOC-racer. In a thrilling Semi B he had to fight during no less than the 3 last segments with young Youri van Rossem (having already made the main of last year's IMCA 124 Worlds). Although the difference between both cars was never more than a complete lap, Youri resisted the continuous attacks of the Czech ace. Eliminated too were Einari Fyhr (SF) and Yannick Demeyer (B, last year still 3rd).
Eventually the 8 qualified racers were Nick de Wachter (NL), Dennis Vogel (NL), Geert Mertens (B), 'Piki' (B), Youri (B), Welter jr (B), Salvatore Noviello (I) and the surprising young Marc Garcia (E).

So we had a final with 4 Belgian racers (all with a De Vries car), with 2 Dutch racers, with one Italian and with one Spaniard. For the first time since years no Czech reached the main. Of the 8 finalists only 2 were on MoMo (Noviello and Garcia), all others on PlaFit.
During the first segment the #9 Dodge Power Days of Salva-tore Noviello was setting the pace, closely followed by the Ford Motorcraft of Nick de Wachter. Then followed 3 cars in group, those of Dennis Vogel, Yves Welter sr and 'Piki', having all problems to follow the pace. Towards the end of the first segment De Wachter could pass Noviello to take over the lead.
At the 3 following segments De Wachter and Vogel were pulling away from the rest of the field. Here Noviello was passed by Yves Welter jr and 'Piki'. At mid-race De Wachter had 1 lap over Vogel, more than 2 over Welter and 'Piki', even 3 over Noviello. At 4 laps Youri, Mertens and Garcia were struggling in that order for the 6th place.
Since Nick de Wachter was driving his #21 Ford Motorcraft faultless, the others saw no chance to reduce their arrears. Meanwhile Welter and 'Piki' were involved in a very close combat for third place, racing during 2 complete segments nose to tail. On doing so they could unlap themselves from Dennis Vogel. At the end of the 7th segment we found the 3 cars within less than one metre, already 4 complete laps behind a souvereign Nick de Wachter.
Those positions were maintained during the complete 7th segment with turn by turn 'Piki' or Welter sr in second position. At the start of the last segment the too nervous Dennis Vogel deslotted a couple of times so that he was no longer contender for the second place. On red 'Piki' had problems to keep up with Welter who finished as runner-up, 5 laps behind the new world champion Nick de Wachter. The De Vries cars finished as 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th. At the real final stages of the race Mertens could pass Youri for the 6th place.

2nd WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 132 MODEL CAR RACING

AALST, AUGUST 27, 2004 (B)

Nick de Wachter beats Noviello & Korec

Moral winner Piki misses main due to avoidable braids bothers

September 2 - Contested for the second time in history - despite the fact that the patent on a 1/32nd Model Car World Championship exists since 1985 - the 132 Worlds went, just as last year, with handout NSR-TSRF chassis and 1/32nd scale DTM bodies. Two hours before the race the 34 entrants received all a NSR-TSRF kit. All they had to do was to assemble it, to fix the body, and to race.
Among the 34 entrants we noted 6 from Belgium, 4 from Czechia and Denmark, 3 from Spain, New Zealand,England and Holland, 2 from Italy, Germany and Finland, 1 from Sweden and the USA.
Fastest car at the qualifications was the Opel Vectra V8 of Salvatore Noviello (I) in 5"655, immediately followed by the Warsreiner Mercedes CLK-DTM of 'Piki' van Rossem (B) in 5"669, by the Original Teile Mercedes CLK-DM of Salvatore Malangone (I) in 5"710 and by the Audi TT-R of Einari Fyhr (SF) in 5"734. Those 4 made immediately the move to the Semi Finals. The 30 others had to go to the 6 x 3' Consis, where only the 8 best were qualified for those Semis.  Marc Garcia (E) and country mate Francesc Reyes (E) missed the move for a couple of inches. Yves Welter jr (B), Chris Radisich (NZ) and Martin Borch (DK) came one lap short. Surprisingly Vladimir Horky (CZ) came 2 laps short. Of all other eliminated racers only three caused a surprise. Matthias Parke (D) was expected to finish better than 22nd; Gilles Dohogne had once more bad luck when he had no braids contact so that he lost 50 laps in the pits; and of Youri van Rossem everybody knows that he hates this lilliputter cars, so that he did not the smallest effort to score at least a decent result. Among the other eliminated racers we found also Kieran Dale (NZ), last year still 8th at the similar race.