Friday, August 10, 2012

Day 4 Report-The Final Day of Qualifying



Day 4 Report-The Final Day of Qualifying

When we should up to the track this morning the first thing we all did was look at the track to see if it was wet or not.  Gratefully, when we looked it was the same as we left it the day before but unlike yesterday the sun was out early and it looked to be a much hotter day.  This was not the case because as soon as I was thinking this, the clouds rolled in again and seemed to be very close to the temps of yesterday.

Today was a bit more intense then the first day of qualifying for me and others on the team as we had such a great day yesterday that we really wanted to keep the moment going.  It was also very close for the TQ going into today with Darren and a couple of other racers.  TQ is not too big of a deal since you still have to race the semifinal to get a spot in the main but it is a great feeling to get the TQ of an event like this.  All things aside Darren and Miguel were both feeling really well this morning and excided to get the fourth and fifth round underway.  It should as Darren came out swinging today with a couple of mistakes in his first run but was able to put down some of the fastest laps of the event to put himself back onto pace in Q4 and again just missing TQ by 1sec. Miguel would also show he was fired up by showing some sheer speed in Q4 when he had a couple of big mistakes that put him back quite a ways but was able to drive his way back to a sixth for the round. 

In Q5 (the final round) Darren would show he is up for the challenge by anyone that wants to bring it by putting down the fastest qualifying time of the event and taking the TQ over the rest of the field by 4sec and securing the overall TQ of the 2012 European Championships with his TLR 8ight EU 2.0.  This was amazing for the TLR team as there has been so much work put into this race.  I was very proud of Alex Zanchettin, Hennrik Nilsson and Hannes Kaufler for all putting in great performances in qualifying putting themselves put there with a chance to make the semifinals.  They did miss out on making the semi’s but have a great chance of bumping their way up to it.  It was truly great watching them perform the way that they did.  I have to give a big shout out to Burak Kilic for doing such a great job at his first ever European Championships.  I know he wanted to do much better this he did.  You will be hearing his name more and more in the future I promise you this.  He is so young and has many more Euros to come in his future.  That’s all for tonight everyone, just wish us luck tomorrow because were bring this championship home!!