A Backmarker’s View of the ISRA Worlds 2013, Kiev , Ukraine

**Greg N** · 10-06-2013, 09:51 AM

I’ll talk about the set-up here later, the racing is currently more interesting:

The A Group is running in Team Production right now. Currently Ragi-Ragis and a young kid (who’s unbelievably fast), both from Latvia, are in first, Fhyr and Nabotkins (Finland and Latvia) are in second (remember that you need to add the qualifying distance to the lap total for the final total).

You’ll want to know why many of the fast guys ran in the first two heats this morning and why some teams have negative qualifying distances:

We’re running at a large Toyota dealership somewhat outside of Kiev. The track is in the showroom, and the 2 pit rooms are about 30 meters and about 60 meters from the track. There is no telecom to the pit rooms, though there is a video feed of the scoreboard in the pit rooms. Consequently, communications between the track and the pit rooms is an issue.

Last night 8 teams were late for tech. 2 were late the ordinary way, meaning that they failed tech a couple of times and then ran out of time. But 6 teams, including most of the best drivers here, didn’t show up for tech in time. Those of you familiar with ISRA Worlds will know what happened next. There was a race jury or delegates meeting (I’m not sure which). It was noted that the rulebook clearly spells out what to do in a situation like this, so it was unanimously decided to follow the rulebook and all 8 teams were docked 10 laps. This was assessed at qualification, meaning that all 8 teams would be staring at the bottom and again remember that the totals are the race total plus the qualification laps.

Enough for now, I’ll see how the A group is doing.

Greg

**Greg N** · 10-06-2013, 10:05 AM

Near the end of the 5th heat, 3 teams, Jansons/Zaks (Latvia), Landrud/Dolzhan (Sweden/Russia), Nikitin/Vasilik (Russia) are on track to podium.

This does bring me to briefly mention something that I'll be writing a lot more about during this week. The best off track story of the last year's Worlds in Sweden was the huge Finnish team and all of those fast kids. This year, the clear big story is the very large numbers of Eastern Europeans (from many countries). There are a few kids and a few old guys in this group, and quite a few of the usual subjects (Ragi-Ragis, Nabotkins, Janson, Zaks, etc), but the rest are mostly 20 somethings and some are very fast.

Greg

**Greg N** · 10-06-2013, 10:19 AM

BTW, a flashback from last year: the team currently in 6th, Bergman/Sinisaari, are 2 kids. Bergman is Michael Landrud's adopted son, and Sinisaari is a young boy from the Finnish team. All of this very good news for our hobby, I'm thinking.

Greg

**Greg N** · 10-06-2013, 10:27 AM

And the winners of the team race are Michael Landrud (Sweden) and Nikolai Dolzhan (Russia). 2nd goes to Nikitin/Vasilik (Russia), and 3rd to Janssons/Zaks from Latvia. Michael has won a number of world championships, but I believe that this is the first for Nikolai.

Much more to follow, but not tonight.

Greg

**Greg N** · 10-06-2013, 10:28 AM

I forgot: the winners will stay as is, but you'll have to wait for the corrected results (qualifying laps added) to know where the rest stand.

Greg

**Greg N** · 10-06-2013, 10:12 AM

Midway though heat 7, Landrud/ Dolzhan are in first, the Russians are in 2nd, the Latvians in third.

Greg

**fxgeorge** · 10-06-2013, 02:25 PM

Greg, I know it's a lot of work to post stuff, but from my perspective I appreciate the news updates you are writing far more than trying to make sense of the webcam stuff. I'd rather read your reports, so please keep it up if you can! It's really great stuff. So happy to hear Michael and Nikolai won! I suspect both will do will this year. I remember Nikolai from the Chicago Worlds.

**Tmoore** · 10-06-2013, 04:45 PM

Thanks for the reporting Greg.

Too bad I'm not there to snap photos.

Нехай щастить! (Good luck).

Tony

**Wallbasher** · 10-06-2013, 05:19 PM

http://www.valiko-motors.com/ISRAWC2013/index.html

This link will help you with results.

**Greg N** · 10-07-2013, 01:52 AM

I checked: This was Michael's 5th world championship: 3 in team, one in F1, one in 1/24ES. It's Nikolai's first world championship, but he's been really fast for a long time.

Greg

**Greg N** · 10-07-2013, 01:49 AM

Tony,

I'm taking pictures, but I've not yet started to upload them. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. But they won't be anywhere near as nice as yours. Also, there's bad issues with backlighting from the windows during the day.

Greg

**Greg N** · 10-07-2013, 07:09 AM

1/32 ES qualifying is just starting, and there are a ton of racers, so I've got some time.

We're slightly outside of Kiev, in a thoroughly modern car dealership. We're in the Toyota one, but immediately adjacent is Maserati, then Mercedes, then another one, I forgot, then Opel. All in one enormous building that would look entirely at home in LA or Wichita. Behind the showroom, where the track is, is a large repair area with perhaps 20 stalls, all very clean and modern. Adjacent to these are 2 large rooms, probably really the parts department, but now they are our 2 pit rooms.

The hotel is a 16-20 story euro-modern building, a 10-15 minute walk from the track. It's nice there. There's a mild problem, in that there is an 8 lane divided highway between the hotel and the raceway. You get across by way of a Soviet style tunnel. That's a weird place. Could have been used in the Harry Potter movies. I'll see if I can take a picture of it tomorrow morning, but it'll be hard given the light.

The hotel is a Ramada. They have great breakfasts: European style with cheeses, cold cuts, tomatoes, and bread, fruit, yogurt, cereals, also hot stuff (eggs, hash browns, etc, but the other things look better to me, so I haven't tried them. For lunch we order off a menu and the food gets delivered. Everything a la carte. I always get a salad, soup, and a lemonade, but there are bigger hot choices as well. Changes every day. The salads are OK, the soups fabulous.

I've got to see when I'm up for qualifying. More later.

Greg