Long-awaited debut is done now
Long-awaited debut is done now as Sami-Matti Trogen raced his first ever RX2-class competition in Silverstone England over the last weekend. Four-wheel drive class raced on the same weekends with WRX gathered a total of seventeen drivers to a starting grid. Set Promotion team's Sami-Matti, youngest of the bunch, finished eight in front of almost thirty thousand spectators.
- Before the race I said I expect very tough race and that it really was. I was not able to find good racing rhythm on Friday's practice as there was some trouble with fuel injection, Sami-Matti tells.
Saturday started with typical English wet weather but it got better along the day and track dried up. Two heats were raced and Sami-Matti finished tenth in the first one. In the second heat he made audience and local announcer cheer from joy: "Fantastic! Just 16-years old Sami-Matti leads the race".
- I was a bit excited when I lined up for a first heat. Start was pretty good and I was second when car's front corner hit haystack and my wheel angles got misaligned. It was difficult to race with shaky car and I was not able to get a good result. I had an outdoor track starting position in second heat, got a great start and passed whole bunch from outside. I won the second heat so have to be happy with the day.
Umbrellas were needed also on Sunday to get protection from the blistering sun. Sami-Matti's position was fifth overall after Saturday and it was time for two final heats. Some modifications were made to chassis before third heat but something went wrong and car over-steered a lot. Setup was reset for the final heat, car felt much better but grid position was on outer track again due to poor third heat result.
- I tried the same trick as in second heat but other racers new what i was up to and pushed me to wall.
Sami-Matti was tenth overall after four heats as twelve best ones passed to semi-finals.
- I had a good start from back row and all went well until I had a rallycross style contact with Norwegian Krogstad. I think he got a bit upset of our contact and hit my car first to side and after couple of twists later so hard that my battle was over. I was anyway able to catch other racers but could not pass them. Back wheel was totally skewed, car shifted all over the track and I missed the final spot by half a second. I am disappointed that I missed a spot in final due to crashes and car also looked like I had been doing field rallying. Overall the weekend was great from organization, area and event point of view. It felt even better as I had my own supporters watching and cheering me up. I will be even faster in next race, Sami-Matti concludes.
End result of Sami-Matti's debut race was eight position, ten points and a lot of valuable experience. Next race is held 9th-10th of June in Norway.
Results can be found from here.