ETS Season 6 resumes at Apeldoorn
After an 11-week break, the Yokomo Euro Touring Series resumes this weekend (May 17-19) in the Netherlands with the beautiful Apeldoorn track getting the second half of the World famous electric touring car championship’s sixth season underway. A hugely popular track with competitors, the fourth round attracting 280 entries, defending champion Ronald Volker heads into the weekend at the top of the championship standings ahead of Yokomo team-mate Yannic Prumper and last year’s race winner Marc Rheinard. Volker, who has two wins and a third to his credit this season, will be hoping he has much better fortunes than he experienced 12-months ago in Apeldoorn when a difficult qualifying meant he would end up racing in the E-Final.
Having taken his first ETS win in 19-races when he won Round 3 of the championship in Gran Canaria at the beginning of March, Tamiya Racing Factory’s Viktor Wilck will be looking to build on that result and try & get his title chances on track after the Swede failed to make the A-Main at Rounds 1 & 2. Tamiya have won every ETS encounter at Apeldoorn, this being the championship’s fourth visit to the AMCA track, and the Japanese manufacturer will be keen to maintain that record. With the Apeldoorn win the only major success 3-time former World Champion Rheinard currently holds, the German will be determined not to give that up easily as he chases a hat trick of wins at the Dutch track.
Denied his first podium of the season in Gran Canaria where he finished 4th, Team Xray’s Alexander Hagberg will be hoping this race will be the turning point in a season which, after a great finish to last years championship, has not lived up to expectations. While the usual suspects of Kyosho’s Christopher Krapp, Serpent’s Marc Fisher, Hot Bodies’ Andy Moore, Team Associated’s Juho Levanen and Awesomatix’ Freddy Südhoff will be looking to bring success for their respective manufacturers in the premiere ‘Ride’ Modified class, this weekend sees the arrival of Team Durango to international touring car competition which is sure to generate plenty of interest.
Making a welcomed return to the series having missed Round 2 & 3 as he waited on the arrival of Durango’s first touring car, Elliot Harper has already shown the potential of the DETC410 taking it to victory two weeks ago at the opening round of the British National Championships ahead of former World Champion Andy Moore and the reigning champion Olly Jefferies.
In the Xray Pro Stock class, standings leader Marek Cerny heads to the Netherlands chasing his third consecutive win of the season. Based on that form, the Czech Xray team driver is favourite for the ETS’ largest class but defending champion Zdenko Kunák had his best result in Gran Canaria finishing second to Cerny as his confidence with his new Yokomo team grows. The only other race winner this season, winning Round 1, Oliver Franke will be in the hunt as will a host of Dutch drivers including last year’s winner Vasco Christiaanse.
Round 4 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series officially gets underway with controlled practice on Friday and culminates with triple mains for all drivers on Sunday, weather permitting. All the action from Apeldoorn can be followed on RedRC where regular updates and video action will be published throughout the weekend.
