Track Focus – Messe Wien
Track Name – Messe Wien
Club – Kroni RC
Country – Austria
Location – Vienna
Direction – Anti-clockwise
Surface – Carpet
No. of ETS Races hosted – 1
The 12th season of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series kicks off this weekend in Vienna, Austria as part of the ‘Modellbau 2018’ hobby exhibition at Messe Wien in the heart of the city. Hosting the opening round for the first time last season, this popular venue sees the track situated amongst many other exhibitors including slot cars, train, planes, drift cars, crawlers and much more. Expected to attract some 50,000 visitors over this holiday weekend, the track has this year been prepared well ahead of the event with the build starting last Friday with the Kroni RC crew from Wiener Neudorf, led by Andrea and Rene Kronsteiner. Due to the surface of the hall, which has cabling channels running at intervals along its entire surface, the floor had to have wooden plates laid to give a flat surface upon which the ETS Carpet would be placed. Similar to last year the race track covers an area of 34 metres long by 20 metres wide, with the pitting area off to one side.
Since taking his 3rd consecutive ETS title last season, Bruno Coelho has also won his first World title in South Africa, when asked his impressions of the track the Portuguese ace said ‘its ok, maybe too narrow’. He continued ‘Normally the track is wider, but it looks good and has a good flow’ but also felt that it may be very difficult to pass on. Last year’s winner, Marc Rheinard echoed those sentiments, but added ‘what track isn’t hard to pass on these days’. Also liking the track layout he described it as ‘technical with some long corners, so a good mix’ but did point out that the centre chute away from the drivers stand has a tricky curb that stands away from the corner and so you have to drive out wide to be sure you don’t hit it.
The new season of the ETS also sees a number of changes over last year. From a technical point of view, and one of the most talked about rule changes, is the minimum weight of the race ready bodyshell, which has been set at 90 grams. For race classes this year we see the addition of a new 17.5T touring class, using handout Muchmore motors and there will also be a 40+ ranking within the regular Formula class. Also new is the addition of bump ups for all classes, which will see all lower finals with 8 cars and so for leg 1 of the triple mains, the top 2 drivers from each final will progress up, with only 1 bumping up from the B-main to make an 11 car A-main. This will set the grids for the remaining 2 legs of mains.
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