Volker is Champion
Ronald Volker is the 2012/13 Yokomo Euro Touring Series Champion. The German clinched his third consecutive title by securing his first ever asphalt win in the World famous championship with another tone to tone victory in the second leg of the A-Main at the Hudy Racing Arena in Slovakia. The result sees the factory Yokomo driver become the most crowned ETS driver having shared the honour for the past 12-months with reigning World Champion Jilles Groskamp who was champion of the first two seasons of the series. Despite shadowing Volker throughout the second 5-minute main, Marc Rheinard, the 2009/10 Champion, couldn’t catch his arch rival declaring afterwards that the ‘championship wasn’t lost here but at the start of the season’, the Tamiya ace failing to make the podium at the opening three races of the season.
‘Fantastic’ was how Volker described his title win. Clocking up his 8th ETS race win, he said to achieve 3 in a row against ‘the highest level of competition you can get in touring cars’ was a special moment. Viewed by many as the best current touring car driver on carpet, he said to take the title with his first win on asphalt made the the title even more significant than the previous two. Summing up the sixth & final round of the championship as the ‘perfect weekend’, he said while they finished every asphalt race this season on the podium they just didn’t have the pace to win but this weekend they made the breakthrough something he said he was very grateful to his engineer Umino Yukijiro for. Thanking Yokomo, LRP and all his sponsors for their support over the season, he said he ‘know(s) Marc (Rheinard) doesn’t like finishing second’ so while he is looking forward to season No.7 of the ETS he said a fourth title is going to be very difficult as Rheinard and his own Yokomo team-mate Yannic Prumper, who looks set to finish the season third overall, are going to be even more hungry to beat him.
Apologising for ‘a boring race’, again criticizing the grid spacings, Rheinard said after the bad start to the season he never expected to come the final round with a chance of the title. Having given the ‘slim chance’ of the title his best shot he said he gave his best but on the day that was only good enough for 2nd. Having always been strong on asphalt, Volker’s weak point in previous seasons, Rheinard said he hoped for the new season they can find something for the carpet rounds and be in a stronger position come next year’s season finale.
Behind Volker and Rheinard, almost 3-seconds adrift, Yannic Prumper finished Leg 2 third. The 19-year-old will go into the closing main with a chance of making it a Yokomo 1-2 on the final ETS podium of season if he can find a way passed Rheinard and take the leg win. Having retired from Leg 1 Team Xray’s Alexander Hagberg finished fourth having found amway passed fellow Swede Viktor Wilck.
In Pro Stock there was a huge cheer from Marek Cerny and the Xray team as 3rd in Leg 2 was enough to give the Czech driver the overall title. The race saw Top Qualifier Zdenko Kunak on target to wrap up the overall win at the Hudy Racing Arena, but on lap 8 the outgoing Champion hit a curb and rolled allowing the Awesomatix of Viljami Kutvonen to take the leg win. Kunak’s rolling Yokomo took out the No.2 starting Awesomatix of potential title contender Dominic Vogl who would retire from the race shortly after the incident.
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