It’s been a little bumpy season for me with some mechanical failures causing me to loose points and positions but also some unluck being taken out by other cars. But being consistent and never giving up have given me podiums in all race and a 7 point lead in the cup total going into the final race. With a 100 point maximum on the line and any DNF in a heat could cause major shifts in the points, so nothing was certain.

The Sviestad track in Linköping is one of my favourite tracks being that you have to drive it very controlled, you can’t just punch the throttle and hope for the best, it will punish you directly. So this type of tracks fits my driving style very good so I felt confident going into this. 

Starting with the qualifying race I immediately showed good pace and had a good 2 seconds lead on the best lap. As we had a really good turnout in 4wd it would have been really costly to have a DNF and start in any of the lower groups. With a solid first round I started first in the A-group. 

The 1/8 final I was leading from the start to goal, made some smaller mistakes as I was trying some new lines. As I had some gap to the rest of the field I risked trying some different things to see if I could go even faster. Even if I wanted to play it safe I also wanted to end this season with all wins, to take a full 100 points. This is really tricky to do because you need to have focus and not make any mistakes in any of the heats. This makes our point system very exciting but also very unforgiving.

During lunch I didn’t do any changes to the car as I felt I had a good feeling out on the track. My choice of tires were GRP W90 S3 as I used these last year on this track and they worked great. Most other racers were using MCD Micro Stud, which also works good. 

Starting on pole in the quarter final I got away to a great start with the cars behind me getting into each other. I had a comfortable lead but ran into some tires taking a corner a little bit too snug. The marshall didn’t see me and I lost 15 seconds making the second car getting very close behind me but I could hold the position the rest of the race after he made a small mistake.

In the semi final I again started in pole and got away to a good start, I had some good battles but could put some comfortable space behind me and this was a really good race with just one smaller mistake putting my standard deviation at just 0.5 seconds. This is the thing I always check for after a heat, how consistent my driving was. This always win races, consistency before speed. The best is of course to combine both and I’m looking into developing more speed but still stay consistent. This is a really fine line to walk.

As my main contender for the cup had some issues and lost valuable points I had at this point already secured my win in the cup but I wanted this to end in the best possible way. So even if the pressure was off for the win I still wanted to do well in the final and score a nice 100 points. But as the other heats have felt really good I was feeling pretty calm going into the final. My package had been great the whole day. I’ve made no adjustments, just changed receiver battery and air filter. Made sure all screws were tight and all joints moved freely.

As in many other races this day I got away clean while the others were battling it out in my favour. I was leading with almost third a lap after just a a couple of laps. Now it was all about keeping the focus at the driving, not making any stupid mistakes that could cost me positions or even a DNF. But there was one thing I wanted to do and that was laying down the fastest lap time as well, so when I had a good margin I tried to push for it but the track was of course in worse shape then in the start of the day and I missed it with only a tenth of a second. But part from that this was a perfect ending to the season. In the end I managed to lap all drivers in the final and could take those 100 points I was shooting for.

As this was my third win in a row for the cup I now got to keep the trophy, which was my goal. Nobody else has managed to do this before so that also felt like a nice achivement. So all in all I couldn’t be happier about how this day and the season turned out even if I had some issues but that is part of racing and it would be any fun if it was just smooth sailing. This pushes us as racers, we learn new things about ourselves and our cars. 

This was also a good end to my TLR era, I’ve been racing the Losi platform for 6 years. Next year I will be racing the N-R-P Ultron ZR. I’m really excited for this change as a lot of things are different, suspension geometry, weight distribution and just how it’s built and laid out. It will be fun to learn a new platform and hopefully this can also help me push for more speed but still keep the consistency. Hopefully I can do some practice runs with the Ultron this year before the Swedish weather stops us from more racing.