One week ago we went to the third round and penultimate round of the Finnish national electric buggy series. The race was held at the track in Hyvinkää and was the last electric off-road race in Finland before the European Championship, to be held in Vaasa the last week of July.

Participation for the race in Hyvinkää was at similar levels to previous races this summer and even though the weather looked threathening we got away with just some light rain in time for the last qualifying round. The 4wd class was one again the hottest and our Racing Factory drivers one again had a very succesful meeting.

Running a borrowed TRF501X for the first time at the race, Pekka Heikkilä was amazed by how easy the TRF buggy is to drive, and duly set TQ! This with just 1 pack of practice in the morning. He set lap times  in his second pack with the car that were over 1 second quicker than he had ever done at the track before, a track he has done lots of practice at…

This was just one of many similar stories from drivers who have recently changed to the TRF501X, many setting lap times so much faster that it’s difficult to understand! Must be a great buggy the TRF501X….

So going into the finals we had Pekka on pole with the TRF501X, joined in the A final by Jarkko Mustonen and Mika Mänty running the same car, as well as Jukka Penttinen and Mika Silvasti running the Predator. All in all we had 5 drivers in the top ten – half the field, not bad! Good job guys!

Jarkko Mustonen, winner of the Saturday race at Vaasa, took the win in the first A final, while in the second one he finished second. In the end this was enough to secure the overall win, Jarkko’s second win in three races with the 501. Impressive!

In the second final it was Jukka Penttinen who took the win with his X10 while in the last final TQ man Pekka had a great battle for the win, narrowingly missing out finishing second. It was enough to secure him the final spot on the podium though while Jukka finished fourth overall with the Predator with Mika Silvasti in sixth and Mika Mänty in eight.

So after four 4wd races this summer so far (3 series races and one independent race), the winner has run the TRF501X in 3 of these races, for an amazing winning percent of 75%! In addition there have been further TRF buggies in each A final and many podium places.

With the Euros the next race on the calendar it looks like it might be a good idea to get a TRF501X if you want to improve your chances of succeeding!

Congratulations Jarkko on the win and Pekka on the TQ with a borrowed car…and thanks to all other drivers for continuing to deliver good results!

Results:
1   Jarkko Mustonen   Vau   3   1   2   6   - Tamiya TRF501X
2   Pauli Helin   Tamua   4   3   5   1   90
3   Pekka Heikkilä   MäntMK   5   7   3   2   82 – Tamiya TRF501X
4   Jukka Penttinen   Lahua   6   6   1   5   76 – Predator X10
5   Jussi Luopajärvi   Vua   6   2   4   4   72
6   Mika Silvasti   Järsrk   8   5   6   3   69 – Predator X10
7   Matti Eskelinen   Jyvsrk   11   4   7   7   66
8   Mika Mänty   Oua   17   9   9   8   63 – Tamiya TRF501X
9   Jani Hovi   Hyua   17   8   10   9   60
10   Harri Nyman   LMM   18   10   8   10   57

Pictures
Results