Our first try in a time attack competition

Despite having more than two months between the first and second rounds of the Romanian Endurance Series, scheduling conflicts gave us small chances to plan some tests on Transilvania Motor Ring, where the championship takes us next. Thus, we embarked on a trip towards Mureș County to gather some mileage. First up we had a public track day, where the circuit really wasn’t as crowded as we’d expect. Usually, just before a competition you have lots of people lapping, but this time most of the entrants only appeared the following morning.

Armed with a bit of confidence after Friday, we registered our three drivers for the first round of the Time Attack National Championship – a concept that started last year, but wasn’t on our radar back then. It was a very busy day with several hiccups on the technical side, thankfully bad luck striking where it didn’t really matter. We had enough time to repair the cars and compete on Saturday. Mark finished second in the Dacia Logan Cup class, half a second down on the winner, but the main source of joy was the confirmation that RES1 engine troubles have been left behind. Vlad and Adrian set their best laps late in the day, as the track dried out. Chasing similar cars in the 4-lap sprint race at the end was the highlight for Vlad and a joy to watch for us all.

Will we enter this competition again? Maybe, as we were well greeted. Still, the format allows for very little running across the day, but this type of pressure to deliver in a short session could be useful to apply. Also, given that everyone loves this circuit and the Time Attack rounds are all at Transilvania Motor Ring (while RES only schedules one race here), it might swing the balance towards coming back in June.

Logan Cup standings

1 Horia Ion 2:00.070

2 Mark Sipos 2:00.533

3 Teodor Șerban 2:01.266

4 Andras Nagy 2:02.440

5 Radu Bunea 2:02.717

6 Vlad Bădoi 2:02.881

7 Matei Pavelescu 2:03.414

8 Mihai Alexandrescu 2:03.834

9 Adrian Tivadar 2:03.851