Westfield Cup Hockenheim 18th - 20th June
"After the good result in spa, I got an offer from a different Westfield team to drive their car for them in Hockenheim Germany. Wijnhold Wijnholds, from the company Abus Kranensystemen, offered me the seat. The car was prepared by Hans Wellink Race Experience. Hans is a 40 year who has been preparing race cars all his life. Apart from the Westfield he runs the Dacia Logan cup cars from Holland as well."
Once again Rudy and his father agreed they would do it, despite the fact that Rudy had never driven the car before and it lacked overall performance.
"We arrived on Thursday afternoon, and together we prepared the Westfield tent on the track were all the cars would eventually meet."
Although the car Rudy was driving for the weekend would arrive Friday afternoon, there was a option to drive in the morning session. Rudy's father Gino owns the Westfield company and had one car at the track which served as a show car. They agreed it would be good for them to take the car out for the morning session. All went fine, though the session was very complex and at times dangerous with many GT cars on track.
In the afternoon the actual race car arrived, and Rudy was finally able to see how the car was set up. "It was completely different than the way I wanted it, or at least typically the way I run them, but the owner from the team said that the setup would work well. Therefore I jumped in the car for free practice and hoped for the best. After the session I knew my gut feeling was correct... The handling was completely rubbish, but worst of all was that the we were was missing loads of top speed compared to other cars." Rudy's analysis proved to be correct after they reviewed the data. They could see that their corner exit speed was 5 to 6 kph faster than their team mates, but by the end of the straight Rudy's car was 5 kph slower. This clearly explained why Rudy was 0.8 sec off pace in the free practice.
"Through the night we spoke a lot about the car's handling and speed issues. We decided to change the fuel filter and air filter hoping that would help fix the problem. Handling wise we changed toe, as well as the bump and rebound of the dampers."
First thing Saturday morning was qualifying. As soon as Rudy went out on track he could sense that the set up changes were working, but the speed still wasn't there. Despite this Rudy pushed as hard as he could and somehow amazingly grabbed the pole by the narrowest of margins, 0.061. Bearing this in mind, the data showed a lose of over half a second on the straights in comparison to his team mates, and even more time was lost to the second place qualifier.
"Despite the frustration, a pole is a pole. I felt that if we had some luck on our side we would be able to fight for the podium."
The first race began with a rolling start. Rudy managed to hold the lead through the first lap after some slip streaming and out braking. "After trying to drive away while in the lead, I could easily see that second place was getting close everywhere on just pure top speed. I couldn't grab the gap I wanted so I decided to drop into second place, staying in his slipstream to hopefully fight it out in the last few laps. The final two laps were super close with loads of position changes, but in the last three corners before the start/finish line I managed a killer move by overtaking him on the outside of the motordrome hairpin and won the race." Rudy was extremely satisfied with the win because the fight was as intense as it gets, not to that he had a performance handicap.
Watch the final laps of this epic battle in the attached video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1qPpQHtOA
Sunday morning would contain the second race, which Rudy would once again start from pole. "I grabbed the lead and again tried to gap the field, but I simply couldn't get away. Once again I dropped into second place and stayed there. From there on it looked incredible similar to the first race. This time during the final lap I grabbed the lead three corners earlier. This allowed second place to perform an overtake on me into the motordrome." It was then too late for Rudy to attempt to take back the lead, and he was forced to settle for second position.
This race was quite disheartening for Rudy, as he needed to push 110% all the time to stay with the other driver who had a car that suited him perfectly handling wise and had a huge top speed advantage. "After some harsh words with the car owner we decided to change the computer, check a few things in the engine and hope for a final shot."
Rudy would start the last race of the weekend from second position. Once again this race played out almost the same as the first two races. Rudy would stay in the leaders slipstream the entire race. "Four laps before the end of the race I was still cruising in his slipstream. Suddenly my gearbox begins to malfunction and will not cleanly shift into third gear. The leader managed to pull away away but during the final 3 laps I pushed as hard as possible. I managed to close the gap, and in the final lap I used his slipstream down the back straight and even passed him under braking. I blocked him perfectly mid corner so he couldn't cross over but then at same point as before, I could not get into third gear." Rudy would have to settle for another second place finish on what proved to be a very up and down weekend.
"If you look at it on a positive note, I was happy grab pole, win a race, and get 2nd twice due the problems. From a driver perspective it really hurts to know that with even equal performance we could have possibly taken home the whole event."
Quotes and original story by Rudy van Buren / Edited by Demetrius Adelin and Nolan Scott.