Stock Setup

Modified Setup

The 2017 Masters of Foam was once again held at Racing Arena Limburg, close to Sittard in Holland. This annual race event is exclusively for 1/12 scale pan cars and has grown in stature in recent years to become one of the biggest 1/12 races in Europe with many top drivers attending. This year more than 100 entries were split across 3 classes; 17.5 stock, 13.5 stock and 6.5 modified.

Factory Team Associated driver Mark Stiles was in attendance and competed in the 13.5 and Modified categories with his Reedy powered 12R6 chassis.

In 13.5 qualifying Mark held down a solid third place but initially struggled to get on terms with the faster cars. A setup change ahead of the 5th and final qualifier resulted in a substantial improvement and despite driving on a slower track than earlier in the day Mark was able to challenge the TQ time for most of the race. Unfortunately he came up just a couple of seconds short but would still line up on the front row of the grid for the 3-leg A-mains.

In the first final Mark followed the lead car in the early stages until a mechanical problem put it out of the running. This left Mark to cruise to a comfortable win by more than 5 seconds. In leg 2 Mark pulled off an impressive pass around the outside of the lead car on lap 1. This put him in prime position to take the overall victory but a light brush with a corner marker after 2 minutes of the race allowed the following car back through into the lead. Despite having a faster car at his disposal, Mark was unable to find a clean way back past so had to settle for 2nd place.

In the 3rd and deciding leg Mark once again had a pace advantage but was unable to execute a clean pass despite pressuring the lead car for the entire race. This left Mark in 2nd place overall.

It was a similar story for Mark in the modified class - after refining the setup of his car setup he posted the 4th fastest qualifying time in the last round. Despite his second row starting position, Mark was fast in the finals and a brace of 2nd place finishes in the 3 legs gave him 3rd overall.