On 5-6th of May we had our first round of Turkish EP Nationals, in cooperation with Cyprus team, at Team-NCRC arena. I arrived at the track and joined to the team on Saturday just before the free practises. My car was ready with the setup from last asphalt race, to see how it would react. After free and controlled practises, I opted for my basic carpet setup, which again worked really well. I made little changes about tire prep to have a smoother car, and car was perfect to my driving afterwards. Serdar Aytemiz was trying really different setups, and I was always shocked when hearing what he had done to his car… At the end of controlled practises, results were like this:

1	ALP MUSTAFA	SERPENT TURKEY	3	0:34.323	6 [4, 1, 5, 3, 2]
2	AYTEMIZ SERDAR	SERPENT TURKEY	3	0:35.718	4 [6, 5, 3, 2, 1]
3	DENIZ NIYAZI	DENIZ PLAZA RC TEAM	3	0:36.385	5 [6, 1, 2, 4, 3]
4	AKBER AHMET	DENIZ PLAZA RC TEAM	3	0:36.658	5 [2, 6, 4, 1, 3]
5	CAGLIOGLU FERHAT	DENIZ PLAZA RC TEAM	3	0:36.806	5 [6, 2, 3, 4, 1]
6	TURKAY BARIS	TEAM NCRC	3	0:37.174	3 [6, 5, 2, 4, 1]
7	BEYSUN BEHZAT	DENIZ PLAZA RC TEAM	3	0:37.344	4 [3, 5, 6, 2, 1]
8	SOYLU YAVUZ	SERPENT TURKEY	3	0:37.789	2 [6, 4, 5, 1, 3]
9	OZTUMEN UMUT		3	0:38.984	6 [5, 3, 4, 2, 1]
10	TABAK MEHMET		3	0:39.071

On qualifiers I was at the top of the timesheets again followed by Serdar. Yavuz claimed the final grid of the main final, starting from 10th position. Çaghan Turna, who had the pace for top 10, had nightmarish qualifiers and ended up starting from pole of the C final.

In finals I kept calm and won all 3 from start to finish. Real battle was between Serdar and Ahmet, they both had one 2nd and one 3rd in first two finals with a really close race. In 3rd final, Ahmet had the 2nd position and Serdar had to settle to 3rd.

In C final Caghan, who is now powered by Orca, dominated the finals and took a convincing win, showing that he would have a good shot at A main.

More info: http://www.myrcm.ch/main?pLa=en&hId[1]=arv&dFi=ncrc&dId[E]=8686

I want to thank Race organisators Umut Turkay and Team NCRC for hosting and my sponsor Serdar Aytemiz(Evilhobbyshop) for providing the best support on Serpent and Xceed products. See you next race!

Serdar report:
Race report for the last weekends race

This is the first year EP and GP are being run as a seperate Championship series. There series consists of 4 races and the 1st one was held in Cyprus. So with great anticipation and excitement I got on board our flight with other racers and headed for the wonderful carpet track at NCRC Arena.

The weather was just beautiful with around 23 to 28 degrees out side and slightly higher indoor. The wonderful team at NCRC made a new layout for this event which was very fast with high speed direction changes. After looking at the track I decided that the setup we had in the first race will be too sluggish I opted for a setup that I wanted to try for a long time. I installed the new steering bellcrank with aluminium knuckles. at first I used the A% body but it made the car very nervous so opted for the mazda 6. I had some issues during the practice day but in the end I managed to secure 2nd spot for the qualification day.

Qualification was quite eventfull for me. I manage to run the first qualification perfectly fine but in 2 consecutive races I lost my wheel. apperantly the center of the wheel wore out and I didnt noticed. and one other I had issues. the last qualification I managed to run a 25 lap and that place me in 2nd spot for the A-Final behind Mustafa Alp’s S411 who was running low 26 laps.

We basically knew if nothing went wrong Mustafa was going to take 1st spot. so we were all gunning for second spot. The first race I finished 2nd and Ahmet finish 3rd, then next race Ahmet finished 2nd and I finished 3rd. So everyone was waiting for the 3rd round as the 4th and 5th place runners were also looking at the 3rd spot if me or Ahmet dropped had a chance as the podium. First corner I got tapped and was in tenth spot :) after that I couldnt make up the time. So I had to settle for 3rd spot.

it was a great season starter and looking forward to other series races now.