PRESS RELEASE - TKART - RKC 24 Hours race report, 17th edition, 2-3 May 2015 - Sliding delight… live online!.

The 17th edition of the RKC 24 Hours saw CER ASK Karting crowned the victors. They delivered an almost perfect race six weeks after winning the 6 Hours at the same venue. Also recompensed were, in 2nd and 3rd places, Pastina & Friends Veneto Corse and Batelco Racing Team, from Italy and Bahrain respectively. It’s hard to imagine a more international podium at the end of an event marked by difficult weather conditions. In the cold, the wind and the rain, the drivers managed to showcase their skills on a slippery track. In any case, the party atmosphere, specific to the event since its creation, clearly overcame the rigors of the weather. We also need to commend the innovative spirit of the organisers, who allowed people around the world to live the race and discover the players live online!

A first for the 17th!
As live streaming transmissions are multiplying throughout the world of competitive karting, the 2015 RKC 24 Hours set the bar even higher. At Cormeilles-en-Vexin (25 minutes North of Paris), a team composed of directors, cameramen, journalists and even a drone pilot, covered the event. Nearly every hour saw live coverage on the rkc's website, with track action, on-board cameras and also plenty of interviews of the drivers, team managers and members of the organisation of Racing Kart de Cormeilles. Thus it was possible to better understand the strategies, the difficulties encountered by the competitors, the pleasure of driving the 1200 meters of the circuit, and the behind the scenes action of the queen of endurance ‘arrive and drive’ races. These videos, broadcast with a slight delay on giant screens during the event, are still available on YouTube, whereas the official photos can be seen on the RKC’s Facebook page (see the links at the end of this release).

CER ASK Karting: the masters of the rain
Yohan Vaugarni, Kévin Caprasse, Eddy Beaujard and Frédéric Usureau were already part of the victorious team in 2014. Alexandre Cappe joined them to form a new winning quintet. CER ASK Karting didn’t leave much leftover to their adversaries by taking home pole position, thanks to Yohan Vaugarni, the best lap time during the race, the longest time leading and of course, the victory. However, this team couldn’t always count on a significant lead. The gap rarely exceeded two laps, forbidding any driving error or infraction which would mean a penalty! The small gaps noted between the favourites’ lap times explain all of this. In Q2, for example, the first six were separated by less than a tenth of a second! What’s more, the brand new Sodi GTR 390 cc karts available for the teams were very similar in terms of performance. Apart from a few punctures, technical problems were practically non-existent. The individual weigh-in (in underwear!) and the ballast imposed to each driver formed another novelty in 2015, which has also proved satisfactory.

The Italians from Pastina & Friends Veneto Corse (Fabio Paoleschi, Romano Franssen, Fabio Torri, Damiano Marchesan, Edgard Kanah), who arrived in the Paris region after seven victories in seven races, were very menacing during the night, thanks mainly to a scientifically elaborate strategy. They acknowledged two small errors, which stopped them from fighting until the end against CER ASK Karting. They nevertheless kept their two-lap lead ahead of Batelco Racing Team. The famous team from Bahrain, in the colours of a local telephone company, had won their entry by winning the Dubai championship. They set a solid performance once more, with a line up which regrouped drivers from the Middle-East and a French trio (Abdulla Buhendi, Khalid Al Saei, Mohammed Mattar, Ali Baslar, Julien Azzopardi, Florian Garcia, Stéphane Panepinto). Ali Abbas, team manager of Batelco and Director of the Bahrain International Karting Circuit, which has welcomed twice the CIK FIA World Championships, gave the victors their prize on the podium: an entry to the next edition of the 24 Hours of Bahrain!

Classified 2nd in 2014, Alfa Romeo 1 finished at the foot of the podium, with the satisfaction of seeing the sister team Alfa Romeo 2 finish…at the gates of the Top 10 after a crazy climb. Time Attack, which counts amongst their drivers a certain Sebastien Fournet, former winner of the SWS Grand Final, closed off the Top 5 ahead of the excellent team Handy Sport Mixte. This team regroups able-bodied and handicapped drivers under the impetus of the indefatigable “Foun”, aka Philippe Roy. Another Italian team, DRGM, finished in a flattering 7th place, whereas experience spoke for itself for Ranj Team, classified 8th in front of regulars Team KST 1 and Kart & Diem.

We can’t forget to salute the efforts of the other foreign teams, such as the Kuwaitis from Q8 Racing (classified P13), Zain Racing from Bahrain (P15), Axial, which was proudly bearing the Portuguese flag (P19), Team KSR from the French-speaking part of Switzerland (P26), the Italian team CKC Racing Team (P28) and CKM Karting Club Los Santos, a group from Madrid (P33).

The grid was completely full with 40 teams signed up, but because of a last minute forfeit, 39 teams took the start on Saturday in the early afternoon. To support their efforts, cans of TNT, the official energy drink of Scuderia Ferrari, were handed out to the drivers. As tradition dictates, they ran anti-clockwise for the first hours. At 22:20, the race was neutralised and the peloton headed off in the other direction whilst a magnificent fireworks display lit up the night.

We hope to see the same competitiveness, the same sporting spirit, a warm atmosphere with a bit more sun and far fewer clouds for the 18th edition. You can already mark off the weekend of the 30th of April and 1st of May in your 2016 diaries.

All the videos are available on youtube.