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   4-6 September, 2009 For the second year running, HPI Europe organized a massive season-ending Baja endurance race, bringing together racers from countries all over Europe. Race teams from countries as far apart as Iceland, France, Poland, the United Kingdom and Slovenia converged on the Eifel forest in the far west of Germany (close to Belgium and Luxemburg) to take part in what would be the longest and most grueling Baja race ever: a full 24 hours of off-road endurance racing, a complete day of racing! The racers were organized into teams by country, with some countries such as the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany supplying two race teams. At least four members were required on each team, with a maximum of 6 drivers. The teams were encouraged to get as organized as possible, because at any given time they would have one team member driving, at least one in the pit lane, and possibly one marshaling cars on the track. This left at least one to three racers resting, eating or repairing if things went wrong! The response to this year's series was very strong, however because of the economic climate over the past year we were missing teams from countries that previously we would have definitely counted on attending - next time around, we hope to have all of these countries back for more than 20 teams on the track! This year we had 15 teams from 13 countries, all of them with a good shot at taking the overall win! As with last year, the teams had to put up with many obstacles, including a deteriorating track, changing light conditions and shadows, lapped traffic, dozens of fuel stops, even more tyre changes, driver exhaustion, lengthy repairs and much more! Also, with a race length doubled from last year, the drivers had to put up with a lot more than just longer driving time and more repairs - a whole host of dramas were awaiting the teams...and the organizers! Read on the find out about the weekend!  The HPI crew arrived at the track on Thursday to check out the track and say hello to all of the racers, many of whom arrived during that afternoon. The track was located at the entrance of the Camp 4 Fun off-road driving area, a gravelly and muddy area laced with dozens of off-road trails, and the official off-road fun area of the Nurburgring motorsports entertainment area. It was the perfect location for the race, with plenty to do nearby, lots of dirt and gravel to work with, free camping for the racers and no worries about light or noise restrictions! With just two full days of preparation time, the work gang organized by Jan Ackermann of Ackermann Modellbau (http://www.ackermann-modellbau.de/) had gone into overdrive for a solid 48 hours, clearing and leveling a large area, then adding sand, track barriers, lighting, pit tents and more, providing a huge Baja playground for the racers to race on. Some of the racers, such as the guys from the UK, had been there overnight already so they could check out the local attractions, such as the world famous Nurburgring Nordschliefe, dubbed 'the Green Hell' by former F1 racer Sir Jackie Stewart! Most of the racers decided to camp out at the track or arrive in motor homes, making for a cheap weekend of racing (apart from fuel costs) - this allowed HPI to charge less per team and concentrate funds on providing a fun post-qualifying Friday afternoon for everyone. Only one of the teams decided to chip in for the exclusive hotel deal offered for the race weekend, which was at the 4-star hotel situated right next to the Nurburgring Grand Prix circuit. This was located on the main road that ran next to the race track, across the street from several bars and restaurants associated with the track facilities and packed with World Superbike motorcycle racers for the weekend, as the 11th round of this year's race series was going on during the same weekend! Being just a few minute's drive from the track, it was a great place to wash the dust off and sleep in clean sheets between driver stints - if they could get away from the track!               The schedule for Friday included a quick driver's meeting to explain how the weekend would work, then a jump right into the official free practice for all the teams. During practice, the teams could get their cars inspected, collect their handout tyres and check out the new HPI Baja Finals T-shirts for 2009! The layout of the track, driver stand and fuel area was very similar to how it was originally laid out in Spain, last year. A long pit lane ran below the driver stand, with enough room for a couple of mechanics and timekeepers per team. At the end of the pit lane was the fuel tent, where a team member would have to shut off the car's engine, take it into the tent, pick up the team's pre-mixed fuel can, top up the fuel and finally bring the car back to the track and start it up! A typical lap was in the mid-30 second range, and a lap with fuel stop took about a minute and a half for all the teams.        The track was open for 3 hours to give all teams at least 30 minutes per driver to get used to the track. Although it was 'fresh' we didn't expect the track to stay pristine for long! We got to see a bit of how the track would react to 15 10kg cars blasting around at 20-30 miles per hour! The layout of the track was kept simple due to the shape and size of the area allowed for the track, and the curving main straight after the big jump meant that drivers couldn't stay at full throttle for very long. A tight complex of 3 hairpins kept the marshalls busy, then a good-sized jump led into a tight right turn over a curving tabletop jump that was right next to a huge pit filled with sand. This kept many racers honest, because you could lose many seconds getting stuck in the pit while waiting for a turn marshall! After the table top was two quick lefts onto the pit straight and timing line, then back to the big jump just before the big jump. All in all, drivers could easily do a sub-40 second lap, with the fastest drivers doing laps in the low 30 seconds.  Immediately after practice came the one-hour qualifying period. Every team was allowed as many laps as they wanted, with as many drivers as they needed, to set the fastest lap time. Because of the length of the race, not a huge amount of importance was put on the qualifying time, but it could be a good measure of who to watch out for in the race, and see where any rivalries might develop. The weather had stayed nice and bright so far, but after about 15 minutes of qualifying the clouds moved in and the infamous Eifel mountains weather hit: rain came in, nearly sideways at some points, and slowly the teams started coming off the track. The weather forecast for the weekend was mostly dry, but with some showers, so we expected this rain to go away fairly quickly. Unfortunately, the clouds stayed a uniform heavy grey to all horizons, and the rain kept coming down all the way to the end of qualifying. For the last 20 minutes there were no cars on the track, with teams electing to conserve their cars and energy for the start at noon on Saturday! That, or they just didn't want to clean their cars more than they had to! Either way, the qualifying order was set: Qualifying Order 1. Germany 2 2. Germany 1 3. Team Mantua (Slovenia) 4. Czech Republic 5. Team Iceland 6. MMUber RC (UK 1) 7. HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 8. HPI Estonia 9. Holland WSE 1 10. Modell Hobby (Hungary) 11. Modellcars Poland 1 12. TeamFrance 13. Modellcars Poland 2 14. Team Roaster (UK 2) 15. Holland WSE 2 The rain stopped after about an hour, but by then qualifying was finished and everyone was moving on to having lunch and getting ready for the next thing on the schedule!        Once all the RC driving was out of the way, it was time to get in real trucks and bomb around the Camp 4 Fun off-road circuit for a while! The teams were split into two groups and given roughly an hour for a guided tour in real 4x4 vehicles, ranging from the Suzuki Grand Vitara to the big Land Rover Discovery. With an experienced off-road driver and trail guide leading the way, each team was given a 4x4 to get into, plus a radio for instructions. The team members were encouraged to swap driving duties and vehicles at various stopping points along the way, and we all got to see the extreme incline climbing abilities of even the smallest 4x4's! Halfway through the trek, all the trucks were parked at the top of a hill and the teams were sent down one of the steepest hills, one by one, in the sturdiest of the Land Rovers equipped with ultra-low crawler gearcases. Down a short super-steep hill, through a mud puddle, then turn around and come back UP the hill, wheels spinning and mud flinging! Everyone was amazed at the capabilities of these big machines taking four, five, even six people up a wet and slimy mud double-track!                                            After this, it was back to the rooms or the bar to loosen up a bit more!  With muddy feet and big grins, the racers stumbled back to their tents or hotel rooms to clean up (or not!) and prepare for the night's festivities at the nearby Gruene Holle (Green Hell) entertainment complex, where the Racer Banquet was to be held. Organized at the Eifel Stadt, the biggest and most impressive club at the Gruene Holle, the banquet was a huge buffet dinner with plenty of food for all the racers, spread over several tables and four courses. Soup, starters, fish, meat and dessert courses were laid out for the racers, and everyone enjoyed a big meal and a few drinks to prepare themselves for the next day. No one stayed out too late, though, because Saturday was sure to be a real test of endurance, for man and machine!    Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, with very few clouds in the sky, giving us plenty of hope for at least a dry start to the day. During the morning warm-up time, the teams got used to the track once again - it had been completely cleaned up by the track staff, so here was another opportunity to lay down some tyre tracks! While this was going on, the team managers were called into a quick meeting to go over any last-minute notifications. Nothing major had come up, so the HPI staff reminded them of the refueling procedure and marshal points, and the teams were left to get ready for the noon start of the race.      Just before the race and while everyone still looked fresh, all the teams were gathered together for one big group picture, and the separate team pictures they would be able to use as souvenirs of the big weekend. Everyone had the opportunity for their friends and fellow countrymen to take pictures.                   While the inaugural race in 2008 featured a LeMans-style start with the cars not running and mechanics running across the track to start them, this year we used a classic grid-style start with the cars running and lined up behind the big jump in the fastest part of the race track.                         The first lap was typically messy but all the teams knew that it woulnd't be the first lap or even the first hour that would decide the race victor, so the drivers quickly calmed down and settled into their own rythm. Within half an hour came the first of the driver changes, and not long after the first fuel stops. With the Baja able to run easily at full throttle for 45 minutes or more, some teams chose to change drivers every 45 minutes or every hour, to coincide with the fuel stops. At least two teams went for much more frequent driver changes, about every 20-30 minutes, to reduce the chance of crashes on long driving stints. The rest of the teams went for very long driving stints of up to two hours at a time. Only time would tell which strategy would pay off in the end!                             Rather quickly, some teams had trouble with crash damage. The French team needed to replace the rear bulkhead after getting hit hard from behind, and within a couple of hours three teams were in the pits with bigger problems such as engine or suspension damage.                             After the three-hour mark there seemed to be a four-way fight between the German #1 team, HPI Estonia and the Polish #1 team. Team Germany 1 was in the lead by a dozen or so laps, but the other three teams were within just a few laps of one another, and any sort of mechanical problem could quickly set them a couple of dozen laps behind! The MMUber RC team from the UK were scrapping heavily with HPI Baja Fans from Denmark, while a few laps behind them Team Germany 2 and Team Mantua from Slovenia were neck and neck! This race was already tightening up and we were just a few hours into it!                                                        At about five hours into the race, the race officials started getting complaints from several of the teams about the timing equipment. After talking with the race organizers, many of these teams stopped to change or move their transponders, however these steps didn't solve the timing issue. With the prospect of thousands of laps to look back on and correct by hand, HPI staff made the very difficult call, after a quick team manager meeting, to temporarily call a halt to the race at the 6-hour mark.  photo credit: Team Iceland  The postponement was initially going to be just for an hour while the equipment was checked and teams could make sure their transponders were working, but after a couple more meetings and an in-depth look at the problem, the race resumed at 21:00, 3 hours after originally stopping. This definitely wasn't the original intention of the race organizers, but the delay was inevitable given the time taken to solve the problems that had come up. Once the timing equipment was sorted out, the transponder strengths were 3 to 4 times more powerful than they had been, and racing was easily resumed with the cars in the same order as they were last on the track (although on the same lap). While the racing was continuing, HPI staff sat down with each team manager to go through each team's individual laps and decide together how many laps were actually missed. A final team manager meeting was called to allow all the teams to vote to decide what to do with the original 6 hours' worth of racing laps, and the decision was taken to add half the laps from the first part of the race to the final result for the remaining 15 hours of racing. This would lower the importance of the first 6 hours, because of the imprecise nature of adding extra laps to the computer count, yet it would also make the first part of the race mean something toward the end result. Laps to be added Germany 1 - 274 laps Czech Republic - 270 Team Mantua (Slovenia) - 264 Modellcars Poland 1 - 259 Modell Hobby (Hungary) - 256 MMUber RC (UK 1) - 247 Holland WSE 1 - 246 HPI Estonia - 246 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) - 244 Germany 2 - 242 Modellcars Poland 2 - 239 Holland WSE 2 - 235 Team Roaster (UK 2) - 224 Team Iceland - 215 Team France - 214 From 21:00 onward, the racing continued non-stop and without interruption. Team Germany 1 led the way with the Czech Republic just a few laps behind. Team Mantua from Slovenia was solidly in third place, with Holland WSE 1 and HPI Estonia fighting very closely on the track, never more than a lap apart for hours at a time. Modellcars Poland 1 kept station in sixth place but was slowly losing ground to HPI Estonia. The Modell Hobby from Hungary stayed just ahead of Holland WSE 2, and MMUber RC, Modellcars Poland 2 and Team Germany 2 were close together early on but HPI Baja Fans from Denmark moved up to challenge Team Germany 2 for position. The Modell Hobby team started to lose ground as midnight rolled around, but bounced back in the next hour. 2300 Running Order 1 Germany 1 2 Czech Rep 3 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 4 Holland WSE 1 5 HPI Estonia 6 Modellcars Poland 1 7 Holland WSE 2 8 Modell Hobby (Hungary) 9 MMUber RC (UK 1) 10 Germany 2 11 Modellcars Poland 2 12 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 13 Team Roaster (UK 2) 14 Team Iceland 15 Team France             After the sun went down, the air cooled down and racers started bundling up against the cold. However, as much as it was getting cooler, the racing was heating up on the track! The top two teams of Team Germany 1 and the Czech Republic started the race just four laps apart, but at the stroke of midnight, three hours after the restart, the Czech Republic were just one lap down and closing in! Elsewhere on the track, Team Mantua from Slovenia were several laps ahead of HPI Estonia and Holland WSE 1 in the battle for third, with Estonia and Holland #1 just a few laps apart themselves. Team Germany 2 and Denmark were just a few laps apart fighting for seventh, with the #1 UK team of MMUber RC a few laps ahead in sixth overall. 1 AM Running Order 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Holland WSE 1 4 HPI Estonia 5 Modellcars Poland 1 6 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 7 Holland WSE 2 8 Modell Hobby (Hungary) 9 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 10 MMUber RC (UK 1) 11 Modellcars Poland 2 12 Germany 2 13 Team Iceland 14 Team France 15 Team Roaster (UK 2) At the 1 AM mark, one team that could have been quietly celebrating was the team from the Czech Republic, who were now a few laps ahead of Team Germany 1. Was it their shorter driver stints allowing their drivers to not lose focus, or just luck out on the track that allowed them to get a lead of a few laps? It's hard to know for sure, as everyone had their troubles in the darkest hours of the night, but in any case they squeezed in an extra 9 laps more than anyone else and took the overall lead with 629 laps. The only other team in the 600's was Team Germany 1 with 622 in total, and the rest were fighting for the last podium spot for now. In third place was Holland WSE 1, who had moved up in position after Team Mantua developed some problems. This left Team Mantua battling with HPI Estonia less than ten laps behind Holland WSE 1 and only two laps between them. From there it was anybody's guess as to what would happen for the remainder of the race, but it would definitely be exciting! As the clocks rolled around to 02:00, the teams from the Czech Republic and Germany 1 were on the same exact lap, both on 709! Their nearest contender was Holland WSE 1, rounding off lap 673, then HPI Estonia and Team Mantua from Slovenia just one lap apart, slowly catching up to Holland! This was shaping up to be a very good race on many different levels! 2 AM Running Order 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Holland WSE 1 4 HPI Estonia 5 Modellcars Poland 1 6 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 7 Holland WSE 2 8 MMUber RC (UK 1) 9 Germany 2 10 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 11 Modellcars Poland 2 12 Modell Hobby (Hungary) 13 Team Iceland 14 Team Roaster (UK 2) 15 Team France A few teams seemed to be taking a battering on the track and not finding any luck whatsoever. The Team Iceland boys were back this year and hoping to improve with their experience from the last endurance race, but the changing track conditions and dark sections of the track were conspiring against them. Perhaps their 2-hour driver stints were working against them? We noticed that the teams with the least number of drivers were definitely suffering a bit more than the others. Teams Iceland and France only had four racers and were struggling, however none had it worse than Team Roaster, our second team from the UK: with just three drivers (one driver had to cancel at the last minute), the entire team was extremly tired and really having a tough time on the track. Sometime after 2 AM, Team Roaster would be the first of our teams to drop out of the race. 3 AM Running Order 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Holland WSE 1 4 HPI Estonia 5 Modellcars Poland 1 6 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 7 MMUber RC (UK 1) 8 Holland WSE 2 9 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 10 Modellcars Poland 2 11 Germany 2 12 Modell Hobby (Hungary) 13 Team Iceland 14 Team France 15 Team Roaster (UK 2) By 3 in the morning, the only change in position was the UK #1 team, MMUber RC, taking away the 7th away place from Holland WSE 2. All the other positions stayed the same, but at the 4AM mark, there'd been a few changes in the race order! Problems for the Czech Republic team allowed Team Germany 1 to take the lead by just 3 laps, and Holland WSE 1 made some distance from HPI Estonia, who were rapidly getting caught up by Team Mantua from Slovenia. Modellcars Poland 1 and MMUber RC stayed in position but Team HPI Baja Fans were coming under serious threat by Modellcars Poland 2, who were just 1 lap behind the team from Denmark! Team Germany 2 and Team Modell Hobby from Hungary were getting closer together. 4 AM Running Order 1 Germany 1 2 Czech Rep 3 Holland WSE 1 4 HPI Estonia 5 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 6 Modellcars Poland 1 7 MMUber RC (UK 1) 8 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 9 Modellcars Poland 2 10 Holland WSE 2 11 Germany 2 12 Modell Hobby (Hungary) 13 Team Iceland 14 Team France Team Roaster (UK 2)          By 0500, Team Germany 1 had lost its lead once again to the team from the Czech Republic. The Slovenian Team Mantua drivers had nearly caught up to HPI Estonia and were just one lap behind, so they were definitely on the move! Team Modell Hobby moved up two spots to get into 10th place so far, passing Holland WSE 2 and Team Germany 2. 5 AM Running Order 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Holland WSE 1 4 HPI Estonia 5 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 6 Modellcars Poland 1 7 MMUber RC (UK 1) 8 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 9 Modellcars Poland 2 10 Modell Hobby (Hungary) 11 Holland WSE 2 12 Germany 2 13 Team Iceland 14 Team France Team Roaster (UK 2)    With the sky brightening in the southeast, at 0600 the podium positions hadn't changed, but HPI Estonia had fallen behind Team Mantua and Modellcars Poland 1, dropping back to 6th place with a long repair. Holland WSE 2 had bounced back, reclaiming 9th spot and passing Team Modell Hobby in the process. Modellcars Poland 2 dropped back another 2 positions, falling to 11th from 9th, with the rest of the running order unchanged. 6 AM Running Order 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Holland WSE 1 4 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 5 Modellcars Poland 1 6 HPI Estonia 7 MMUber RC (UK 1) 8 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 9 Holland WSE 2 10 Modell Hobby (Hungary) 11 Modellcars Poland 2 12 Germany 2 13 Team Iceland 14 Team France Team Roaster (UK 2) With the mid-morning sun filling the sky by 7 AM, there was only one position change on the track - more problems for HPI Estonia and some solid driving by the UK #1 team, MMUber RC made the pass on the track to move up one position to 6th. The battle for the lead had definitely settled down, with the Czech Republic team and Team Germany 1 separated by just one extra lap than at 6 AM. That means both teams were doing extremely consistent driving over the hour, very impressive! 7 AM Running Order 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Holland WSE 1 4 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 5 Modellcars Poland 1 6 MMUber RC (UK 1) 7 HPI Estonia 8 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 9 Holland WSE 2 10 Germany 2 11 Team Iceland 12 Modell Hobby (Hungary) 13 Modellcars Poland 2 14 Team France Team Roaster (UK 2) Between 7 and 8 AM, the only changed to the running order came from problems for Team Modell Hobby from Hungary. Continued issues with parts breakages meant they lost another hard-earned position, dropping to 13th. After 0900 the team was forced to throw in the towel and call it quits for the race. It was a tough ending for our first endurance race winners in 2008.  In the battle for other positions, by 9 AM HPI Baja Fans had leapfrogged MMUber RC and HPI Estonia to get into 6th, while HPI Estonia also got past MMUber RC to stay in 7th while the team from the UK fell to 8th overall. Team Germany 2 passed Holland WSE 2 by one lap to get into 9th position, but as close as that battle was, the closest fight on the track was for the last podium place between Holland WSE 1 and Team Mantua! Both were on precisely the same lap, rounding off lap number 1217 at exactly 0900! 9 AM Running Order 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Holland WSE 1 4 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 5 Modellcars Poland 1 6 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 7 HPI Estonia 8 MMUber RC (UK 1) 9 Germany 2 10 Holland WSE 2 11 Team Iceland 12 Modellcars Poland 2 13 Team France 14 Modell Hobby (Hungary) Team Roaster (UK 2) By 10 o'clock, Holland WSE 2 had overtaken Team Germany 2, getting 6 laps ahead, so the 9th place spot was the only one to change hands. The rest of the positions had stayed the same, with Holland WSE 1 in third place moving well ahead of Team Mantua, moving 12 laps ahead. Modellcars Poland 1 was just 6 laps ahead of the Danish team of HPI Baja Fans, and Team Iceland was just 6 laps behind Team Germany 2. 10 AM Running Order 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Holland WSE 1 4 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 5 Modellcars Poland 1 6 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 7 HPI Estonia 8 MMUber RC (UK 1) 9 Holland WSE 2 10 Germany 2 11 Team Iceland 12 Modellcars Poland 2 13 Team France Modell Hobby (Hungary) Team Roaster (UK 2)                 With just an hour to go, the positions on the track didn't change, but suddenly the teams fighting for the last podium spot were again on the same lap! Holland WSE 1 and Team Mantua from Slovenia were on same lap together, taking it easy and trying to stay out of trouble! With 1374 laps completed for these teams, in second place was Team Germany 1 with 1414 laps, but with a strong lead they were trying hard to protect was the team from the Czech Republic, with 1456 laps total. The next closest battle on the track was between the surviving UK team and the Estonians, just 2 laps apart on the track but running steady lap times wherever possible! 11 AM Running Order 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Holland WSE 1 4 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 5 Modellcars Poland 1 6 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 7 MMUber RC (UK 1) 8 HPI Estonia 9 Holland WSE 2 10 Germany 2 11 Team Iceland 12 Modellcars Poland 2 13 Team France Modell Hobby (Hungary) Team Roaster (UK 2) In the final hour of the race, the teams in first and second place were very carefully letting traffic pass them so they would stay out of trouble and not suffer any broken parts. The battle for third, however, raged on! Somewhere during the last hour the Slovenian Team Mantua team had slipped past Holland WSE 1, and it was their mission to stay ahead as long as possible! With just one lap between them, any mistake or crash could mean the difference between a podium spot and going home empty-handed! Referees watched the cars on the track and the drivers on the stand to ensure there was no team driving or blocking of any kind. With national pride and big trophies on the line, everyone wanted the race to stay clean, even though the car were totally caked with dust and grime! There were no position changes during the last hour, and the race finished as required at noon.                                All the drivers were very tired, and although various team members had been catching up on rest at the side of the track, everyone perked up to see the cars cross the finish line for the last time! The Czech Republic team had even taken the time to attach their national flag to their car, taking the victory lap in style! Provisional Final Positions 1 Czech Rep 2 Germany 1 3 Team Mantua (Slovenia) 4 Holland WSE 1 5 Modellcars Poland 1 6 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) 7 MMUber RC (UK 1) 8 HPI Estonia 9 Holland WSE 2 10 Germany 2 11 Team Iceland 12 Modellcars Poland 2 13 Team France Modell Hobby (Hungary) Team Roaster (UK 2)  Immediately after the race, the racers gathered for an impromptu group photo to show off their tired faces and dusty cars. Once this was complete, the top 3 teams and 2 random teams in the top 10 finishers were instructed to take apart their cars for inspection by HPI staff and the other racing teams.     Unfortunately, a critical error by the Slovenian team had led to them using spares from a car that had been fitted with unapproved parts, so the team manager had to be informed that they wouldn't be allowed to keep their third place position. It was a difficult call to make, but it was the right decision in the end. So with the adjustment to the final positions, we had our top three teams! Final Positions 1 Czech Rep - 1534 laps 2 Germany 1 - 1495 laps 3 Holland WSE 1 - 1453 laps 4 Modellcars Poland 1 - 1412 laps 5 HPI Baja Fans (Denmark) - 1401 laps 6 MMUber RC (UK 1) - 1364 laps 7 HPI Estonia - 1362 laps 8 Holland WSE 2 - 1243 laps 9 Germany 2 - 1215 laps 10 Team Iceland - 1199 laps 11 Modellcars Poland 2 - 1180 laps 12 Team France - 1095 laps Modell Hobby (Hungary) - 897 laps Team Roaster (UK 2) - 511 laps Team Mantua (Slovenia) - 1454 laps   2nd place: Team Germany 1  Winner: Team Czech Republic   After the trophies were handed out, HPI staff raffled off several kits and Baja option parts. Only the racers were included in the raffle, so it gave everyone who participated in the event something extra to look forward to. The kits included a Cup Racer, Sprint 2 Flux, Nitro 3 Evo and the biggest prize of all: a Savage Flux monster truck! Most of the teams walked away with at least one winner  The HPI staff want to extend our appreciation to everyone who made the 2009 HPI Baja Endurance Challenge Series Final race such a success, and we want to especially thank all the teams and team managers for their incomparable patience during the race! In no particular order, we want to thank: Jan Ackermann, the race organizer and the guy that pulled everything together for us locally Hartmut the race director, for organizing the race results for the hand-counting Every driver, team member, cook and dog that made it to the race - the atmosphere in the pits was all down to you guys! All of the HPI distributors that organized races during 2009, bringing Baja racers together at the regional & local levels Everyone who took part in the many Baja races that took place during the year Motors TV, who will be showing the race as an episode of RC Racing TV Akira K (again), the designer and braing behind the fabulous kit that is the Baja The rest of the HPI staff that helped make the race the real event that it was  We've already had requests from various countries and distributors, from people that want to host the race next year and make it bigger and better again! We welcome all submissions and will take a look at all suggestions, we definitely want the 2010 Baja Finals to be a bigger and more impressive success! Hopefully we'll see all of the racers again next year or in future Baja events, best of luck racing!  As a bonus, we wanted to share with you some of the pictures of the classic and infamous Nurburgrng Nordschliefe race track and entrance!             And now, just a look back at the news reports from all the countries that participated in the Baja Endurance Challenge Series during 2009!
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