Astraist
12-15-2011, 10:55 AM
After years of deprivation for enthusiasts and professionals with the interest of motorsport in my country, and subsequent to the formal legal allowance to hold motorsport related events, not two years past, and a ten-month long duration of hard work against the authorities and sponsers, a first Israeli single-seater league was held this morning and afternoon at an improvised short race track in the southern city of Eilat.
After auditioning, inspecting and training local drivers in a racing school in Provence, France, where - for a duration of five days - they learned the art of controlling a standard-issue Formula Renault-Sport race car.
Returning to Israel, they gathered for a race that was seperated into a session for the women competitors (time trials), men competitors (hot-laps), two sessions for professional two-stroke go-karts, intermittent drifting sessions by the Israeli MyWay drifting school (situated abroad in Hungary), a motocross session and a few bike laps in the memory of Tal Shavit (of whose demise I've published here a year ago), and another session of the Formula Renault for celebrities (including established race drivers and trainers) and CEOs of the some of the sponsering companies.
http://mscwbe.walla.co.il/archive/1188576-5.jpg
It was an amazing, historical day! While the track itself was short and tight (nine meter wide and about a mile long) it was well paved (abrasive and smooth to ride) and technical, with a triple-apex bend leading into a chicane that opens up to a back straight which falls into a hairpin that leads unto the main straight.
The women session ended with the victory (by a technical fault) of one Maia Carlshtat, and a Sharon Ben Ezra being the victorious CEO. 'Our' champion at last year's Formula Asia, and current competitor at Formula 3, Alon Dey, won the celebrity session, against second placed O'n Ya'kobson, himself a race driver (instructed in Laguna Seca and raced there in the Formula Mazda league, at 1993).
The drifting session was interesting, in spite it was not competitive. The team was a team of local drifting drivers and trainers which race in the European championship and train drifting drivers in Hungary, led by a couple: Efrat Hoffman and Adam Frank, the former competed with has hand still set in a cast plaster!
Surprisnigly enough, the go-kart session was highly intersting. Unlike the Formula sessions held so far (which were time trails), the two go-kart sessions were held for ten laps each, with all of the drivers on the track and highly competitive - with bunching, spin-outs, pile-ups and overtaking manuevers, which were made highly difficult due to the nature of the track - leaving only one place for proper overtaking, at the braking zone before the hairpin.
To increase the technical difficulty, a chicane was established along the main straight. The tight chicane took a few drivers off-guard and, having taken them off of the right line (which became very grippy due to the rubber residues), causes one or two drivers to come off of the track, one of which paid the cost of a bent rear axle. The chicane was adjusted prior to the second session, after it was concluded that it was too tight and too far off of the right line.
The main session came, with the man drivers coming up, set in two seperate sessions, each featuring four drivers, the first two of which were choosen to proceed to the final session (due tommorow). The first session was won by a brilliant new advanced driving trainer, one Leon Taubas, who displayed brilliant skills, even though a coleague of him, one Hagay Paran, lost second place to another driver, one Aviv Kadshay, due a small skid at the second corner of the track.
The second session was mastered by the single competitor which has serious racing experience, Erez Liven, local Go-karting champion and a professional competitor or a junior Formula BMW league, trained by the same O'n Ya'kobson that got second place at the celebrity session, who won first place, in spite of being closely followed by a second driver, who unluckily spun right behind Liven and lost his place at the finals.
Tommorow we have the final session, a few additional sessions, as well as the promotion of some driving safety-related campigns and messages that some of the driving trainers in the program of the race want to convey to the public (so I'm told), as well as further drifting and biking sessions, and a new beginning for actual, formal motorsport in our country. The track will be used for several weeks to conduct a semi-daily driving experience on those Formula Renault vehicles, which yours truely considers trying...
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/img2011121500033.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/859/img2011121400029.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/853/img2011121500030.jpg/
After auditioning, inspecting and training local drivers in a racing school in Provence, France, where - for a duration of five days - they learned the art of controlling a standard-issue Formula Renault-Sport race car.
Returning to Israel, they gathered for a race that was seperated into a session for the women competitors (time trials), men competitors (hot-laps), two sessions for professional two-stroke go-karts, intermittent drifting sessions by the Israeli MyWay drifting school (situated abroad in Hungary), a motocross session and a few bike laps in the memory of Tal Shavit (of whose demise I've published here a year ago), and another session of the Formula Renault for celebrities (including established race drivers and trainers) and CEOs of the some of the sponsering companies.
http://mscwbe.walla.co.il/archive/1188576-5.jpg
It was an amazing, historical day! While the track itself was short and tight (nine meter wide and about a mile long) it was well paved (abrasive and smooth to ride) and technical, with a triple-apex bend leading into a chicane that opens up to a back straight which falls into a hairpin that leads unto the main straight.
The women session ended with the victory (by a technical fault) of one Maia Carlshtat, and a Sharon Ben Ezra being the victorious CEO. 'Our' champion at last year's Formula Asia, and current competitor at Formula 3, Alon Dey, won the celebrity session, against second placed O'n Ya'kobson, himself a race driver (instructed in Laguna Seca and raced there in the Formula Mazda league, at 1993).
The drifting session was interesting, in spite it was not competitive. The team was a team of local drifting drivers and trainers which race in the European championship and train drifting drivers in Hungary, led by a couple: Efrat Hoffman and Adam Frank, the former competed with has hand still set in a cast plaster!
Surprisnigly enough, the go-kart session was highly intersting. Unlike the Formula sessions held so far (which were time trails), the two go-kart sessions were held for ten laps each, with all of the drivers on the track and highly competitive - with bunching, spin-outs, pile-ups and overtaking manuevers, which were made highly difficult due to the nature of the track - leaving only one place for proper overtaking, at the braking zone before the hairpin.
To increase the technical difficulty, a chicane was established along the main straight. The tight chicane took a few drivers off-guard and, having taken them off of the right line (which became very grippy due to the rubber residues), causes one or two drivers to come off of the track, one of which paid the cost of a bent rear axle. The chicane was adjusted prior to the second session, after it was concluded that it was too tight and too far off of the right line.
The main session came, with the man drivers coming up, set in two seperate sessions, each featuring four drivers, the first two of which were choosen to proceed to the final session (due tommorow). The first session was won by a brilliant new advanced driving trainer, one Leon Taubas, who displayed brilliant skills, even though a coleague of him, one Hagay Paran, lost second place to another driver, one Aviv Kadshay, due a small skid at the second corner of the track.
The second session was mastered by the single competitor which has serious racing experience, Erez Liven, local Go-karting champion and a professional competitor or a junior Formula BMW league, trained by the same O'n Ya'kobson that got second place at the celebrity session, who won first place, in spite of being closely followed by a second driver, who unluckily spun right behind Liven and lost his place at the finals.
Tommorow we have the final session, a few additional sessions, as well as the promotion of some driving safety-related campigns and messages that some of the driving trainers in the program of the race want to convey to the public (so I'm told), as well as further drifting and biking sessions, and a new beginning for actual, formal motorsport in our country. The track will be used for several weeks to conduct a semi-daily driving experience on those Formula Renault vehicles, which yours truely considers trying...
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/img2011121500033.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/859/img2011121400029.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/853/img2011121500030.jpg/