Although this race was known for us for quite some time it wasn't until very late the decision to drive was taken.

During our holiday in Greece we came up with a plan to do the race. It was all about strategies regarding tyres, engines and bodies.

Thanks to Genius racing in general and Noacco Zeno in particular it al fell together.

As part of the preparations Marcus had taken part in one of the Swedish cup races held in Trollhättan earlier this summer. He borrowed Joel Oscarssons Genius XR4 and was competitive right away.

The car for the GP is the exact same care albeight the engine, now running the famous Diablo engine.

Husvagn-Svensson in Lidköping is a sponsor for the family since a couple of years and gave us a motorhome to use during this race.

Arriving at the track early Thursday morning after traveling around 2000km made us all a bit tired when hitting the track just to see the pace wasn't as far away as we had expected.

During free practice Marcus and Joel Oscarsson worked together to find the best setup possible. Although running the same setup Marcus suffered from understeer where Joel noticed some oversteer. We agreed that the driving style must be the key. During qualis Marcus, with some help and discussions with Marcel V D Graaf changed from he centax clutch to the normal 3-shoed one in hope to get more rotation in the car. Unfortunately other things was spooking so no faster times was produced. However, the car was feeling very agile at the late night Saturday's practice and we all finished the day of with some BBQ.

Marcus was sliding down from 6th to 8th in the total after all qualis done. The margin however was as close as it could be.

Finals day - wet day!

The rain was pouring down during the early morning seeing a wet track appear. Marcus semi was a wet one and no specific experiences rather then the new setup of rain tyres, thanks to Raymond Oscarsson bringing us some 1/8 tyres which worked great. Winning semi B made Marcus starting from P2 in the finals.

Main final - dry final

Semi A was a dry one and the drivers used this one to gain advantage regarding tyre choices and setup changes pre final. We were pretty happy with our setup although it felt it didn't have the edge for one super hot lap the car was concistent and fast enough to be competitive. We were going for PMT X1's up front and X3's in the back. This proved to be the right choice.

Marcus tactics for the start of the final was to be very aggressive when the lights changed to green. If it was impossible to keep up with Hessels speed he would let the Danish ace, Fohlman, starting from 3rd by and then try to keep up with him. Things worked out as planned on all occasions but one, Marcus doing one mistake too much. Without this he would also have been able to challenge Hessel Roskam for the win. Time difference between the previous world champion Hessel and Marcus was just 3 seconds at the finnish line...

All in all this was a great event. The host, Staffanstorp HS did a superb job running it, it was a nice and pleasant feeling in the pits, new and old friend to talk to and the 2nd place was higher than expected.

The car and companionship with Joel/Raymond and Marcel made us all feeling like a big team, but we are all really privaters racing. The Genius XR4 gave us the speed and confidence at he track and with the Mancia family nearby we where never out of parts.