At ETS RD3 Season #15 2022/23, Jan Ratheisky was in attendence. Nothing special in the first moment as Jan is a well-known, and super fast racer since many, many years at the Euro Touring Series. But this time, he brought his whole family to the race for the first time – and they ALL raced with us. Jan`s wife Svantje, and the children Emely and Marlon raced together in the Hobbywing Frontwheel class, while Kai Asmer (Jan`s father) was throwing it down in the Scorpion Formula class. It was great to see Jan working hard for his family, coordinating everything with all the cars and the time schedule, and racing THREE classes himself. That was a master class from the Ratheisky Family.
By the way: Jan made the A-Main in all the classes ha raced in (Modified, ProStock, and Formula). He finished 9th in Modified, 3rd in Pro Stock, and he won the Formula race to crown a perfect weekend.
During the trophy ceremony, the Ratheisky`s got awarded with the “Spirit of the Event” trophy. A whole family racing RC cars together is something we would like to see more often at our races – the Ratheisky`s showed that it can be a lot of fun! Jan was so kind to send us a detailed report about the weekend of the Ratheisky`s and we like to share it with you today:
Last weekend it finally was time for the first ETS where my whole family could take part as we luckily still had school holidays in Lower Saxony. We arrived on Saturday afternoon before the event, and we could run in and tune our cars a little bit. Since my F1 worked very well at the German nationals, I didn’t test it any further, but only installed the ETS combo.
Jan Ratheisky (DE) Xray
As the track was closed for ETS participants from Monday we used the time to maintain the cars. Washing ball bearings, oiling, adjusting, and replacing defective parts. And yes, a lot of things came together 😊 Since we had a total of three days before the race, we were able to spend a nice day at Phantasialand (huge amusement park), which was a nice change and surprise for my children.
About the race: As expected, our training started full of stress as the training runs were quite short and we could therefore race very often. This is of course positive. For me as a driver of 3 classes and mechanic for my family of course an exhausting task. The family did well, but unfortunately some parts broke, so Stefan Schulz was kind enough to help repairing the cars of the kids or my wife. Since the pace of the F1 was still quite good, I just sauceded the tyres and charged the battery. I must mention here that my daughter helped as much as she could and always did the tire saucing 😊 From Friday on, the gap to P2 (Andreas Stiebler) became much thinner and I had to get to work on the setup. As usual, some changes worked well, others were a complete disaster. The foam rubber tyres run great. However, the setup is quite different from the rubber tyres. I think we all must learn that again!
There is not much more to report from the F1 point of view. I think that Andreas and I were on the same level from Friday onwards and didn’t give each other a millimetre. It was exciting in every preliminary heat and every final. My hats off to Andreas at this point. Super driving! In the end, I was able to block him successfully in both finals and thus secure the victory. In Modified I made the A-Main and had some really cool fights on track. The same in Pro Stock where I was in the mix for the overall TQ and win, in the end I finihsed third after great racing with Simon Lauter!
From the family’s point of view, the race was up and down. They enjoyed it extremely to be able to participate in the ETS and felt very welcome from the beginning. To elaborate a bit on the race… My son struggled with concentration, the course and getting through 5min without dropping out. My wife did well but as soon as the race started the mistakes started. It’s a bit different from a club run in Braunschweig 😊. But somehow you have to gain experience. Things went differently for my daughter Emely. She was very concentrated in the preliminary heat and missed the C final by only 2 places. Unfortunately, the dream of a bump up was shattered after a crash at the start. She did her best but unfortunately it was not enough. In the two other finals she was unfortunately also involved in accidents again and again. She simply doesn’t know such situations and still must learn. When others hit her car, she simply stopped to avoid hitting another car. This is a good attitude, but we will work on it😊
All in all I am very happy to have taken part in an ETS again and that my family enjoyed it as much as I did. I am happy to announce that I will be competing again in Luxembourg. Although this time without my family as the holidays are unfortunately over for my children at the end of this week. Of course, again in 3 classes as it should be 😊 Thanks to all Xray drivers for teh great atmpsphere in the pits and for welcoming my family so warmly!
ALL IN OR NOTHING !!
