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Heidfeld delights his fans in a unique karting event
By Michael Oellers / NickHeidfeld.com
September 24 2009
The kart event of Nick's fan club has already a tradition. After the first kart event in 2002 in Winterberg, races in Hamburg, Köln, Mönchengladbach and on the Sachsenring followed. Then in 2009, for the first time, Switzerland was the venue, more precisely the GoEasy Leisure & Event Center in Siggenthal Station.

On September 5th and 6th, 30 of Nick's fans competed there at the Nick Heidfeld Fanclub Kartevent to become the kart champion.

After exciting trainings, the qualification and the preceding races, Daniel Bohr from Luxemburg, who participates on the Outdoor-Championships of the kart club at Trier, won through. Second best was the former IDM-pilot Simon Reichenwallner and beat the local hero and track record holder Christian Putz. After these "professionals", Christian Sailer crossed the finish line and could consequently claim the title of the intern fan club champ.

Bohr, who bought Nick Heidfeld's racing overall at an auction on eBay in August, got it handed over personally by Nick and was very happy after his victory: "It was great fun, primarily because once I had the chance to compete against a Formula 1 racing driver in a kart. This is a chance you don't get that often."

It's because Nick insisted on getting behind a wheel himself. After he had competed against the fastest racers of the qualifying in a free training session and had upgraded his lap times continuously, he participated on the both semi final races, of course non-competitively, of which he won one. Thereby his lap times were at the same level as that of the 3 later winners.

"It was my first visit to the track. It has only been in existence for about a year and I don't go karting in my free time. As always, before such an event, I decided that I would put in a couple of demo laps only, because there's a certain element of risk just one week befor a Grand Prix. But it's exciting, even with hire karts, to clamber in and have some fun. As everyone was driving very carefully, I posted quite a few of laps after all, partly because the track was very long and interesting and it wasn't always easy to find the right line. It was great fun", Nick says after leaving his car again.

Of course there were also a lot of things to do for Nick besides the track: The autograph requests of the participants and also the viewers, who had deliberately travelled there, wanted to be fulfilled. Aside, there was also a lot of time for conversations with the fans. "As always, it was a relaxed affair. It's great meeting people again, who have belonged to the fan club for years and who continue to give me their support”, Nick explains. "I've known many of them for so long now that I find it easy to strike up conversation for the first time. On the other hand some fans had never been to an event before and we were meeting for the first time – I like that too."

At the end of the weekend, Nick as well as his fans agreed:  the kart event in 2009 was definitely not the last kart event of  the Nick Heidfeld fan club.

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24 Sep, 2009 10:04 Report
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Heidfeld delights his fans in a unique karting event
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