Matias to carry No.1 for qualifying

Portuguese driver Miguel Matias will carry the No.1 on his car in the top heat at the 2009 EFRA 1:8 Off Road European Championships after topping the time sheets in final practice with the fastest run of the day. Posting 7 laps in 5:24.219, he ended the round 2.1 seconds up on Yannick Aigion, who will be placed No.2 in the reseed.

Former World & European Champion Matias said his prototype GS Racing CLX was better in the second run, the biggest change coming from running a lower oil in the centre diff.  Now easier to drive, he will leave his Ninja powered prototype the same for the morning opting to get used to the car and to also see how the track changes.  The heavily modified chassis, which features a double front shock towers, is being developed by Matias on behalf of the GS factory to better suit European market as the original CLX was designed more for US style tracks.

Aigoin made a number of changes to his car following his fastest time earlier, some of which he said were good but others were bad. The 2006 Champion, who rolled during the run, said the raised ride height was the wrong way to go and he will now make a compromise set-up between the two.

Richi Gomez who set the early pace for the second timed practice, ended up dropping to third but the result was good enough to see the Spanish Hong Nor driver reseeded as car No.3 ahead of the Kyosho MP9 of Jerome Aigoin, twin brother of Yannick.  Interestingly Gomez is running a standard plug in his Novarossi Plus 4 to get better fuel consumption.

Fourth for the round was former Champion and top Mugen Daniel Vega followed by fast Brit Darren Bloomfield and defending Champion Renaud Savoya who both felt they made the wrong tyre choice for the second run.

Craig Drescher, who apart from racing is also looking after the Associated team drivers along with American Richard Saxton, had a strong second run to set the seventh fastest time. Driving the new RC8 B he described the run as ‘steady’ but he feels there is more to come from the car across the team.  The B version of the car is slightly different to that which they ran at the Warm Up and they are still learning it but Drescher is confident they can close the gap tomorrow on their rivals.

Having not featured on the radar so far, electric off road ace Hupo Honigl made a huge leap forward after pretty much changing everything on his LRP S8BX buggy allowing him to post the eight quickest run for the round.  Also using LRP engines, the Austrian said the car is working really well now and that it is not far away in terms of the ideal set-up.  Honigl will be reseeded 12th just behind 2006 Champion Robert Batlle.

Top 10 reseed
1. Miguel Matias (PT)
2. Yannick Aigoin (FR)
3. Richi Gomez (ES)
4. Jerome Aigoin (FR)
5. Daniel Vega (ES)
6. Renaud Savoya (FR)
7. Darren Bloomfield (GB)
8. Martin Bayer (CZ)
9. Riccardo Rabitti (IT)
10. Craig Drescher (GB)

A late addition to the timetable here this evening in Wolbling is a very short 3-minute practice run for drivers in their reseeded heats but the real business of the 2009 Euros gets underway tomorrow with three of the five scheduled qualifiers making up Thursday’s timetable.  Our live coverage, which is supported by Team Orion, Mugen Seiki, LRP and Kyosho, continues in the morning.

View our event image gallery here.