Tessman fastest in FP4
US National Champion Ty Tessman topped the fourth round of practice at the World Championships in Chico, the HB driver posting the fastest lap of the morning, steering his HB D4-13 to a 27.330 lap of the Silver Dollar R/C Raceway track. For early pace setter Naoto Matsukaru, a bad landing on the warm-up lap saw the Team Yokomo driver breaking an arm before the 5-minutes had even started. Behind Tessman it was Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz who was second fastest followed by Lee Martin and Ryan Maifield.
Having lowered the rear wing on his new HB, Tessman said this was ‘a big help’ on what is another windy morning at the track. Happy with the direction he has been going since FP2, the Canadian is focusing on his attentions on changes to the front and rear geometry adding that the buggy’s new shocks appear to be ‘very good’.
Having started the day with the team’s standard DEX410 buggy, Ryan Lutz changed to the prototype buggy Durango have prepared for the event. Having seen team-mates Joern Neumann & Hupo Honigl perform well with the new car, he switched for FP3 but on that occasion it lacked steering. Having to part build up the second car, he said its been a ‘hectic’ morning but changes for FP4 improved the set-up allowing him to run a 27.486 lap. Lutz feels there is a lot more to come from the set-up and declared himself confident of being able to build on his pace. Reigning Euro Offroad Series Champion Neumann described his first four runs as ‘so so’. The German ace has run both versions of Durango’s buggy describing the standard car as being too ‘aggressive’ and the prototype as lacking steering.
Setting the fastest time over the 5-minutes with 10 laps in 4:41.772, Martin said his run was ‘pretty good’ adding that he is almost at a point where he doesn’t what to change anything else on his prototype TRF511. Asked about the new buggy the British driver said it features a new chassis for better weight distribution which helps with getting the power down better.
Fastest of the Associated team, with a 27.563 lap, Maifield said he thinks his B44.2 is good commenting that it hard to get a good clean run due to the size of the heats and the speed difference between some drivers. The American said his buggy is very consistent from run to run but it was a ‘tight rope’ getting the balance between steering or flipping over right. Team-mate Steven Hartson posted the 6th fastest lap time behind Neil Cragg, the LA driver was much happier with his B44.2 after switching to geardiffs. He said his focus for the next round was to work on improving his driving. AE’s defending World Champion Ryan Cavalieri posted a best lap of 28.026.
In the Team Losi Racing camp it was the Novak powered 22-4 of Mike Truhe which was fastest. Truhe managed a 28.051 while team-mates Dustin Evans & Darren Bloomfield posted 28.3 laps times, Dakotah Phend a further 2/10th off.
It wasn’t a good FP3 & 4 for 2007 World Champion Jared Tebo. The newly crowned 2WD Champion had electric problems which saw him fail to complete any laps in the third round and retire managing only 5 laps in the fourth. Swedish teenager David Ronnefalk was fastest of the new prototype Kyosho runners on a 28.051 in FP4.
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