Chassis Focus – Alex Bernadzik (Associated)

Chassis – Team Associated RC8 B4.2
Engine – O.S. Speed B2105
Fuel – Runnertime
Tyres – Hotrace Sahara Super Soft
Radio – Futaba 10PXR
Servos –  Reedy Power Rs4008A
Body – ProMotion Hyperline

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Bernadzik ‘Top Qualifier’ at ABC Indonesia with blistering Q5 run

Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik is the Top Qualifier at the Asian Buggy Championships Finale in Indonesia, the Australian putting together a blistering Q5 run to secure pole for tomorrow’s 1-hour Nitro Buggy main on the tie-breaker with Pekko Iivonen.  Having hinted in the penultimate round of quali that he had the potential to better Iivonen’s Q2 time, a mistake on lap 6 of 8 ending that effort, with nothing to lose Bernadzik went for it in the decider.  Opening with a 41.7 second lap he then added to his tally of fastest laps for each round by taking the benchmark down to a 41.098 with Iivonen unable to respond.  Passing Sparko’s Ken NG on his final lap with just two corners to go, he look like he might again through it away when he clipped the pipping and sending his RC8 into a spin.  Luckily he bounced off NG’s buggy to recover facing in the right direction and most importantly crossing the loop with a time that bettered Iivonen’s Q2 by 1.5-seconds.  Despite adding a 3rd TQ run to his tally when he took Q4, with only 2 from 5 to count, Iivonen will start P2 tomorrow at West Side Raceway.  Counting P2 runs from Q3 & 4, Hyunkyu Jung will line-up 3rd on the grid ahead of Indonesia’s very own Jason Nugroho.  Newly crowned FEMCA Champion Jayden Edmunds completes the Top 5 on what will become a 15-car final after bump ups from the lower finals.

‘I made it happen’, was a very pleased Bernadzik’s reaction to taking Q5.  He continued, ‘I was a bit apprehensive about what the track was going to be like cause the afternoon runs have been a little bit slower but once Scotty (Ernst) starting calling lap times I was like oh we’ve got a chance to take the overall.’  He added, ‘I stayed locked in and was just throwing out some good laps I guess.’  On his moment on the final lap, he admitted, ‘I was pretty lucky Ken saved me a bit there, it could have been a lot worse.’  On his Q4 run, he said ‘the car was really good, I just crashed which was totally my fault.’  Looking to the final, the ABC Australia race winner said, ‘It’s anyone’s race really, everyone is so closely paced.  To have the Top 3 within a second of each other after a 5-minute run is just crazy.  It’s definitely going to be a good battle tomorrow in the hour long main.’  On preparing for the final physically, the 26-year-old said, ‘we are going to have to keep the fluids up during the day and make sure to not stay in the sun too much.’  Regarding run time, Bernadzik said they would ‘play it pretty safe and probably run 7:30 (stops).  We are not going to stretch it anything longer than that cause in a 1-hour long main the track is going to get dustier.’  On tyres he will continue with Hotrace’s super soft Sahara.

Impressed by Bernadzik Q5 effort, Iivonen said, ‘I was quite surprised how the track was today in the afternoon, it was much faster than yesterday.  We tried everything but Alex was faster in the last one.’  He continued, ‘It was quite close but I think I need a little bit more probably forward traction so we will try to find something for that.  We should have a practice tomorrow to try something.’  Asked if that was going to be on the car or tyre related he replied, ‘I think we are going to try the Hotrace tyres to see.  He (Bernadzik) is running them and the pace is quite fast on this conditions so we are going to try that and see the difference.’  Up to now, Iivonen has been running Green compound JConcepts Dirt Wed 2 tyres on his Mayako.  The Top Qualifier here in eBuggy, the Team Cayote backed driver said he is going to try do the same thing he did in eBuggy qualifying and ‘pull away from the start and make clean 7-minutes’, the triple finals here reduced to 7-minutes as a precaution in the high temperatures.

Reacting to his P3 starting position, Team Associated’s Jung said, ‘P3 is OK but I wanted more.  I think we definitely have some speed today but I made some mistakes and also had problems with traffic but it’s a 1-hour final so the qualifying is not going to make a difference.’  The up & coming Korean talent said, ‘Everything can happen in a race this long but I think we are in good shape.’  Asked about tyre wear in the final, the 16-year-old felt, ‘tyre wear seems a little bit more compared to what we had the last couple of days but I think super soft Sahara should be OK for the full race.  I will have a fresh set for the main.’

Putting his IFB8 4th on the grid, Infinity driver Nugroho said, ‘my car has felt better and better each run but I tried something for the last round and it was probably a bit too much.  I kept crashing, but overall I am pretty satisfied with fourth and hopefully I can do better tomorrow in the final with a clean run and faster pace.’  On tyres, having started the event with a limit amount of Proline Slide Lock tyres, he said, ‘I am kind of torn between running the Sahara or Slide Lock for tomorrow, because when it gets very very dusty like in the finals I think Slide Lock will be better but then I will be letting go the forward bite the Sahara gives.  So we will see how the track is tomorrow.’  With 1-hour finals standard issue here in Jakarta at his home track, Nugroho said this is why he his torn on what to run saying, ‘usually after 20-minutes when the sun is up the dust is just all over the place covering up the lines.’

Chassis Focus – Jason Nugroho (Infinity)

Chassis – Infinity IFB8
Engine – O.S. SpeedAdam Drake 3
Fuel – Merlin
Tyres – Proline Slde Lock
Radio – Flysky Noble NB4+
Servos –  KO Propo RSX3
Body – Infinity Kit Body

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Bernadzik takes Q3 at Asian Buggy Champs

Alex Bernadzik has kicked off Day 2 of qualifying at the Asian Buggy Championships finale in Jarkarta with a TQ run, the 3rd of the 5 qualifiers producing a Team Associated 1-2 as Hyunkyu Jung recorded the second fastest time on what was a slower track than yesterday.  With Pekko Iivonen making the first day of qualifying at West Side Raceway his own, topping both qualifiers, it was Jung and Bernadzik who battled out Q3 as the Finn used the round to test a harder compound tyre.  Unfortunately for Jung traffic in the closing stages of the run cost him the top spot with Bernadzik, once again setting the fastest lap of the round, securing his first TQ by half a second from the young Korean.  With the run the slowest of the three so far, the track almost 5-seconds off yesterday afternoon’s Q2, the Top 3 would be completed by Infinity’s Jason Nugroho.  A 46-second lap half way through the round saw Iivonen stop the clock with the fourth fastest time ahead of Jayden Edmunds, the Sparko driver struggling for pace after putting on a brand new set of tyre for the run.

Pleased to finally register a TQ run, Bernadzik said, ‘For the most part it was a good clean run but the car felt a little bit slow, it had too much rear grip’.  The 24-year-old continued, ‘I guess just with the track it feels like it has a lot of grip in it today but I don’t know if is it just the temperature or maybe I need to go up in shock oils a little bit.  I need a little more steering and to make it more aggressive again and then it should be fine.’  The only one to run a 41-second lap for the round, on his eBuggy effort he described Q3 as ‘average’.  Fourth fastest, Iivonen registering his first TQ run in the electric class, the Brisbane driver said both he, having crashed on his last lap, and the car need to improve.

Despite his traffic issue, summing up the round, Jung said, ‘It was not bad, my car was actually pretty good now.’  Not happy with nitro buggy in Q2, he said they changed to new shocks for today and ‘this worked pretty well’.  Balked badly by another buggy, the 16-year-old said, ‘the traffic out there is a little bit annoying but we still have two more so we will see what we can do.’  On the track conditions he said, ‘today I think it’s slower and more dusty on the outside so there is less grip.  Yesterday was pretty clean but today I don’t know why but its super less grip.’  On changes for Q4, he will leave his nitro car unchanged as he feels the track is going to change again but he will try something on his electric buggy first which runs earlier in he 10-heat round.

Asked how he felt Q3 went, Nugroho replied, ‘It went well.  I tried my best to keep it safe and not crash cause I feel like there is more dust on the track and it’s more loose than yesterday afternoon.’  He added, ‘Fortunately I had no traffic issues but I had a couple of bobbles myself.’  The 26-year-old continued, ‘Now I am trying to figuring out what  I can do to the car to get more steering.’

Iivonen said, ‘From yesterday I knew the pace was so good that I didn’t really need to worry too much this morning so I wanted to try a bit harder of a compound of tyre and it was a bit more slippery so harder to drive.’  The ABC Round 2 Malaysia Top Qualifier continued, ‘I made a couple of mistakes because of that but otherwise I think the car feels super nice to drive.’  The Mayako driver added, ‘we got some new parts that just arrived today so I will also try those next.’  With 2 of the five rounds to count, his Q2 time a potential tie breaker, he concluded, ‘I think we will be good cause I think the track wont get as fast as yesterday evening and it was quite a clean run but I still want to take a couple more TQ’s in nitro to be safe but with the time I should be good’.

2 from 2 for Iivonen as last lap error costs Bernadzik Q2

Mayako’s Pekko Iivonen made it 2 from 2 on the opening day of qualifying at the fourth & final round of the Asian Buggy Championships in Indonesia, the Finn taking Q2 after a late mistake by Top Seed Alex Bernadzik.  Having topped the opening qualifier, Iivonen set the early pace of the afternoon run but again setting the fastest lap of the round Bernadzik’s Team Associated went to the top of the timing screens 2-minutes into the 5-minute qualifier.  On the final lap however a mistake from the Australian would see him drop 1-second on his previous lap time, allowing Iivonen to top times by 1.061 of a second.  Behind it was Korean teenager Hyunkyu Jung who posted the third fastest time ahead of Jason Nugroho and Sparko’s Jayden Edmunds.

Summing up his perfect day and his Q2 run, Iivonen said, ‘the car was really really good and I think there was a bit more grip on the track or in the tyres, either way it felt super super nice.’  Setting his fastest lap of the race on his final lap, he continued, ‘I caught up someone in the middle of the qualifier and got a bit held up but then caught it back up at the end.  JQ was saying that I was a couple of tenths from the TQ and then I just pushed the last lap and I was able to get the TQ done.’  Looking to tomorrow’s second day of qualifying, 3 more rounds to run with drivers counting their best two from the total of five, on any car changes Iivonen said, ‘There is nothing on my mind right now to change for tomorrow but I will glue a new set of tyres and see what I will do with them.’

‘It was pretty smooth sailing until I made a meal of it on the last lap’, was Bernadzik reaction to throwing away a TQ run.  He added, ‘the car was really good there.  I went a little less rear toe which helped so I am glad I did that and I could probably go less again as the car was really still locked in.  It was really easy to drive but I just needed it a bit more aggressive.’  On his mistake he said, ‘It was just my bad.  I clipped the pipe and got stuck in the infield and had to drive back on to the track so it cost me a bit over a second.  So it would have made it really close at the end there.  We’ve got three more to go so we’ll try work some magic tomorrow’.  Taking the eBuggy TQ for the second round, he said that buggy ‘was a lot better’ the second time round and for the morning he will drive both buggies unchanged.

Despite his P3 for the round, Jung was very dejected by how his Team Associated performed.  He said, ‘the car is not working out there, it is so difficult to drive, I don’t know what is wrong.’  Fitting a new set of tyres for the run but otherwise making no changes to how he ran in Q1, he continued, ‘I know on new tyres it will be loose at the beginning but it wasn’t the tyre, the car felt like something is broken.’  Planning a full rebuild of his Nitro buggy, the 16-year-old concluded, ‘we still have 3 more rounds left and where you start in a 1-hour final is not that important so we will try a few things tomorrow to try get the car right for the main.’

Having lacked the grip he was expecting in Q1, on his Q2 performance Infinity’s Nugroho said, ‘I changed the car’s geometry and it got better.  I had more steering and I was able to push the car a little bit more but I had two laps in a row with mistakes which cost me a couple of seconds.’  Describing his buggy as feeling more comfortable now compared to seeding, the Indonesian driver says he is feeling more confident for Saturday’s action.  Improving his buggy with a set-up change between the first two qualifiers he said having found a good base to work from he plans on few tweaks to that set-up to try further improve the buggy.  Asked how he is finding tyre wear now that everyone is saucing their tyres, West Side Raceway his home track, he explain, ‘We have never had to change tyres because this track has never had tyre wear but now with saucing we are seeing tyre wear for the first time’, joking, ‘finally tyre wear at this track.’