Aigoin does Race of Champions double
Saturday night at the Arena Offroad Meeting is ‘Race of Champions’ time and once again it was the yellow and black Losi’s of Yannick Aigoin that ruled proceedings winning both the buggy and truggy encounters while British driver Anthony Conroy enjoyed his first ever race win with success in the Buggy F2 category.
First up was Truggy and first to fall foul of the novel elimination style race format was Mugen driver Alessandro Magi who earlier in the day had enjoyed a place on the Truggy Main podium. Having started from the back of the grid due to the reversing of the Top 16 qualifiers Aigoin was quickly in front from where cruised to his second title of the day. Once again team-mate Martin Bayer, who posted the fastest lap of the 34 minute race, failed to go the full distant dropping out of second place 26 minutes in this time as a result of his receiver battery running out of power. This promoted Simon Willet and Fabio Boero to battle it out for second spot but in the end it was the English Kyosho driver who got the upper hand to make it onto the second step of the podium for a second time today. After problems with his throttle linkage denied him a place in the Truggy Main, Italian Boero was delighted to get his Mugen on the podium and celebrated by pulling off two perfect back flips with MBX-6T over the biggest jump on the track, unlike the attempts of other two podium finishers!
Buggy F2 class was next up and produced the closest race of the night. Starting second from the back of the 16 car grid, 19-year-old Conroy drove a real steady race taking full advantage of errors made by both fellow Englishman John Howell and young Italian Marco Baruffo. Ably assisted in the pits by the guys from DXR, the Raceprep UK supported Mugen/Ninja driver was delighted to take his maiden buggy win especially given the profile of this international event. The Top Qualifier in the F2 category young Baruffo got the better of Howell’s HoBao in the final few laps to take his RB powered GS to second.
Bringing Day 3 of the Italian event to a close was the Buggy ‘Race of Champions’. With Spanish drivers Richi Gomez and Borja Hernandez opting to sit out the race this meant a late call up for Irui Grassi and Stefano Cantoni, who were ranked 17th and 18th in qualifying, to take part. After what can only be described as 5-minutes of r/c madness, the 16 drivers eventually settled into a rhythm with Riccardo Rabitti holding the early lead, however he couldn’t fend off fellow Losi driver Aigoin who got past to take the win by 7 seconds. Davide Tortorici’s Crono claimed the final podium placing despite a flat receiver battery putting him out of action in the final minute of the race.
Asked afterwards if he could complete a clean sweep of the 2009 Arena Offroad Meeting by taking tomorrow’s blue ribboned Buggy Main, Aigoin said he would be trying for sure but for the moment his main focus was getting a good nights sleep after what has been a very busy and challenging day for the former European Champion.
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