Aigoin ups Arena pace

The second round of qualifying for the Arena Offroad Meeting has been completed with Yannick Aigoin laying down a super fast buggy run of 7-laps in 5:07.797 to finish 10 seconds clear of his nearest rival Losi team-mate Martin Bayer. The French ace said a change of shock pistons and oil resulted in an almost perfect car for the run and he was happy to be able to knock 13 seconds off his Heat 1 time. Despite the huge margin Aigoin plans to try a few small set-up changes for the third and final heat of the day. In Truggy Aigoin once again set the pace bettering his round 1 time by just over a second, again ahead of Bayer.

For his buggy run Bayer switched to Losi Kingpin Red tyres which he found to work much better than expected given their harder compound compared with the Crimefigher M3 he used to top the opening qualifier. Once again Bayer set the fastest lap for the round with a 43.086 which was a second quicker than that set in Q1. In Truggy, like his team-mate Aigoin, he ran the same set-up as the morning but once again he found the ‘crazy’ traffic to be his biggest problem.

A change of tyres transformed the pace of former 2 time European Champion Davide Tortorici in the second qualifier. The former factory Crono team driver ran the same set-up on his OS powered RS7 but switched from AKA’s Gridiron tyre to iBeam and this allowed the Italian to post the third fastest time of 7 laps in 5:24.044. Kyosho’s Martin Karner was fourth fastest having made some changes to the suspension on his Orion powered MP9. Adrien Bertin is assisting Karner with his set-up and feels the very consistent Austrian can make further improvements with more suspension tweaks. Karner is also racing a Castle Creations powered MP9 in the brushless class setting the 2nd fastest time for their third qualifier.

Fifth fastest for the round was Sirio team driver Ricardo Rabitti but he could have claimed a the top 2 time but for a costly driver error. The Italian, who is running in the top heat, had been heading Martin Bayer but lost around 6 seconds with a mistake that was his own doing. Rabitti’s Brushless run was a troubled one as his LRP powered 8ight failed to go at the start. A quick check of the wiring saw the car come to life again and he was able to record the fastest lap enroute to fourth behind the Kyosho’s of Fabrizio Taghesi & Karner and the Mugen of Fabio Boero.  A faulty sensor wire is suspected to have been the problem and a new one has been fitted for the next heat.

Completing the Top 6 for the buggy class was Elliot Boots who continues to be top Mugen driver. The young Englishman suffered from a lack of grip on his second run and now plans to try for the penultimate qualifier JConcepts new Barcodes tyre, a pattern he has never used before. Top Xray with the seventh fastest time was Riccardo Perin followed by the Hong Nor of Richi Gomez with Alex Bayer, younger brother of Martin, and Simon Willets completing the Top 10.

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