4WD Worlds underway in Finland
Having crowned Ryan Cavalieri as the new 2WD electric Buggy World Champion on Wednesday attention now turns to 4WD in Finland today with a day of practice on the Vaasa track which has had the layout changed from that used in the first half of the week.
The most successful driver contesting the event, having won back to back 4WD titles in 2003 & 2005, Team Associated’s new 2WD Champion Cavalieri goes into the event full of confidence. Having run three of the eight 4-minute practice runs that make up today’s schedule, the American said the new layout is longer and more tricky but he found the main feature of the track, the quad, not to be as difficult as thought it would be. Admitting that getting it wrong could easily lead to a broken car he expects the competition to be a little different to 2WD. With an amazing eleven 2WD titles to their credit Associated have only a single 4WD title, won with Jared Tebo in 2007, but between Cavalieri, Ryan Maifield and 2WD top qualifier Neil Cragg the American company are serious contenders for their 26th IFMAR World Championship title.
Describing the track as ‘really cool’ and the quad as ‘insane’, Team Kyosho’s Jared Tebo said he wants nothing less than to repeat his 2007 victory. The winner of the last full blown World Championships, the 2009 event having only attracted little more than a dozen drivers, Tebo said he is ‘bummed’ after his 2WD result and is going to stick to what he learned from that – to leave his set-up alone. Running the set-up he found in testing after the Warm-up having stayed on in Vaasa for a few extra days he said the Lazer ZX-5 FS2 felt good this morning.
The winner of the Warm-up race in May, Tamiya Racing Factory’s Lee Martin says he feels really good about his 4WD chances. Finishing 7th in the 2WD final, the current European Champion said the layout of the 4WD track flows more and his buggy felt really smooth to drive in the opening practices. Expecting the laps times to tumble later in the day, when and if the track dries out, the British ace feels the quad jump is going to play a factor as it going to lead to mistakes and ultimately broken cars. Team-mate Marc Rheinard, a former European 4WD Champion, said while 4WD is the better of the two buggy classes for him he feels it is going to be tough to beat his 2WD result which saw him finish a respectable 18th overall.
Another former European Champion aiming for glory is Team Durango’s Hupo Honigl. The Austrian won the 4WD European title at this very track in 2007 and believes this is one of his best chances of adding a first World title. Honigl said he has a good package having shown good speed at the Warm-up race and now he just needed to bring that through over the next three days. A finalist in 4WD in Japan and coming off the back of making the A-Main in 2WD, team-mate Joern Neumann should also be a contender for the reigning champions Team Durango. Martin Achter secured the title for Durango two years ago after the South African event was boycotted by most drivers and the German knows his reign is going to come to an end in 3-days time.
The most successful company in 4WD with six World titles to their credit, Team Yokomo are pinning their hopes for the 14th running of the IFMAR event on young Japanese National Champion Naoto Matsukura. TQ’ing a round of the 2WD qualifying, the 19-year-old said he is much more comfortable with 4WD summing up the difference in two words ‘maximum power’. A World finalist in 2007, when he finished 9th, Matsukura doesn’t lack self belief and wants to bring his tally of World titles to three having last year won back to back 1:12 World Championships.
Having focused all their attention on trying to win the 2WD title with their new 22, Losi may have three World titles to their credit in 4WD but with an aging buggy their drivers are not expected to be serious contenders for the win on Sunday.
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