Cavalieri heads Associated 1-2-3 in Q2

Ryan Cavalieri headed a 1-2-3 for the factory Associated team as he TQ’d the second qualifer at the Worlds from Ryan Maifield and Neil Cragg as Q1 Top Qualifier Jared Tebo managed only 8th. Topping the round by a healthy 3 seconds, Cavalieri said he managed to save a few moments and overall it was a pretty clean run.  With the sun now shining over Vaasa, the American felt the track was the best its been so far and the extra grip made it a lot more fun to drive.  Happy with his Orion powered B4.1 he will leave everything as is for Q3.

Having had two costly incidents in Q1, one of which was a result of getting hit by Schumacher’s Tom Cockerill, former Champion Neil Cragg said he just focused on getting in a clean run.  Describing it as ‘nothing special’ the run was good enough for 3rd and gets the multiple 2WD European Champion’s campaign back on track. The British driver said he knows he is not the fastest but will try to keep things going for the rest of the day.

‘Better driving’ helped Team Durango’s Joern Neumann to set the fourth fastest time.  The German Champion, who is being tipped by many as a potential outside treat to an American victory on Wednesday, said he is happy with the handling of his DEX210 and the only thing he has done to the prototype buggy is refresh the shocks for Q2.

Once again Dakotah Phend was fastest of the Losi drivers setting the fifth fastest time just ahead of team-mate Dustin Evans.  Evans said the track felt ‘awesome’ in Q2 and it really suited his TLR22.  Having a moment when he hit the back of an out of shape Naoto Matsukura, which put the young Japanese driver out, the Reedy Race winner said he now has a set-up he is really comfortable with and he plans sticking with it.

After a great start to qualifying Tebo said he just couldn’t get in to a groove at the start of Q2 and ‘killed himself’ in the first few laps.  Eventually settling in to a rhythm he said his Kyosho felt good, highlighted by the fact he ran a faster lap than all ahead of him.  Fastest lap for the round, and so far the event, went to Matsukura who managed a rocket fast 23.925.

Also in the Top 10 Lee Martin took his Tamiya to the 7th fastest time while young Swedish talent David Ronnefalk took his Kyosho to 9th half a second up on 10th fastest man Mike Truhe.

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