Martin fastest in final practice

Drivers had one last practice opportunity this morning ahead of today’s first day of qualifying at the 4WD Electric Buggy World Championships, Lee Martin setting the fastest 5-minute run in the second & final controlled round of practice. Completing 11 laps of the Silver Dollar RC Raceway track in 5:06.594, the Tamiya driver topped the time sheets by 7/10ths of a second from Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield with A-Main Hobbies team driver Tyler Vik just a further 2/10ths off in third.

With a lot of drivers wearing their poker faces this morning, Martin was not giving too much away after his run summing it up as ‘fine (and) everything went to plan’.  It was a good practice for the Tamiya Racing Factory team with Marc Rheinard taking his example of the prototype TRF511 to the 5th fastest time.  The 3-time Touring Car World Champion and former 4WD Offroad European Champion, was pleased with his final practice admitting it was consistency rather than outright pace that helped.  Targeting making the A-Main rather than leaving Chico with a World title the German said qualifying is going to be all about who doesn’t crash.

Maifield described his final practice as ‘alright’ adding that they were ‘still plugging away’ with the set-up.  The American said his Reedy powered B44.2 is not exactly where he would like it to be this morning.  Team-mate & defending Champion Ryan Cavalieri, who again has been seeded in the B qualifier, said his shocks had built up a little too much pressure causing his Orion powered B44.2 to feel loose.  Planning a full shock rebuild, he said everything should be good again for Q1.

Fourth fastest behind the Xray of Vik, whose Facebook fan page is proving a huge hit at this event, it was Team Durango’s Joern Neumann.  Having set the fastest two consecutive laps in the opening controlled practice yesterday evening to become the top seed for qualifying, the German said he made too many small mistakes this morning.  Setting the fastest time, he said his prototype DEX410 was good and for the opening qualifying he just needs to improve his driving.

Elsewhere US National Champion Ty Tessmann posted the 13th fastest time but the Canadian had two bad laps.  The HB driver said despite the ‘few bobbles’ overall his new D4-13 was pretty good.  Planning to freshen up the shocks for Q1 he said he will also make a minor droop adjustment.

2WD World Champion Jared Tebo didn’t feature in terms of an overall time this morning but that’s because the Kyosho driver stopped during the run to make a swaybar adjustment.  From the changes the adjustment brought, he will run a thicker one for the open qualifying with Kyosho Team Manager Joe Pillar’s saying they are much happier with the prototype buggy this morning after a tough day yesterday when they struggled for steering on Tebo’s car.

Debuting their new TLR22-4 at the Worlds,  the final practice indicates that Team Losi Racing are still trying to find their way with the new chassis.  Dustin Evans was the fastest of their drivers, finishing outside the Top 10 with a time that was 9-seconds off that of Martin.

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