Tessmann sets mid way practice pace in Sicily

Already into their third day of practice at this year’s extended 1:8 Offroad World Championships with still 2 more days of practice to go on the Italian island of Sicily, Ty Tessmann laid down today’s early marker running the fastest three consecutive laps from defending World Champion Robert Batlle. With David Ronnefalk setting the pace yesterday from Tessmann with a time of 1:53.211, in the first of today’s two 12-minute runs the Canadian lowered the benchmark to 1:52.143 with Batlle managing a 1:53.386 followed by a 1:53.842 from Martin Bayer.

With drivers appearing to be more focused on pacing themselves for the extra long event, the race hosts adding extra practice days to the timetable in lue of the fact they hosted no Warm-up Race, the atmosphere in the pits is rather relaxed for a World Championships. Having went up in the diff oils in his HB, Tessmann said today was a lot better than yesterday the change making his D812 easier to drive in the high speed sections as well as helping the buggy to push through the corners better. Running the same set of Pro-Line X1 Suburb tyres he ran yesterday, Pro-Line appearing to have a slight edge in the wear department on the high abrassion surface, he said overall the car was easy to drive. HB designer Torrance Deguzman has been on a bit of parts reduction exercise for the event with two key new parts being debuted. Following a pin failure in the diff input shaft that cost him the 2013 US title HB now have a single piece unit which they have adapted from the 1:10 electric buggy. Reducing 5 piece to 1, they have also done a similar redesign with the rear wing stay. Now a single molded piece the weight saving is the big benefit of this change which has been further complimented with a new lexan wing. Although happy with where he is at with his set-up, Tessmann said with plenty of practices still to run he wants to try a number of things but added he is at the same time trying to make sure he doesn’t get lost in terms of what direction he goes with the set-up.

‘Good’ was how Batlle summed up how the event was going so far. The Mugen driver ran a harder shock set-up today which he said made for a more stable car and for the second outing he plans to go even stiffer. Suffering a little with traffic today he said overall he was happy with his current pace echoing Tessmann by saying it was ‘important not to get carried away’ with set-ups changes. With Batlle like his rivals not yet busting out their game faces he said his game plan for the remaining practices was just to make small little changes every run.

Bayer was not reading much into his early form, the factory Xray driver quick to highlight ‘Its practice’. The Czech driver said he has been changing many things and so far the pace has been good so he is ‘happy for now’. Complimentary of the track surface he said conditions are very stable with the track changing little between the morning and the afternoon which he said helps in terms of working on tuning the set-up.

Despite being without his pitman and Kyosho Team-manager Joe Pillars, Jared Tebo posted the fourth fastest time this morning ahead of fellow American Carson Wernimont. Issues with the expiry date of Pillar’s passport meant while his team headed on out to Italy he got stuck in LA for two days as he arranged to have a new passport issued but we are glad to report he has made it in time to see his star driver run in the day’s second practice. Tebo said after he ‘struggled’ on the opening day, things have since got better with each run and as he ‘slowly’ gets used to the track declaring himself pretty happy with his opening run today. The reigning 1:10 2WD Buggy World Champion said he is not used to being on throttle in corners so much and he has had to work on getting confident with that but is getting there now.

Renaud Savoya set the sixth fastest time, the French ace finding the speed he was lacking yesterday to go with the consistency of his Xray. The multiple European Champion said the speed came from switching from Sweep’s Revolt to Exagon tyre. Happy with his car from the very first time he laid it down on the track, this morning he used the 12-minute run to back to back test bodyshells. Running Xray’s stock kit bodyshell he said the buggy was a little faster but switching to Sweep’s Muzzle he said it felt more stable on the grippy conditions. ‘Happy so far’, he said with ‘lots of pratice runs’ they are able to take a ‘step by step’ approach to working on the car set-up.

Dakotah Phend was fastest of the TLR drivers this morning the teenager posting the 7th fastest time. Having run Pro-Line’s Blockade tyres up to now he will test smaller pins tyres in his next outing with both a set of Suburbs and Fugatives ready to go in his 8ight. Although looking to improve his buggy in the fast sections while trying to keep it good in the tight corners he said he is more focused on trying to figure out the track for himself. Not used to such high bite conditions for 1:8 he feels he needs a bit more track time to master that. New team-mate Ryan Maifield said his buggy is really consistent but he needs to get more speed from it. Really comfortable with the track and getting good feedback from his team in relation to the lines he is running he said they now needs to work on making the car ‘a little more aggressive’.

Ninth fastest this morning behind Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz, Ronnefalk said he was still asleep for his run. Happy with the car he ran the previous two days, the Swede used today to run his second car for the very first time and although built identically they end up feeling different with this one too soft making it hard to drive. Planning to fix the set-up he will run the second car again this evening adding that tyres have been his big focus. Running AKA’s Catapult tyre he said he has tried soft & medium compound, new versus used adding that while wear is high his MP9 works well on slicks ‘so its not too bad’.

Elsewhere this Worlds marks the debut of 2008 Champion Atsushi Hara with S-Workz. An all round RC great, Hara said he is not fast but for him that is normal so early on in an event adding that his races starts in the Semi-Finals. After an ok start to yesterday he said a change by his long time mechanic Masayuki Miura for the final run made the buggy terrible. Although better this morning he said the car is stable adding he thinks it is overall too soft and they will now go for a harder set-up.

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