Coelho tops practice as Matsukura closes gap

At the end of practice at the 1:10 4WD Offroad World Championships at the Yatabe Arena its Xray’s Bruno Coelho who is proving to be quickest, the Xray drivers P3 time still standing at the top of the times sheets. With none of the Top 3 after P3 improving their times, the two big movers in the final practice would be Naoto Matsukura and Michal Orlowski. 6th & 7th after three rounds, they both improved their 3-consecutive lap times to move ahead of Yusuke Sugiura and Lee Martin with Mastukura’s Kyosho reducing Coelho’s advantage to 3/10ths.

Having originally planned to leave his car unchanged, Coelho said they tried ‘some different things’ in the set-up of his XB4.  Describing the results of the changes as ‘not an improvement’ he added it ‘was about the same in terms of pace’.  Despite the car being ‘still super good’, the Portuguese driver will go back to his P3 set-up for the first controlled practice and focus on driving more consistent adding he wanted to achieve this not just for 3-laps but the entire run.

Looking for more traction from his Lazer ZX6 after P3, pre-race favourite Matsukura said a rear shock change had improved this but added he ‘still need(s) more’. Feeling he is starting to find his way, the 22-year-old improving his outright lap time to record the second fastest lap behind Coelho, he said finding more rear traction would require a different set-up change other than further adjustments to the shocks.  Dropping to fourth, team-mate and fellow countryman Sugiura describing his P4 as ‘so so’.  Having lowered the ride height he said while it made the car easier to drive it was also slower.  Also creating problems over the whoops, he will go back to his previous settings for CP1.

Having made changes to his Schumacher for the third round to get rid of rear traction but the change being too much, Orlowski said going to 2.5 degrees of toe made the CAT K2 ‘good’.  ‘Much easier to drive’, the 14-year-old reigning European Champion will leave everything the same for controlled practice but aired some caution about qualifying.  Expecting the grip to get higher tomorrow, he said changes will be required to keep pace with the track but for now he would leave it.

Unable to improve on his P2, Martin said his Yokomo YZ-4 was ‘pretty easy to drive’.  Describing it as ‘consistent’, he said it was ‘not the outright fastest on lap times but (he) can drive it easy lap after lap’.  For controlled practice the EOS Champion will try another rear end change and ‘see what happens’.

Dropping one place to complete the Top 6, despite bettering his previous time in P4, Tebo said his ‘car set-up feels great’ but again he found his brakes to be ‘too soft’.  Running a slipper in P4 for the first time he said it was better but for CP1 he will fit a new speed controller in the hope of finding more brakes.

One of the early surprises of practice, Travis Amezcua dropped to 7th.  Having fitted new electrics to his Durango, he said the run was all about getting used to them.  While still setting the same fastest lap time he will adjust the speedo set-up for his next run.

After the highs of winning the 2WD World title with Spencer Rivkin and as defending 4WD Champions, the second half of the week long event has not started out very well for Team Associated.  Neil Cragg best of the B44’s in 18th with 3-time Champion Ryan Cavalieri clear frustrated by his car’s lack of steering.  Reigning Champion Steven Hartson took the drastic measure of running his 2WD car in P4 and managed to better his previous 3-consecutive lap time.   The American said ‘it felt better for me’ but added he needed to ‘figure out the front tyres to get it smooth enough but overall it was better (than his 4WD already)’.

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