Rheinard leads RROC at the end of Day 1
Defending champion Marc Rheinard leads the Reedy Race of Champions at the end of the Day 1, the Tamiya driver taking an important win in the day’s closing race as he again went head to head with arch rival Ronald Volker. With Volker pulling off an epic pass on Rheinard in the previous round, the pair started their fourth race of the day side by side on the back row setting the stage for a showdown that wasn’t to disappoint. While Volker got the initial jump on his fellow German, he would have to check up to avoid hitting pole starter EJ Evans, allowing Rheinard to go second behind Barry Baker. A winner in Round 3, Baker would hold three of the best drivers in the business at bay for six laps but when Rheinard found a way through so too did Volker and World Champion Naoto Matsukura. With three & a half minutes complete Volker was all over the lead Tamiya, getting on the inside of Rheinard in the centre section before the kink Volker tried a pass. Side by side they would touch in the kink with Volker coming off the worst as his Yokomo rolled. With Rick Hohwart slipping through Volker would finish third as Rheinard won by 0.9 of a second. In the other encounters, starting from pole Meen Vejrak would register his first win taking Race 1 ahead of last place starter Christopher Krapp and Akio Sobue who finds himself third overall overnight. The same race would see Ryan Cavalieri’s impressive run come undone as had a coming together with AE team-mate Juho Levanen, the Offroad star not happy with the Finn saying afterwards, ‘You can’t do much when your ball jammed by your team-mate’. In a somewhat chaotic Race 2, Associated driver Randy Caster would benefit to take a comfortable win from the back of the grid.
Switching to a narrower front end on his TRF419X, Rheinard said, ‘I had a good feeling for the last race as the car felt better’. He continued, ‘Early on I just sat behind Barry as I didn’t want to risk anything and I knew Ronald wouldn’t try anything either because the risk was too high. Once we passed Barry it was then just Ronald and me and after one shitty lap he was on my tail. After that I didn’t drive my race like I should have and he got on the inside of me at the kink but I didn’t want to give up the place so we went side by side. Luckily for me I was able to run on the green stuff so I didn’t come off as bad as him’. He summed up the race with ‘this was an important one’.
Giving his view of the race, Volker said, ‘I beat him (Rheinard) off the line and we were working our way through but I had to brake check for EJ really hard which let Marc by me’. Running behind his rival for 3-minutes he ‘pressured Marc into a mistake before the kink’. Running ‘side by side’ into the kink, the ETS Champion ‘came off worst & lost points’. Sitting second overnight 1-point down on Rheinard, he added, ‘I didn’t plan to pass there but he left more space than expected’. Having met in the same race three times today, they will do so again 5 more times over the remaining 8 races. Using a different car in Round 4, the car having been faster on used tyres in practice yesterday he said while it was very good he will revert to his main car for the rest of the meeting. Incidentally in an attempt to pass Hohwart for second his car would make heavy contact with the track barrier just after the finish line.
A podium finisher last year, Vejrak’s reaction after his win was ‘finally I feel back to normal’. The former Nitro Touring Car World Champion said, ‘I couldn’t control the car in the previous races, I had no steering even on full lock’ but after a big set-up change ‘it is now perfect’. The Thai ace added, ‘the car now feels comfortable to drive so its a positive end to the day and I think we should be able to have a good day tomorrow’.
‘Excellent, I couldn’t be happier right now’ was how Caster summed up his win. A big factor in Cavalieri’s impressive RROC debut last year and again mechanic for the multiple offroad World Champion this year, the 32-year-old would copy his team-mate’s set-up for the final race of the day. With the car ‘excellent’, he said starting from the outside of the last row he planned to just get a clean start and try to work his way through but he ‘got lucky as everyone got into each other’. Out front after three laps, last year’s open class competitor ‘cruised & just got laps in’ which was an approach that would see him win by almost half a lap from Associated team-mate & pole starter Keven Hebert with reigning Open Class Champion Felix Law completing the Top 3.
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