Wing rule causes some issue on Day 1 of WC

A wing rule that was introduced in April 2014, caused drivers some issue on the opening day of the 1:8 Offroad World Championship as IFMAR started to enforce the ruling that came about as a result of the race numbers used at the 2010 World in Thailand.  The ruling, which states the rear wing side plates must have a space 50mm x 40mm in which to place the car’s race number, was not enforced at the previous Worlds in Italy 2-year-ago because no manufacturer had created a wing that met the newly drawn up specification.  In November 2015, EFRA, the European governing body, voted to remove the ruling from its handbook as it had not been followed by the industry.  Shortly after however, Kyosho would design & release a wing based on the ruling and as a result IFMAR had to enforce the ruling leaving drivers to either purchase a Kyosho wing, many drivers very sceptical over the real reason for the ruling due to the fact Kyosho had 100’s of wings in stock at the track, or extend the wing side plates of the brand of wing they use.

Commenting on the ruling IFMAR Secretary Carlos Gomez said, ‘the ruling has been there for 2-years but in Italy we were able to skip it because no manufacturer offered such a wing.  Now one manufacturer has a wing to the ruling so we must enforce it to protect all drivers to make sure no one can get taken out by official or the legal system’.  Compounding the problem is that the race organisers mistakenly had race numbers printed on a 50mm circle background with the sticker sheet labelling this number for the side window which is not the case with them having to be run on each side of the rear wing.  According to Gomez, who is also on the EFRA committee, EFRA had proposed a postal vote to have the rule dropped but with the ‘Race In’ event also up for a postal vote the window vote never got presented as the one of ‘Race In’ format was of much higher importance.

Speaking to JConcepts’ Jason Ruona, he said they overlooked the ruling having been more focused on the maximum wing width and depth rather than the side plates but added they will now work on releasing a wing that allows for the 50x40mm race number.  In terms of his two key drivers he said while they could have modified their existing wing,  2WD Offroad World Champion Spencer Rivkin has opted to go with a Kyosho wing on his Associated while Ryan Maifield has added extension to the side plates of his TLR wing.  Mugen’s Adam Drake and Mike Truhe both felt the introduction of the ruling was not very well handled.  Not implemented during the ‘Race In’ yesterday, they highlighting the fact that when they asked officials how they would check a wing was within the ruling the reply they got was that they didn’t have anything to check it with.  With a lot of confusion over the interpretation of the ruling, Gord Tessmann having long discussions with officials, a quickly mustered lexan template was to later appear.