Rheinard, Cavalieri & Sobue open Reedy Race with wins
Marc Rheinard, Ryan Cavalieri and Akio Sobue have opened the 20th running of the Reedy Race of Champions at Tamiya Raceway with wins, with reigning champion Ronald Volker opening his quest for a 4th title with a second behind Cavalieri. In the first of the Round 1 encounters, it was Reedy Race debutant Bruno Coelho who lead the way after a bad start for pole sitter Viljami Kutvonen. Leading from Rheinard, Coelho had the 5-time winner on his rear bumper with their proximity leading to contact in the sweeper which would spin out the Xray driver. Resuming the lead as Rheinard waited, Coelho’s chancing of opening with a win were short lived as the track’s infamous kick launched him into the barriers allowing Rheinard and team-mate Naoto Matsukura to the front for an Infinity 1-2 finish as Coelho finished a distant 3rd. In the second leg Offroad star Ryan Cavalieri got the jump on the front row and despite Volker trying to use the kick to make an offroad pass on the Team Associated driver he would hold on to take the win by more than half a lap as Volker pulled an impressive pass on Juho Levanen through the chicane on the final lap. Wrapping up the first of the 12 rounds, Ralph Burch was looking like he would be the only pole sitter to pull off the win but half way through the race clipped the curbing in the chicane allowing Akio Sobue, Naoki Akiyama and Christopher Krapp through which is how they finished, Burch’s race however going backwards as he finished last of the 8 cars that make up each race.
Commenting on his race, starting from 3rd on the grid, Rheinard said, ‘Like expected the track was loose, the right was more loose than the left, but my car was still good compared to the others’. He continued, ‘Luckily Viljami spun out at the start so I was second behind Bruno. I was a bit faster and we touched once. I let him take back the place but then he had a big hit at the kink and me & Naoto got by. It was a good Infinity start with a 1-2’. Having expressed concern at practice yesterday that there was only going to be a single racing line, when asked about the line today he said, ‘I tried once to go around the outside and for sure there was less grip so its going to be hard to overtake’. In terms of overtaking, he will need to make one pass to make it two wins out of 2 as he will start 2nd behind Matsukura.
‘I met the kink for the first time’ was how Coelho summed his first Reedy Race encounter. The ETS Champion continued, ‘I got hit by Marc and got dirt on my tyres and I knew before I got to the kink I was going to hit it because the car was loose coming out of the corner before’. With the car tweaked after its impact with the steel barrier he said he had no chance of second so he settle for 3rd. Having started on the front row for his second encounter he will start on the third row.
Cavalieri summed up his race by saying, ‘I got off the line pretty strong and was able to get around the two guys in front of me and had a decent run from there on’. The back to back reigning US Touring Car Champion continued, ‘Volker was a little quicker obviously and tried to offroad me by jumping over me but it didn’t work’. Asked about his car, with only Volker able to run a faster lap time in the race, he said, ‘Randy’s (Caster) been working on it and making it fun to drive so its all good’. Cavalieri will start 7th for Round 2.
Pleased with his last lap pass on Levanen saying, ‘I think people like that kind of thing’, Volker summed up Round 1 with ‘I can’t be to unhappy with 2nd’. The Yokomo driver continued, ‘I was 2nd after the first few corners but struggled with steering right away and Ryan was pulling away’. The World Champion continued, ‘I stayed behind Ryan but suddenly hit the kink, I didn’t see it coming actually. After that I was behind Juho but I took my time to get by him and it was a good last lap pass’.
‘Busy at the start, it was super close’ was how Sobue described Heat 3. Describing track conditions as making it ‘super difficult’ to overtake’ due to the low traction, the Japanese driver who started 4th concluded, ‘I was lucky Ralph made a mistake’.
View our event image gallery here.
