Offroad Worlds is GO in Arizona
The IFMAR 1:10 Electric Offroad World Championships are finally underway in Arizona, USA. With Hobby Action RC Raceway rising to the occasion of hosting the 19th running of the Championships with its brilliant presentation of the track and pits, drivers would find themselves having to wait a further 3-hours than originally scheduled for the first buggies to hit the track. A Championship for which the slick tyres have been the big talking point it was the black rubber rings that would cause the delay. With no limit on the number of front tyres for 4WD and an open tyre in 2WD, some drivers stocked up on the front AKA tyre leading other drivers short. After meetings the decision was made to limit all drivers to 5 sets of front tyres. Those who purchased more based on the no limit rule forced to return tyres for re-distribution for those in need. While some drivers still only ended up with 3-sets, AKA are having extra tyres delivered to the track tomorrow and to ensure fairness all drivers are limited to running a maximum of three sets today. With the first buggies taking to the green track at midday it would be Dakotah Phend, running in the 14th and top heat, who would top the timing screens over 3-consecutive laps from Ryan Maifield and Dustin Evans but with the track expected to change considerably over the next 3 rounds of practice little can be read into the times.
Summing up his first experience of the track Phend said, ‘I just drove around to get used to the track, nothing crazy as the track is going to change a ton’. Asked his thoughts on the layout, the TLR drivers said, ‘there are a couple of sections that are pretty technical so I need to work on dialling those in’. While Phend was fastest both on 3-consecutive laps and total time registering 14 laps, it was the Sworkz of Joern Neumann who had the outright fastest lap with a time of 19.792.
Reigning Champion Bruno Coelho would kick off his title defence with the 6th fastest time. The Xray driver summed up the run as ‘good’ adding, ‘the first time is always weird as you want to go fast but you still need to try learn the track’. Asked what he thought of the layout, the Portuguese driver replied, ‘It’s OK. I won’t say I like it and I won’t say I don’t like it’.
The firm favourite to retain his 2WD title and also add a first 4WD title here at his home track, Spencer Rivkin would register the fourth fastest time. The Team Associated driver was delighted to finally get down to the business of racing saying, ‘It’s finally started. It’s go time’. With many believing it will be difficult for his rivals to match his local knowledge of the unique Hobby Action dirt, Rivkin seemed surprised by the surface saying, ‘the track feels pretty different to normal but my last 7-laps were pretty good so we’ll build off that good foundation. I have some stuff I want to try next run’.
Just ahead of Rivkin with his Associated, Reedy driver Dustin Evans said, ‘It’s nice to be finally out there after a lot of hanging around. Myself and Spencer did buy a load of extra tyres so we didn’t have anything to do while all the sorting out was going on. The delays means it’s going to be a long night’. On his own performance he said ‘Top 3 is pretty good. My pace was really good but the track is definitely different to normal and there are a few tricky spots out there’.
Ninth fastest just ahead of reigning 1:8 Buggy World Champion Davide Ongaro, Michal Orlowski was content with his opening run saying, ‘the track is far from what it will be later’. The Schumacher driver added, ‘we decided to stick with our warm-up set-up for the first run and it was difficult to drive on the green track’. Setting the second fastest lap time to Neumann, he continued, ‘the car is fast but we just need to make it easier to drive so we have some small tweaks we’ll make for the next one’.
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