Phend fastest in first seeding round
TLR’s Dakotah Phend set the fastest time of the opening round of seeding practice at the 1:10 4WD Offroad World Championship. Running late into the evening at Hobby Action RC Raceway following the earlier delays caused by tyres, Phend set the fastest 3-consecutive laps by half a second from Schumacher’s Broc Champlin who had set the pace over the four rounds of free practice. Marcus Kaerup who completed the Top 3 as the fastest Team Associated driver just ahead of team-mate Davide Ongaro while pre race favourite Spencer Rivkin found himself 9th fastest just behind reigning defending champion Bruno Coelho.
Asked about his run, Phend replied, ‘the track was pretty good that one. I made one small change and the car was better so I’m happy’. Looking to the concluding run of Day 1 of the Championships, drivers set to put in a 14 hour plus day, Phend said he planned to leave his buggy unchanged and focus on a clean 5-minute run adding, ‘I don’t think it (the second seeding round) will be much faster so I should already have a good seeding’.
‘Really good’ was how Champlin summed up his first seeding run. Running in group 13 of 14, he continued, ‘I have been running on the same old tyres so I am excited to try new tyres the next one. There was only 1/2 a second between me ad Dakotah so it should be really close’. On his buggy he said, ‘I have changed anything since the end of the third free practice run but the track is developing more. It’s more polished and more abrasive in spots where you need more steering’.
Newly crowned 2WD and former 4WD European Champion Kaerup was pleased with his improved performance for seeding. The Dane said he made new set-up change and the buggy was ‘perfect now’. Asked about the changes the 15-year-old said, ‘we made a lot of little changes and they resulted in better rotation.’ Planning to leave the set-up unchanged for the second seeding round, he said ‘the driver now needs to step up his game’.
Struggling more than most with the long day after Craig Drescher woke the house they are sharing in the early hours of the morning as he gave coaching advise via a phone video link to his son’s soccer team who where playing a match back in England (which they won!), Ongaro said things on track are ‘getting better’. The Italian said both car and driver and improving and his plan for the next one is new tyres to break them in for tomorrow’s qualifying. With Drescher highlight to the 1:8 World Champion a few lines where he could improve Ongaro said he’s looking forward to going to bed after a ‘long day’.
Eight fastest, Coelho found the his Xray difficult to drive in the first seeding round. He said, ‘the last practice was good but the track conditions changed a little for seeding and our car was difficult to drive. We had made a change to make it easier to drive but now its more difficult so maybe we need to try the opposite for the second round’.
Asked about his P9 pace, Rivkin said he was ‘tyre testing’ and had gathered ‘good info’ from the run. Saying ‘new tyres are fast’, the Warm-up Race winner said he was now just getting his buggy charged up and ‘ready to roll’ indicating he was expecting a much improved pace in the final seeding round.
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