Jones TQs third qualifier at Asian Buggy Championships
With intermittent rain throughout the day interrupting the second official day of action at the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships in Australia, when Round 3 of qualifying finally concluded it was the Sparko of Tyler Jones who came out fastest. The American took the day’s only round, two originally on the schedule, ahead of last year’s Top Qualifier Alex Bernadzik by 0.273 of a second. Struggling with traffic throughout his run, Top Seed Pekko Iivonen took his Mayako to the third fastest time ahead of yesterday’s Q1 & 2 pace setter Kouki Kato – a 3-second mistake in the middle of the run denying the Infinity driver from three in a row at the Pine Hills Dirt Racing track. The big winner at last year’s Australian round of the Scotty Ernst promoted championship, Tekno’s Caleb Noble claimed a P5 with Atsushi Hara completing the Top 6. With rain affecting the running of the top heat of eBuggy, a rerun at the end of the day saw Bernadzik go one better than nitro to take his second TQ run of the event with Kato and Hara competing the Top 3.
‘Pretty good’ was Jones reaction after posting his first and the fastest Nitro TQ run so far. The 25-year-old, who is on his first trip outside of the US and TQ’d the opening round of eBuggy, continued, ‘I took advantage of that rain and changed a bunch of stuff this morning and figured out some stuff with my shocks. I knew I probably wasn’t the fastest but my car felt good and was consistent all run. I think I had more of a 45-minute car than a 5-minute car and I kind of prefer that.’ Also going up in the diff oils from 80/80/10 to 100/100/15, this probably making the biggest difference in getting a car that ‘works really well’. He added, ‘Ben (Sterling) actually went up to 150/150 so he went up even higher than me and he got a 10 for the round in nitro so I am going to go up and match his diff oil for Q4 and again drive smart.’ On his eBuggy third round he said, ‘the eBuggy just drives a lot different from my nitro buggy for some reason. I can’t seem to get the thing to steer. To go from off my nitro buggy with a bunch of steering and straight to the eBuggy that doesn’t want to steer is kind of challenging. Nothing to blame on the car, I just wrecked.’
Reacting to his run, Bernadzik said, ‘I kept it on all four wheels for the most part. It was a nice consistent run.’ A previous winner of the event, he continued, ‘The car was really good. I made a few changes to suit the high grip, I saw the sun coming out so went back up in my shock package. It was a little bit edgy but I re-tuned the motor to make it a little bit easier to drive and it definitely helped.’ For Q4 he said, ‘I might go to a longer rear link just to give the car a little more support but other than that I’ll stay the same.’ Posting his second consecutive TQ in eBuggy, the Australian said, ‘eBuggy is dialled but I am struggling a little bit on the option line coming onto the front straight and keep having a few little crashes there. I also had one coming together with traffic but other than that it was a nice clean run.’
Summing up his run to the 3rd fastest time, Iivonen said, ‘The pace was super good, the car felt super good, the tyres were also working well. The pace was right there but I just couldn’t get clean laps because there was lapped traffic almost the whole race for me. I got a bit unlucky there and I couldn’t really show my pace. I think I lost 3-seconds to Tyler. I could have been somewhere there for sure.’ Looking to the final two qualifiers tomorrow, and very much still in the hunt for the TQ, the Finn said, ‘I will leave the car the same for tomorrow and just figure out the tyres and what will be the best one’. He explained, ‘I tried a different compound in eBuggy cause I thought the one I was driving with in nitro was too soft but really it wasn’t and the tyre (in eBuggy) was too hard so the car was pushing too much.’ Despite the tyre choice, on his Round 3 eBuggy run to the fourth fastest time, the Philippine Masters podium finisher said, ‘It was a fine run for me, it was not so bad.’
Asked about his Q3 effort having enjoyed two TQ runs yesterday, Kato replied with, ‘I made one mistake and it cost me 3-seconds’. Chasing a third Asian Buggy Championships win in as many appearances, the 19-year-old added that after the on & off rain today that the, ‘traction was higher and maybe we need to change the car a little for tomorrow’. With Jones the first to deny him a TQ run, the US driver now having the fastest time so far which could be crucial in a tie break situation for pole for Sunday’s 1-hour main, Kato said they might look at making a spring change for the fourth round of qualifying tomorrow morning.’ Running a prototype eBuggy from his Japanese chassis sponsor, on his second fastest time in Q3, he said, ‘the last round my eBuggy was super nice but I also had a mistake.’
Noble was upbeat about his nitro buggy run saying, ‘The last run, the only run today I guess, I felt I had a bit more pace and I was a bit closer to where I wanted to be. I still have a little bit of work to do but the electric (buggy) was quite fast so we just need to transfer a bit of that on to the nitro and we’ll be even closer.’ The 18-year-old added, ‘I don’t know if I can TQ’d but I can be close. In electric I think I had a shot and I had two crashes on the same lap. I did the fastest lap of the race and the car was pretty good, a little nervous, but we can do something about that.’
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