Noble TQ’s opening qualifier at ABC Malaysia

Sworkz’s Caleb Noble has TQ’d the opening round of qualifying at the second round of the Asian Buggy Championships in Malaysia.  The Australian set the pace in the first of the four scheduled Nitro Buggy qualifiers at LAP Paradise RC Raceway by just over a second from Mayako’s Pekko Iivonen.  Having topped yesterday’s seeding, Kyosho’s Phi-Long Nguyen would suffer two mistakes on his opening effort, the second of which cost him over 6-seconds.  While setting the fastest lap the American wouldn’t recover the loss and finished P3 almost 5-seconds back on Noble.  Australian Jared Ment at the wheel of a Team Associated would set the fourth fastest time followed by the Sworkz of Adrian Wicaksono.  Having dominated the Team Cayote/VP-Pro backed ABC season opener in New Zealand, Noble would do the double in the nitro classes this morning also TQ’ing Truggy ahead of Jayden Edmunds while a clean run in eBuggy saw Nguyen top the times ahead of Iivonen and Edmunds.

Asked about his strong start to qualifier, Noble responded, ‘eBuggy not so much but yeah Nitro Buggy and Truggy was a very good start.’  On his Nitro Buggy run, the 19-year-old said, ‘I knew Phi was fast, I knew he was probably faster than me.  He started behind me so he had a bit of a game plan advantage I guess.  I could see he was coming but then he made a mistake and I was back in front and then he made another one thankfully because he probably would have got back by me but my car was really good but he nitro buggy has been really good to drive, I just freshened the shock & diff oil last night and it was really good.’  Seeding P3 yesterday saying at the time he was saving his clay compound JConcepts Dirtweb 2 tyres for qualifying, he said he ran the clays on his eBuggy for Q1 and ‘probably shouldn’t have’ so he opted to stick with blue compound for nitro.  He will use clay again in eBuggy for Q2 to decide if they are now the right call for nitro, the day warming up here nicely now in Johor Bahru.  In terms of set-up changes he said, ‘I am going to say no for now, the car is really good to drive, it’s super easy to drive.  It is definitely a mains car.  I can just drive it around with no mistakes and that’s what i need to do.’

Giving his reaction after the first qualifier Iivonen said, ‘I had to go out with a new set of tyre so for sure it was slower but I picked up the pace at the end but couldn’t catch Caleb anymore.  I had a slight bobble on the second last lap, I haven’t checked the lap times yet, but probably would have been closer without that.  A bit unfortunate but I think the pace is there and the car was working well and we already have some changes in mind to do for the next one so it will be quite good.’  Asked about his tyres, the Finn explained, ‘I scrubbed them in a bit but they need to be worn down slightly more, they were more slippery at the start of the run but then they picked up the pace.’  Using Jetko tyres on his Mayako, based off local advice and having tested them against other brands,  in relation to tyre wear and usage he said, ‘they last quite long so probably like one set for qualifying in both classes.  And after doing Q1 they should be better for the next one.’

‘I just made one big mistake’, was Nguyen reaction after Q1.  The American explained, ‘I turned into a wet spot a little too aggressive I guess and then just spun into the pipe and it was like a 6-second mistake.  I just got to keep it clean the next round.’  On the performance of his Ielasi Tuned powered MP11 this morning, he said, ‘I need to make it a little bit more aggressive because now it’s safe out there.’  Asked what he was thinking of changing to achieve this for Q2, the 15-year-old replied, ‘I’ll ask my dad’ before concluding ‘if I just keep it clean I’ll be fast.’