Fuller tops opening seeding round in Texas
Sworkz’s Mason Fuller has topped the opening round of seeding at the IFMAR 1:8 Nitro Buggy World Championship in Texas. Having shown good speed in yesterday’s free practice, as the event moved up a gear today with times now officially counting for something, the American racer laid down the fastest 3-consecutive laps to take the first of the two scheduled seeding rounds by an impressive 6/10ths of a second over Xray’s David Ronnefalk. Having been the fastest over the previous two days’ 6 rounds of free practice, reigning World Champion Davide Ongaro would complete the Top 3, the Team Associated driver run over half his run with a damaged car. Top Qualifier at the championship 2-years ago, Juan Carlos Canas posted the fourth fastest time, the Sworkz driver feeling he was hamper slightly by today’s track conditions as he ran in Group 13 of 15. Nate Sutherland and Brandon Rose completed the Top 6 times.
Reacting to his fastest run time, an unfazed Fuller said, ‘It was pretty good and I feel like I was more consistent that run and just cruising around compared to yesterday when I was pushing more at the time.’ Asked if this was down to being more relaxed or the track more coming to his style, the 21-year-old said, ‘I mean I kind of drove more relaxed and I was faster. The track is kind of low grip right now so I think seeding 2 we are going to be way faster.’ Trying a different tyre in the final free practice yesterday, ‘which wasn’t good’ and meant he was only 6th fastest, he explained, ‘for today I just went back to the original tyre and it was much better.’ On his car and changes for the predict faster track, he said, ‘The car was good but I am going to try a slightly different tyre that should be easier to drive for it (faster track) and that should be it.’
Summing his start to Day 3 of the championship, Ronnefalk said, ‘I was not bad, I felt pretty good coming out of the gate. The first part of the run was pretty clean I would say.’ Despite setting the fastest lap of the round, he added, ‘I didn’t hit any perfect lap but it is very difficult out there to do that. I did one and then caught traffic the next lap so didn’t get those three best laps together but 2nd place, I am very happy with the speed of the car.’ He continued, ‘After where we were after a running a harder tyre in the last one yesterday we just reverted back to the softer one and it suited my driving and my car better.’ Using the new Tokyo tyre from Hotrace, he said, ‘I was just missing a little bit of rotation off power in that one so that’s the only thing I will work on for the next one so I can square up the car a little quicker.’ On the track and how it is evolving the Swedish driver said, ‘I think it was a little different today. It seems like compared from first day to second day it didn’t look like they watered it a whole lot in the night or morning, whatever they do, but then from yesterday to today it looks like they used more water or did in the morning instead of the night. There was more moisture in the track for sure and it took a bit longer before the groove started to develop. You could also see a lot more dust there before heats number 11/12, then it started to get a little more clean. I was in the last one so we probably had the better track.’
Asked about his opening seeding effort, Ongaro said, ‘I hit a pipe and I broke the arm so I had no steering but it was not so bad’. With Richard Saxton joking they would have to charge their star driver for a new arm, asked at what point of the run he did the damage, the Italian replied, ‘I think in the middle of the run. Before that I was just behind David (Ronnefalk) and I think I was a little bit faster, not much, but the pace was good.’ With many drivers saying the track feeling has changed today, the Ongaro said, ‘It is different, completely different from yesterday. So it’s a new race again.’ Asked in what way it was different he added, ‘I think now some parts has grip and and some parts have less. The grip is less consistent around the lap.’
‘We put the tyre on we talked about yesterday and it was good but maybe my diff was too hard’, was how Canas summed up his opening seeding run. Running two heats earlier than the 3 who set faster times than him for SP1, the Spaniard explained, ‘I think I got a track that was a little bit more green that the others so I think I had a little less grip but anyway I think I do zero mistakes in the 10-minutes so that’s good. I just need to find a little bit of speed.’ Asked further on him trying the JConcept tyre combo that Burak Kilic used to top the final free practice yesterday, running them for SP1 he said, ‘It was safe but we need a bit more grip from the track to be perfect. I will keep them (same tyres) for the next one and just maybe go down in the diff oil but we will decide near the time when we see the traction of the track.’