2 from 2 for Rheinard

Marc Rheinard has got his Reedy Race of Champions off to the best possible start with the Tamiya driver making it two wins from the first two rounds of racing at Tamiya Raceway.  Starting up front in the same heat as the other two winners from the opening race of the event, Rheinard led from start to finish as Ronald Volker worked his way up to third with Meen Vejrak managing only 6th after a mistake while trying to avoid hitting his Yokomo team-mate.  In the other two races Xray’s Alexander Hagberg and Christopher Krapp capitalised on front row starts to clock up their first wins.

Commenting on his race, Rheinard said he pushed hard at the beginning to ensure he had a good gap over Volker in case his rival got through the pack early and after that ‘just kept it on the track’.  Set to start Round 3 of 12 from 10th on the grid, the 4-time Reedy Race champion said ‘let’s see what happens’ pointing out the track’s narrow racing line this year is greatly reducing the opportunities to pass.

Defending Champion Volker said from 7th to 3rd was not a bad result considering normally something happens on the first lap to help you gain a few places.  The ETS champion said because ‘you can’t do different lines like last year’ all he could do was wait for mistakes as he caught each driver ahead of him. Describing his LRP powered BD7 as ‘awesome’ he said by the time he got to third the gap was too much to catch second placed Akio Sobue. Winner of Heat 2 in the opening round, Meen V said his BD7 was good and his mistake was a result of braking too hard to try to avoid contact with the back of Volker’s car on lap 6 of 24.

In the second encounter it was Naoto Matsukura who would take up the early lead.  The World Champion would come under pressure from a recovering Krapp but on lap 5 a mistake by the Japanese driver would allow his team-mate to go to the front.  Commenting on his win, Krapp said ‘in the end it worked out pretty good’ highlighting his 360 spin at the start that dropped him to third.  Describing his TRF419 as ‘brilliant’ he said he expected to come under pressure from Matsukura once he recovered from his mistake but instead he was able to easily pull away for the win.

Matsukura said his Tamiya was ‘difficult to drive’ and this led him to catch the curbing.  With his TRF417 ‘too loose’, he said every run they have been forced to make big set-up changes and they will do it again for Round 3.

Hagberg said his win was helped by starting up front while ‘others got in trouble’.  Describing his Xray as ‘a little better’ he continued he is ‘still struggling with the feeling of the car’.  His first time to race at the Tamiya track, the Swede said with the ‘narrow racing line’ making it ‘so hard to overtake’ starting up front is a big advantage.

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