Practice finally gets underway at Worlds

After a 7-hour delay in order to allow the track to dry after heavy rain two days ago, the 15th 1:10 Electric Offroad World Championships finally got underway at Silver Dollar R/C Raceway in Chico, California, with the track coming in for a positive reaction from drivers.  While the opening of the seven practice rounds that make up the Day 1 schedule was very much a track cleaning exercise, it was HB’s Ty Tessman who posted the fastest run time while in terms of outright pace its was TLR’s Darren Bloomfield who set the bench mark with a 29.350.  For reigning Champion Ryan Cavalieri it was not a great start to his title defense as he suffered a rear suspension arm failure early in his run.

The winner of the Pre Worlds race, Tessman said his opening run ‘seemed pretty good’ adding that the biggest obstacle was the differing levels of traction with some spots having a lot more than others.  Running a mid motored Kyosho RB6 he said the buggy ran well with just a few small tweaks planned for FP2.  Commenting further on the patchiness of the track, the dark spots having super high traction, he said he hoped ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying they will sugar the light areas to give the track a most consistent overall traction.

Unable to contest the last World Championships despite winning the Pre Worlds for the 2011 event in Finland, Bloomfield said his TLR22 was a little twitchy. Hard to drive he said he had to be very careful with his steering inputs.  Feeling the front end was too soft he said he will stiffen it up for his next run as well as changing the shock locations.

Setting the second fastest lap was TLR team-mate Dustin Evans who described his run as ‘awesome’.  Running his TLR22 in mid motor configuration he said the buggy felt really good and he plans to run it as is for the second practice as he expects the track to just get better and better each run and the traction levels to become more consistent around the track.  Describing the track as ‘a lot of fun’ to drive he said he really likes the tabletop-triple after the main straight.  Evans’ team-mate & winner of the 2WD US National Championships here back in August, Dakotah Phend said his run was ‘OK’ after he had a problem with his rear wing on the first lap.  With the rear wing on his rear motored TLR22 hanging down, the 16-year-old said while it effected the buggy’s performance he was still able to use the 5-minutes to learn the track.

Cavalieri, who is chasing a 5th Offroad World title, said he just got a bad wishbone, the centre supports of his rear right side arm breaking away and forcing him to pull up early.  He said it broke just as he was settling into his groove adding that from the running he did get he likes the track adding that it is ‘pretty technical’ with a number of ‘good jumps’.  Team-mate Ryan Maifield was happy with his opening run adding that his gearing was a little wrong but while the track will be hard to overtake on the layout is fun.  Just a little over 2-seconds off Tessman, former World Championship top qualifier said despite the ‘1000% grip’ his Associated C4.2 ran well and he was happy with his opening performance.  Planning to leave the set-up as is and wait for the track to come in he will make a slipper adjustment as well as changing his speedo profile.

Kyosho’s big title hope Jared Tebo said his mid motored RB6 felt really good despite the traction levels being ‘sketchy’.  In terms of the layout the former 4WD Champion, who would dearly love to win the 2WD title, said the track was ‘awesome’ and he plans to stick with the same set-up for his next run.  Team-mate David Ronnefalk, also declared himself pleased with his first run saying he just used the time to learn the track.  Only his second time to race electric offroad in the US, the first time being the Pre Worlds, he said he is pretty confident with the high traction due to his experience of racing on indoor carpet in the likes of the Euro Offroad Series but added that the levels are less consistent on the dirt.

Of the other key European drivers Team Durango’s Joern Nuemann said for a first run his performance was ‘maybe OK’.  The reigning European Champion said looking at the track before the run it looked like traction wouldn’t be so high but once on track he said it was ‘crazy high’.  Describing the 180 degree corners as a little difficult the German said the rest of the track had a ‘good flow’.  American team-mate Carson Wernimont had a good run being one of only half a dozen drivers to post a 29 second lap.

Multiple European Champion Lee Martin said he likes the track but said he needs to make his mid motored Tamiya easier to drive.  Planning to stiffen it up for FP2 the British driver will also add weight to the front end.

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