Bloomfield fastest in final free practice
Team Losi Racing’s Darren Bloomfield set the outright pace in the 6th & final round of free practice at the 1:10 Electric Offroad World Championships, the British driver just a fraction faster over a single lap of the Silver Dollar track than Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield who posted the quickest race time for the round. Tamiya’s Lee Martin made it three different manufacturers at the top with a best lap that was just 3/1000th quicker than TLR’s Dustin Evans.
Having been playing with getting the balance right between his mid motored TLR22 being too easy or too nervous to drive, Bloomfield said for FP6 he got it right adding that the lower temperatures probably played a part too. After a delayed start to Day 1 of the event to allow the track to fully dry after heavy rain two days earlier, the final round of practice ended under flood lights with Darren running in the last of the ten 15 car heats. Declaring himself very happy with where his buggy is now at he said he is confident going into the first timed practice tonight from which the fastest 2-consecutive laps will count towards a reseeding for tomorrow’s qualifying. Overall there was an air of confidence in the TLR camp with Evans very happy with his 22 after making a change to lighter shock oil all round for the final practice. The former US Champion said the change made his buggy more agile. Running against the trend running his 22 in rear motor configuration, current US Champion Dakotah Phend was a lot more upbeat after his final practice saying things were now ‘a lot better’. Changing from Proline’s Scrubs to their ION tyre, the 16-year-old now has the steering he was looking for and with a few small tweaks to his set-up believes he should be good for the first run when times will officially count for something.
In the Associated camp, Maifield was a little less enthusiastic than his rivals about where he was at. Describing how free practice had gone he summed it up as ‘OK’ adding that it was hard to drive without crashing, the track proving difficult in respect to being able to run a full clean 5-minutes. In terms of his B4.2 he said it felt pretty good but after after a long busy day of running on the hour every hour he is looking forward to getting the opening day done and starting a fresh tomorrow. Team-mate and reigning World Champion Ryan Cavalieri said it hadn’t been the best of days with him having a number of technical issues. Suffering a motor problem and having his gear mesh move in the final free practice, he said problems aside his B4.2 is working really well and with both issues now sorted he should be good. The final practice saw Associated’s Steven Hartson find good pace as he ran a 28-second lap. Hartson said he has been really happy with his buggy all day and the improvement just came from his driving, adding that the more laps he puts in the quicker he has been able to go. Although he sat out FP6 in order to help the two Ryans, Kody Numedahl declared himself ‘satisfied’ adding he is feeling really good about his form going into the controlled practice.
Having changed to a thicker diff oil for FP5 and then reverted back to what he used earlier for his final free practice, HB’s Ty Tessman said he was happier with how his Kyosho RB6 ran in the sixth practice. Motoring up for FP5 he said he was happier with the 6.5T Orion unit and the only planned change for the first controlled practice is to run a new set of Proline’s directional Scrubs tyre mounted for smooth feeling having previously run them in the aggressive direction.
Running Tamiya’s mid motored TRF201 XM, former European Champion Lee Martin said the buggy is running good but in the final run there were a few spots on the track where it was doing funny things due to some sort of electric problem. As a result he will fit a new speedo and receiver wire which should hopefully cure the issue without which he is pretty confident about his pace for the counting 2-consecutive laps.
Current European Champion Joern Neumann said considering the lack of mileage with Durango’s latest prototype, which he only got to run for the first time today, free practice had gone ok. Describing the new buggy as ‘much better’ than its predecessor he said they are still learning how it reacts to set-up changes. Using the last practice to try a different front tyre he said the JConcepts Barcodes gave the buggy understeer and so he will revert to back to their Dirt Webs.
Heading the Asian challenge, Team Yokomo’s Naoto Matsukura said a change to the rear camber link on his B-Max2MR gave him more grip but the recently turned 20-year-old said he wants more. Happy with his own driving the Japanese star will make some more set-up tweaks for the controlled practice round.
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