Racers settle in in Sydney ahead of 1:10 World Championship action
Officially the opening day of the IFMAR 1:10 Offroad World Championships, while there was no track action today in Sydney the pits were busy with drivers completing their registration, gluing tyres and making final preparations to their buggies ahead of tomorrow’s first laps on the new layout at the Hills Off Road RC track. With the official duties of Day 1 concluding with the opening ceremony, a huge Australian team, which make up over half the entry kicking it off, and the United States, the biggest visiting nation, concluding the presentation of countries, drivers had plenty of talk about after their long journeys Down Under. In terms of the longest journey time to get to here, this year the 40th anniversary of the first 1:10 Offroad World Championships, that honour goes to Xray’s Bartek Zalewski, the young Polish talent enduring a brutal 61-hour journey! There were travel dramas for many drivers including 2-time 2WD World Champion Spencer Rivkin and Schumacher’s Broc Champlin, flooding in Phoenix causing their original flight to be cancelled. Driving to LA to get a new flight, they finally arrived but without their original baggage. Luckily carrying their buggies and radios as hand luggage, Rivkin was able to stop at his home to repack tools etc. from his 1:8 gear bags. Newly crowned 1:8 Electric Buggy World Champion Marcus Kaerup is another without his baggage, which went awol on his stop over in Istanbul. While a headache for Team Associated team manager Brent Theilke to have two drivers without their bags and some equipment, he said they won’t be stuck for anything while Kaerup joked he had plenty of team-mates he could ‘rob stuff from’.
Talking to the various team representatives, Sworkz a notable absentee of these Worlds, it seems teams have come with new parts more than all new cars. Team Associated have their new the new 3-gear transmission for the 2WD, providing the new set-up to all the drivers using their buggy here. Talking to Kaerup he said he hasn’t run the set-up before but he did try it in testing here previously in Lachlan Donnelly’s car and he liked how it felt. In 4WD, Theilke said their buggy ‘just has some new parts’. In the Schumacher camp designer Trish Neal said their 2WD has some modified front end parts which they previously ran at the Warm-up race. Running a new 4WD prototype car then, that has since gone into full production, he said it’s nice to be able to hit the track with that standard car. Asking Martin Bayer if they had anything new, the man responsible for Xray’s offroad programme, smiled and said ‘of course’ but gave little else details however they are using a different length chassis on the 2WD. Mugen Seiki, whose efforts here will be led by Burak Kilic, are running their standard 2WD and will run their prototype/close to preproduction 4WD. Speaking to designer Shin Adachi, he said the buggy is the same as what Kilic raced at the European Championship at the start of August at the Hudy Arena, adding they haven’t had much opportunity to test it since then as the don’t have any tracks like Hills Offroad RC in Japan. Kyosho, who are here with factory Japanese driver Fuma Saito, have said they are running a pretty standard 2WD but designer Yoshiyuki Chikuba said they have brought a 4WD that features some new design developments, which we suspect are the basis of a new 4WD kit from the iconic Japanese manufacturer.
Aside from the car manufacturers, Jason Ruona said after attending the warm-up race JConcepts saw some opportunities to rework their 2WD body for better aerodynamics to suit the dirt track conditions here. With a wider rear end, the body is set to go into full production after the words. Bringing a painted display example of the new body, that has now become a race body for Kaerup whose race bodies are in his missing baggage. With the host club doing a great job presenting the track & facility, a huge marquee meaning plenty of space in the pits for all the drivers, the action gets underway in the morning (Tuesday) with the first round of free practice off at 07:30 local time
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