Euro title contenders content at end of Day 1

With no official timing available from the three rounds of practice that made up the schedule for today’s opening day of action at the 1:8 Offroad European Championships in France, it is hard to decipher which driver has best mastered the conditions of the unique chalk surface Reims track but at the end of a very hot day all the main contenders have declared that they are happy with the direction in which they are headed although some seem more convincing than others.

Defending Champion Darren Bloomfield declared himself happy with where he believes his Novarossi powered TLR can be at.  Switching to AKA’s Handlebar tyre for the final & extended 9-minute practice, the British driver said this left him with less overall grip.  Having been very happy with his 8ight 3.0 in the second 5-minute practice when he ran a set of Wishbone tyres he said he will just revert back to that combination declaring that he would be happy to go into qualifying with the buggy working as how it did then.  Looking to find better corner speed after his opening practice run, Bloomfield said he opted to stick with the same set-up and just drive around the lack of steering rather than ending up with a buggy that has too much steering which is more likely to lead to mistakes.  With the current set-up he said he has to take it easy in the corners and this should make for a clean run however should he find his pace is lacking in the timed practice he said he may change his approach going into qualifying.

Also using the final practice to try a different tyre choice was Kyosho’s David Ronnefalk.  The Swede who ran AKA Super Soft Handlebar in Practice 1 & 2 ran the Clay compound version of the tyre in P3 and while it made his MP9 feel easy to drive it left him with less steering and an overall feeling of the buggy being loose.  Also changing his Orion engine for P3 to a ‘less powerful one’ to help improve the traction, Ronnefalk said reverting the buggy to how it was in P2 he is pretty confident for tomorrow which will see two rounds of timed practice which will determine the seeding for qualifying which gets underway on Thursday.

Kyosho’s other big hope for a European title is newly crowned back to back French Champion Jerome Aigoin.  The unassuming Frenchman, who is still in search of his first European title having been back to back Top Qualifier in 2010 & 2011, said after struggling with the feeling of the track and with some traffic issues in the two morning runs the third run was ‘better’.  Describing the track surfaces as ‘the only one of its kind in the World’, he said he was happy with where he was at in terms of tyre choice, running AKA Handlebars, and his MP9 set-up with the biggest issue today being the driver who he said needs to ‘improve a lot for tomorrow’.

The other half of the famous Aigoin racing brothers, Yannick summed up his day as ‘OK’.  The Team Associated driver said he is not as prepared as he could be as he is now a little more focused on the business side of things heading up CML Racing’s French distribution adding its going to be hard to beat the ‘full time’ drivers. The two time former European Champion said tyres was his focus with this always being the greatest challenge at Reims.  A driver who knows this track better than most he said it is never the same with ‘slicks working one day’ and then big pins tyres the best option the next day.  He said the way the chalk dries out has a lot to do with this.  Aigoin said his biggest worry now is the track developing a black line which will completely change the feeling of the track.

Robert Batlle ended the day not overly happy with his buggy saying it is difficult to drive.  The World Champion said his Novarossi powered Mugen has the speed but he needs to get more comfortable with the buggy.  Doing a tyre stop in the final practice so as to compare back to back the medium and soft compound of Procircuit’s Hot Dices tyre he said there was not a big difference.  The Spaniard said today’s programme was more about tyres but added he is still not sure of what tyre to use and tomorrow he might try a slick for comparison although the key focus is on fine tuning the set-up of his MBX-7.

Lee Martin, whose Mugen is running on Proline tyres, described his second outing as ‘very good’.  Changing to a more ‘worn’ tyre for his final practice he said it was fast but lacked consistency the main problem being that while the tyre was good online, offline it was not great however should the track ‘groove up’ he believes this combination would be perfect.  Pleased with the set-up on his Beat powered MBX-7, the British driver said he still has a little work to do on tyre selection adding that he needs to have two tyre opinions available – one for when the track is cool & dusty and another for when there is a ‘hot black track’.

Fellow British driver Elliott Boots summed up his day saying he was ‘getting there slowly’. Describing the chalk surface as ‘weird to drive on’, the World Championship Top Qualifier said his Novarossi powered Kyosho ‘never grips’ and is ‘constantly moving’ around on the track.  Admitting he has a little work to do he said they will get there tomorrow in the final two practices.  Running Proline’s ION tyre today he said they have worked on adjusting the buggy’s set-up to suit the tyre rather than changing between different tyres options.

Team Xray’s Renaud Savoya feels his lap times are inline with expectations but said he needs to make his Orion powered XB9 easier to drive.  The 3-time European Champion said the track is still nothing like what he has experienced here before with big differences in grip levels at different points of the track.  Changing to a shorter wheelbase and also changing the camber link positions for tomorrow he is hoping this will give him a more consistent feeling.  Running Sweep’s Dirt Effect tyre he thinks this is the pattern he will run in qualifying although he is not yet decided on the compound to use.  Sweep’s Ryan Lee will arrive in France tomorrow evening and is bringing with him a fresh batch of the tyre which Savoya says are made from a rubber that has been mixed differently.

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33rd 1:8 Offroad Euros underway in Reims

The 33rd running of the 1:8 Offroad European Championships got underway this morning in France with Day 1 of the event, which will come to a conclusion on Saturday, set to be a rather uneventful affair with just 3 rounds of untimed practice making up today’s schedule.  Having had the Warm-up race cancelled just as the Semi-finals got underway due to rain, the hot sunny weather that has greeted drivers on their arrival to the famous Champagne producing city has created a totally different set of track conditions with tyre choice set to be the key factor to the outcome of the race.

Having claimed TLR’s first European title last year, defending Champion Darren Bloomfield was pleased with his opening 5-minute practice.  The British driver was forced to cancel his entry for the warm-up race after he had all his equipment stolen the night before the event joking that ‘some say it was Elliot Boots’ who did the big hoist.  Putting his AKA shod 8ight 3.0 on track this morning he said he was surprised at how well the run went adding that he felt really good with the ‘fun’ track layout straight away.  Describing his car as maybe a little too easy to drive he said he will try to improve his corner speed in the next two practices, the final one being a longer 9-minute run. Suffering with a wisdom tooth that is causing him some discomfort, Bloomfield is without the crack pit crew of Adam Drake and Kevin Gahan, many attributing his victory last year to the Americans, and asked if he felt any extra pressure being the defending champion he said he was just treating the race like any other and that is ‘just to go out and do the best he can’.

Coming so close to the title last year after a great closing battle with Bloomfield, Kyosho star David Ronnefalk is very confident about the week ahead saying he is out to get ‘revenge for last year’.  The 17-year-old Swede likes the fast flowing track, which he described as ‘really fun’ to drive, and is using today to ‘get used to the track again’.  Classified 6th at the rain effected Warm-up Race, Ronnefalk is pleased that the weather for the entire event will be good meaning he can focus on his driving once they find a good base set-up.  Asked what he felt was the key part of the track he said that being smooth was essential as it was easy to lose time if you go offline.

The man who lost his European title to Bloomfield last year when he finished 3rd overall in Austria, Mugen’s current World Champion Robert Batlle has to be one of the favorites for the event.  The winner of the Warm-up Race, the Spaniard really likes the ‘fast European style’ track but added that not much in terms of what they learned at the Warm-up is the same now. Running pin tyres for his first run, the Procircuit driver said he is not sure whether or not he will run the slicks which where seen at the Warm-up although unlike then his tyre sponsor have come prepared with tyres that already have the pins ground down.  Batlle contested the 2005 Euros here at Reims when he drove for Hobao but went out in the Semi Final when he lost a screw out of the steering knuckle while running inside the Top 3.

Mugen team-mate Lee Martin, who many are tipping as a strong contender this year, said after his first run that he is still playing around with set-up on his Proline shod MBX-7.  The British driver who would love to add a 1:8 European title to his tally of electric European Offroad titles said matching the right tyre with the right insert is going to be so important.  Asked about running slicks, Martin said the big problem is keeping the tyre legal.  With the pins ground down the tyre is just above the 109mm limit but after running, especially a final, the tyre would be below that so he feels its best thinking longer term to try get a pin tyre combination that works well rather than going for a qualifying slick. Asked about the track he said while he doesn’t particularly like the triple double section, the landing of of the triple making it hard to set-up the buggy for the double, the rest of the track is really good.

Sharing the honour of winning the greatest number of European Championship with Daniel Reckward, 3-time back to back former champion Renaud Savoya is one of a super strong line up of French drivers who are sure to be contenders come Saturday afternoon.  Just missing out on the podium last year in his debut season with Xray, the French driver has built a really strong relationship with the Slovakian manufacturer.  Knowing the track well from the French Nationals, Savoya said while the French drivers will have some advantage from his first run this morning the track is nothing like any other time he has raced on it, something he said is possible due to the recent run of good weather.  He said the big difference is that the inside line is very rocky and the outside very dusty, something he has not experience before. Describing the track as not very interesting or technical he said keeping your speed through the corners is very important.  Again like all the drivers we spoke to the Sweep sponsored driver said tyre choice is going to be key.

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Track Focus – Reims

Track Name – Reims
Club – Reims Enduro Model Car
Country – France
Location – Reims (129 km east-northeast of Paris)
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Chalk

The 33rd running of the 1:8 Offroad European Championships takes place in France this week in Reims, a city famed for being the home to many of the largest producers of France’s most famous drink – Champagne.  Part of an impressive complex that also includes an 320 metre onroad asphalt track, the 340m offroad track has one very unique feature and that is its surface.  White in colour, the track is actually chalk which makes up the majority of the ground in the area with most of the champagne aged under the city in tunnels and caves carved from the chalk.  While most track surfaces are a dark colour causing them to absorb the heat, the white of the chalk reflects that heat which is an element drivers need to keep in mind when choosing tyre compounds, tyre choice set to be the key factor in deciding this year’s European Champion. Run by the Reims Enduro Model Car club, which was founded in 1987, the track opened in 1999 and currently has a membership of 130 drivers.

One of the tracks that makes up the highly competitive French National Championship, this is the second time the track has hosted the European Championship with David Tortorici winning the second of his European titles here in 2005.  In terms of the layout the track is proving very popular with drivers who like the speed and flow of the track which they say overall is not too technical.

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