The Worlds according to Ruona – Testing, practice or training?

We made it through a great practice day today at the worlds and so far things are looking pretty normal. The track is developing character with some bumpy places here and there and most certainly will continue. I see some drivers having trouble finding their marks out there so it’s obviously more difficult than it looks. After the 180 down the straight there is a nice hole forming and on the face of the following roller / jump. Things will only get more interesting from here.

The fastest 3 laps is always a bit annoying because the qualifiers are 10 minutes. It’s a nice system to sort drivers for qualifying but we get impatient at races like this and start using this immediately as The Who’s / Who at the worlds. Today we will see a little more reality because the entire 10 is on the clock and we will sort by 3 consecutive. I will be watching the top 5, top 10 and top 15 laps section of the LiveTime print out.

This is a tough thing for me because I’m not a fan of the watered track surface. I think it looks pretty with fresh water but it makes the consistency so much more difficult. This has everything to do with the weather and nothing to do with really who is behind the hose or hoses. Since the heats were not rotated today the drivers that were up early had the wettest track and the guys at the end had the driest track. There are 3 conditions to watch as a racer, watered surface (looks like chocolate cake as Saxton says), drying / dusty (most difficult to drive on) and then the beginning to groove phase which only gets faster with more time. My favorite on this track is the grooved, getting fast condition. I love this track when it starts to groove, I think the consistency stabilizes and the drivers can push harder which looks more impressive. Until that point the drivers are really at the mercy of which heat they are in to really know what to expect of the conditions.

We got into a discussion last night night on more and more drivers mentioning they are testing. This isn’t directed so much toward worlds drivers but more what I noticed on social media. I like the word practice or training better than testing. To me, if you are testing you have the ability to make radical updates or changes to the design of the product. Your input can drastically change the product at some point or another. Practice, training or using the product seems more accurate of what we can really do on a given day. Maybe we say, experimenting? I don’t know, I haven’t really settled on my favorite word yet. I feel if I say I’m testing, I’m trying to sound like I’m important.

Let’s skip to when I felt important and I have a testing story. This time I was more of a test dummy driver I think….not sure. Around 1998 Team Associated was building the TC3 touring car, but for their own purposes they never left the back parking lot at AE with the car. They knew if they took it to the track, than it would only be a matter of time before word got out what the car looked and performed like.

We were racing the NORRCA Nationals in coincidentally Las Vegas. I received a call from Cliff Lett and he mentioned to me that he wanted to fly in and “test” the TC3 prototype after the race on Monday. Mark Pavidis was also racing the event but they didn’t want him to drive the car in fear that if it didn’t work well then he would dislike the whole design. So, Cliff flew out and we met up on Monday at the track where he and Mike Reedy had the car and pits setup and ready to drive. Reedy had his whole pit setup with race motors, new batteries and the whole 9 yards. Cliff pulls out this entirely hand built car with machined plastic, aluminum and carbon fiber components. This is before everyone and their brother had a 3D printer and was suddenly an RC engineer making one-offs on their coffee table. Reedy gives Cliff practice batteries and a motor and proceeds to install everything.

Cliff explains, be careful driving this car because we have no parts. I proceed driving with caution and getting a feel for things while Cliff and Reedy turnmarshal if needed. Is turn marshal one word or two? I’m going slow, trying not to crash or break the car…..Cliff yells…you can start going faster now. I begin pulling it a little more and getting more comfortable. The car is working, everyone is getting more comfortable and confident and feeling good. Reedy pulls out a race motor and one of the race battery packs and wants to see us step up the game. Cliff makes the swap and I ready a fresh set of tires. I head to the drivers stand and extend the antenna (back when we had them). I look down to see Cliff drop the car by accident and shatter a custom machined suspension arm. I’m thinking, well, at least it wasn’t me..but now we are finished for the day.

I head back to the pits and everyone has this look of disgust on their face…the day was over. Just then, Cliff reaches into the box and pulls out this bag and he says, I’m glad I brought these extra parts. A good laugh and tension break and we were back on the track. Finished the day and as they say, the rest is history.

Today is officially history and overall I was pleased. As a competitor you want to TQ, top seed or kick someone’s ass every day but it’s a grind to be the best at something. Official practice seeding kicks in tomorrow and I’m excited for where the ups and downs take us. I just hope our “testing” proves itself in the long  run and we can all enjoy a chuckle in the pits along the way.

Bullets of the day –
– Track has character now.
– It should be coming alive quite soon.
– It’s only Sunday and the race parking lot is already full.
– I noticed JQ likes our AstroTurf pit area.
– People keep stealing our chairs.
– Walking in the rocks suck.
– You never have enough sun screen.
– New shoes get dirty.
– The fast guys always say the other fast guys cars look hard to drive.
– Sometimes you have to water the carpet and banners too.
– It sucks to suck.
– Watered track looks like chocolate cake.
– The Temptations are apparently still alive and in concert at The Orleans hotel and casino.

Ronnefalk tops seeding in Las Vegas

David Ronnefalk is the top seed for qualifying at the 16th running of the 1:8 Offroad World Championships.  The former multiple European Champion headed a HB Racing 1-2 as team-mate Ty Tessmann posted the second quickest 3-consecutive laps in Las Vegas.  Only 7th fastest in the first of the 2 seeding rounds, he would set the pace by 2/10ths of a second from the reigning World Champion with up & coming talent David Ongaro completing the Top 3, the 15-year-old the only one of two drivers in the Top 10 who failed to improve their time in the final practice.

Making both a suspension and a body change on his Orion powered D815V2, Ronnefalk said the changes ‘felt really good’.  The Swede said the suspension change made his car absorb the bumps better while also giving more rear traction.  Switching from a JConcepts to a Pro-Line body this made the car ‘a little more stable’.  He said, ‘I like both of them.  The JConcepts has more corner speed but is a little too aggressive.  The Pro-Line is more easy to drive and so I’m more consistent with it’.  Continuing to run AKA Grid Iron tyres in super soft since the second round of practice he said ‘they are really good’ and the plan for tomorrow is to wait and see how the track is.  With the track getting more bumpy he said ‘you can see a lot of changes in the standings as it get bumpier and we are not starting to see what was expected.  I’m looking forward to qualifying’.

‘That was good.  The track is getting fun to drive now.  You get rewarded for a certain line which is nice’, was how Tessmann summed up the final practice.  After his troubles in the first seeding round when he broke a C-hub and had to do the run with a difficult car after a quick repair with a slightly different part, with the correct C-hub back on the car he said it now ‘felt really good’.  Running his D815V2 set-up unchanged and again on Pro-Line’s Electroshot tyre, with the event now moving into qualifying the Canadian said, ‘we just have to watch how big the bumps get for tomorrow and then decide what needs to be changed’.

Having backed up his somewhat surprise P3 topping pace with the fastest time in the first seeding round, Ongaro wouldn’t improve on that time.  Only 18th fastest in the final practice, the Italian said changing to a wider rear track, while making the car safer to drive, had also made his MBX7R ‘slower’.  Feeling that track conditions later in the round also favoured those drivers, the track appear more watered in his opinion, he said he will revert back to his earlier set-up for Q1.  Deciding to try a new compound Procircuit have in the Claymore tyre in the final practice he said it felt better than what he ran in the previous rounds and he will use it for the first round of qualifying.

‘I could have gone faster but there was crazy traffic, I even got knocked off the track’, was Boots reaction after the final practice. The Kyosho driver added, ‘there was half a second in there’.  In terms of his MP9 he said he ‘left it as is’ and going into qualifying he is ‘pretty happy with where (he) is at’.  Describing the car as ‘really consistent and easy to drive’, the European Champion feels he is ‘more comfortable over a longer run than the 3-laps’.  Asked about track conditions, he replied ‘for that run the track held a bit more moisture’ but with hotter temperatures forecast for tomorrow he is not sure that is how it will continue.

Only 12th fastest in the morning, Dakotah Phend had a much improved afternoon run posting the 4th fastest time of the round a time that would give him 5th in the final seeding.  Having made ‘a couple of changes’ for the 1st seeding round he said the car was better than yesterday and further changes for the second run left him ‘the most confident (he) has been with the car’.  Describing his Orion powered 8ight as ’easier to drive’, he said he is also more comfortable with the track but with each run hours apart there are different holes appearing each time’.  Planning to leave the car unchanged for Q1, he said ‘on tyres I will wait and see’.  Running on Pro-Line Holeshots, he said he is ’not going to be able to use these (tyres) later in the week’.

Competing the Top 6 for seeding would be Riccardo Berton, 8th fastest in the first run he would post the fifth fastest time in the afternoon.  The Kyosho driver said he improved his MP9 with softer shocks but it was a tyre change that made the biggest difference.  Winner of the Kyosho Masters here at the RC Tracks of Las Vegas last November ahead of Jared Tebo and Boots, the Italian went from Pro-Line Holeshots to Blockades, with the latter giving better traction as the track dried out towards the end of the 10-minute – the track being watered before the start of each heat.  Over a second faster over his 3-laps in the second run, the 17-year-old said for qualifying they will ’stay the same for the first one for sure and then see if we need to change’.

Just 6/1000ths off Berton’s pace, Jared Tebo would end up seventh fastest but the former Top Qualifier feels he is looking ‘really good’ going into qualifying.  The Kyosho driver said his MX powered MP9 ‘wasn’t working on the bumps’ but making a roll centre change for the final it was ‘way better’.  Describing the car as ‘perfect’, he said with the track starting to get ‘more character’, he is ‘going to get better and better as it gets more rough and you need to drive more precise’.  Also using the final practice to run a different engine he said this was ‘so we have a back up motor tuned and ready to go’.   Having run Pro-Line M3 Holeshots throughout practice he said he’ll ‘stick with that’ concluding ‘over 10-minutes we are going to be right there’.  Behind Tebo, another of the hotly tipped event favourites Ryan Maifield would end up 8th fastest with US National Champion Spencer Rivkin and multiple Onroad World Champion Naoto Matsukura completing the Top 10.

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