Rheinard TQ’s second round in Florida

Awesomatix’s Marc Rheinard has TQ’d the second round of qualifying at the 1:12 World Championship at Beachline Raceway, the defending Champion benefitting from mistakes by Q1 winner Michal Orlowski and the rapid Kemp Anderson.  While Anderson would recover to get a second for the round, albeit a lap down on his team-mate, Orlowski ended up with a 5th, a score he’ll be hoping to drop over the remaining 4 qualifiers.  Running in the second fastest heat, Donny Lia made it a 1,2,3 for Awesomatix finishing ahead of Alexander Hagberg.  The third place qualifier at the 2014 Worlds, which also took place in Florida, 1:12 specialist Lia had been chasing leader Hagberg in the same heat until the Xray driver crashed in the final half minute of the qualifier.  The ‘stupid mistake’ cost the former World Champ a potential P3 and instead he matched his opening result of a fourth.

‘A TQ is a TQ but I’m not happy with my driving’, was Rheinard’s reaction to his TQ run.  The German continued, ‘It was a horrible start and I hit the curbs everywhere which caused me to chuck a tyre.  When the others crashed I tried to keep it on the track but I knew Donny (Lia) had a good time from his heat.  In the end the result was good but I wasn’t fast and my driving was not good.’

Despite traffic costing him a potential TQ run, Kemp was ‘happy with P2’.  The American said, ‘The car was good.  We made a few small changes and it was good through the whole run but I got blocked by lapped traffic and bounced off the wall’.  Looking to the third & final of today’s qualifiers, and knowing the speed is there he plans to ‘throw (the car) back down how it is and see how it goes because ‘I am pretty happy with it and just need a clean run’.

‘Definitely getting closer’ was Lia’s reaction to his second qualifying attempt.  The owner of the 360v2 track in New York, Lia said having struggled yesterday it was great to be able to rebound and he feels now with a clean run he could do something.  Asked why he was so far off the pace, he said the carpet and the grip threw him.  He continued, ‘I only race this class.  The other guys race many classes so it takes me longer to adapt to changes.  I’m used to super high grip and a different version of carpet.  It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks and I am older too’.

Clearly frustrated with himself for his mistake, Hagberg said, ‘I crashed with no reason to.  I had a good lead so there was no reason to make such a stupid mistake’.  The former World Champion continued, ‘the car was again better than before’ and says the plan for the last of today’s qualifiers is to ‘run it the same and try to make no silly mistakes’.

Another to have costly mistakes, Orlowski said, ‘The car was awesome at the beginning but then I was in traffic and got a little annoyed because I felt I was loosing time trying to get by.  I lost concentration and then made mistakes’.  Having made a change to his Schumacher for the second round, he felt it was not a good change in terms of the full 8-minute run and they will look at changing it again for Q3.

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Orlowski takes opening 1:12 Worlds qualifier

Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski has taken the opening round of qualifying at the 1:12 World Championships in Florida.  Top Qualifier at the last running of the Worlds in 2020, he would TQ the first of the 6 rounds at Beachline Raceway by 0.25 of a second from Top Seed & defending Champion Marc Rheinard.  A very closely contested 8-minute qualifier, Rheinard’s Awesomatix team-mate Kemp Anderson was right in the mix.  Posting the fastest lap of the round, the American was laying down the TQ pace before dropping off the top spot with a bad lap and eventually completing the Top 3.  Running in the second fastest heat having nor featured in seeding yesterday, Xray’s Alexander Hagberg took a confidence boosting P4 for the round ahead of the Awesomatix of Sam Isaacs and Snowbirds podium finisher Donny Lia.

Asked about his opening effort Orlowski replied, ‘I had a terrible start’.  The Polish racer explained, ‘we tried something in the car after practice because we had understeer at the end of the run.  The change made the car more aggressive so it was sketchy at the beginning.  I could live with it but just needed time to get used to it’.  He continued, ‘mid race I started to go very good and caught Marc.  We were both pushing a lot and we both had bobbles.  There is room for improvement in the car but it’s good to get a TQ from Q1’.

‘A solid start’ was how Rheinard summed the first qualifier.  Switching back from his trademark colour scheme painted bodyshell he ran in final controlled practice yesterday, to a pink one-colour body, he said that was down to his discovering a 6.5gram weight difference between the two.  While the same model of body, he said different batches seem to have different weights, adding ‘6.5grams on a body that weighs just 22 grams is a lot’.  Suffering a ‘shitty jump at the chicane’ that cost him a few tenths,  he said his car ‘missed a bot of steering’ something he put down to the gluing of his front tyres explaining, ‘I used more glue so I will try using a little less the next one’.

With Kemp’s sheer pace impressing many onlookers, the American summed up the qualifier as ‘pretty good’.  He said, ‘the car was hard to drive in practice this morning so we had to calm down the front end for Q1 but it was a little too much’.  The 21-year-old continued, ‘It started to push at the end so we need to find the good medium for the next one’.

‘Not bad.  It was another run I was more comfortable with the car’, was the response of a more upbeat Hagberg when asked about Q1.  The 2018 World Champion continued, ‘every run I am getting more comfortable and changes we made after yesterday have helped to close the gap.  It is still not enough for Top 3 but the car is getting there and is feeling a lot better today.  It’s a very positive start and now we will try to do more changes in the same direction.’

Isaacs was pleased with his opening P5 effort saying, ‘the car was a lot more drivable that one so I could run a clean 8-minutes but once you get out of your rhythm it’s hard to get back into it.  It was a decent run but I need a little more speed’.  Asked what he planned to change for this, he replied , ‘I will try heavier dampening and take out camber.  I just needs a few small changes’.

In the opening Spec Class qualifier, it was Awesomatix’s Max Machler who took the TQ for the round.  Despite a crash during the heat, the Awesomatix driver had an 8/10ths advantage over Joe Trandell with Dave Vera third, both drivers running in the second fastest of the 6 heat groups.

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