January 8, 2016

Track Focus – DHI Cup Odense

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Host Club – Odense R/C Minirace
Country – Denmark
Location – Odense
Venue – Stadium Arena Fyn
Track type – Temporary
Surface – Carpet (Onroad), Carpet & Wood (Offroad)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise (Onroad), Clockwise (Offroad)
Previous races hosted – 15  (Onroad), 4 (Offroad)

It might be the 16th running of the DHI Cup but Denmark’s most famous race is continuing its resurgence with this year’s event taking just 20-minutes to book out.  A unique event in that both onroad and offroad run simultaneously on back to back tracks, even increasing the entry limit from 300 to 320 left the organisers to have to turn away drivers.   Allocated 90 of the 160 Touring Car entries, Super Stock inparticular couldn’t cater for the large number of racers looking to travel to Odense. In Offroad, the organisers said they were surprised by the huge interest 4WD Buggy attracted this year with the class well oversubscribed.

Having had to move to a different hall in the Odense Congress Center last year due to a World Championship warm-up handball game, handball a big sport in Denmark, this year the event returns to the impressive Stadium Arena Fyn.  Getting access to such a facility comes thanks to the city of Odense. The third largest in Denmark, the city provided the funding for the building of the Arena and as part of the deal a select number of days are made available for local organisations such as the host Odense R/C Minirace club to host events.  The DHI Cup setting up home here in 2008 with Viktor Wilck marking the occasion with his first big international race win.

In terms of the onroad track, it is defending six time champion Ronald Volker who was asked to design this year’s layout.  While the construction of the track turned out a little different to the plans he submitted, the Yokomo driver said the chicane in front of the drivers stand is the tracks key feature. ‘Somewhere to make or lose time’, the German said ‘the biggest difference more than the layout’ is the carpet and the controlled LRP tyres.  With the ETS style black carpet now very common throughout Europe, the use of grey carpet gives a somewhat retro look to the track.  One significant but out of sight change to the track is steel plates that have been added under the carpet.  As with most exhibition halls, cable tunnels run the length of the hall and previously have caused issue in particularly on the straight as the bump unsettles cars.  With the plates running over the tunnels Volker said they were ‘an improvement’ and now they ‘didn’t feel too bad’.

Unbeaten in 4WD Buggy since the event took on the challenge of running adding offroad to the event in 2012, Joern Neumann was happy with the track layout.  ‘Its 95% same as last year and I won on that so the layout is OK’.  His first DHI outing with Serpent, having won last year with Durango, the German said ‘some parts are tricky but overall there is a good flow to the layout’.

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December 9, 2015

New in the Pits – JConcepts

Making their trackside debut at the 2015 JConcepts Indoor National Finals, JConcepts brought a number of new items to Omaha for their team drivers which will be available for general release very soon. First up is the new line of t-wrenches available in 7mm for 1/10th offroad wheel nuts and the 17mm version for 1/8th offroad wheel nuts. Made from aluminium and available in black or blue the end is extruded to allow you to ‘quick spin’ the wheel nut and features a t-handle so you can tighten down or loosen the nut. Seen on the table of Ryan Maifield is a new carbon and aluminium high end setup board. Large enough to be used with a 1/8th truggy but better suited for 1/10th scale, the outer frame has been machined from blue anodised aluminium with the work surface made from carbon fibre.

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Seen on many of the JConcepts team driver’s car is the new Stabilizer rear wing that incorporates a rear gurney flap, similar to that used on 1/8th wings, which can be bent forward to further increase downforce. Available for the B5M and the 22 3.0, as the name suggests the wing offers a lot of stability due to the large amount of downforce the wing generates. In terms of bodies, the Warrior and S2 bodies are now available in lightweight versions, perfect for dropping weight which is especially useful in stock classes.

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December 7, 2015

Maifield does double at JConcepts Finals

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Ryan Maifield has completed the buggy double at the Finals of the JConcepts Indoor National Series in Omaha.  Taking the an early overall victory in 2WD Mod after winning A1 & 2, the Team Losi Racing driver would have to wait until A3 and the final race of the Hobby Plex event to claim the 4WD win.  Top Qualifier in 4WD, Maifield would finish second to Spencer Rivkin in A1 but winning A2 it set up a straight battle between himself and his protege for the overall win.  Starting second behind his mentor, Rivkin would push Maifield hard for the win until his Associated hooked the piping.  Enough to give Maifield control of the race Rivkin would finish second with last year’s winner Jared Tebo coming home third to complete the podium at the fifth & final event of the JConcepts championship.

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Last season’s overall JConcepts INS Champion, but not able to contest enough races in 2015 to defend his title, Maifield said ‘I knew Spencer would be fast and would push me for the win.  He definitely kept me on my toes but he had a few mistakes after which I was able to just drive around’.  One of the strongest INS entries of the season with Associated sending its core team in Cavalieri & Rivkin and Tebo representing Kyosho, Maifield was pleased to be able to pull off the double him very happy with the performance of his Orion powered 22-4 and JConcepts Dirt Web tyres on the track that will host the 2016 ROAR 1:10 Offroad National Championships.

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Frustrated by losing out second overall in 2WD, his counting win and 3rd being bettered by the combined times of team-mate Cavalieri’s two second place finishes under the ROAR ruling used for tie breaks, Rivkin said he was ‘happy with second’.  Feeling he did his best to force an error from Maifield in A3, the 17-year-old full time professional racer said ‘I put pressure on (Maifield) but he just didn’t make any mistakes and I couldn’t find a way passed and then I locked a pipe’. Declaring the driver who has been influential in guiding his career ‘deserved the win’, Rivkin said his Reedy powered B44.3 was ‘really good’, a fact that was highlighted by him being the only driver to match Maifield’s 18-second lap times in the finals.

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Having done the double at the event last year, Tebo was understandably disappointed with third.  Only fourth in 2WD, the former World Champion said ‘I lost grip in all my cars today’.  The AKA team driver added ‘I got caught off guard today with tyres and ran them too low’.  Behind Tebo, Cavalieri would finish 4th followed by Brad Shearer with young talent Tom Rinderknecht completing the Top 6.

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In Mod Truck Rivkin would TQ and Win with local Kyosho driver Derek Wood and TLR’s Taylor Larsen joining him on the podium.  2WD Short Course would see Top Qualifier Cavalieri take the win after 8-minutes of racing ahead of Tebo with Alex Vanderbeek claiming the final step on the podium.

ResultsJCNats4wOverall

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December 7, 2015

Maifield takes new 2WD to victory at JConcepts INS

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Ryan Maifield has taken the overall 2WD Mod Buggy win at the JConcepts Indoor National Series Finals in Omaha Nebraska.  Winner of A1 from fourth on the grid, the TLR driver was gifted an early Christmas present in A2 when arch rival & Top Qualifier Ryan Cavalieri rolled his Associated onto its roof on lap 6 allowing Maifield to go to the front.  While Maifield would make a mistake in the double double while leading, Cavalieri would simultaneously get it wrong in the same section of track allowing Maifield to survive to win the leg and claim the overall win on his dirt race debut with the TLR22 3.0.  World Champion Spencer Rivkin would take a hard fought win in A3 but on the tie break it was Cavalieri who got second with the the 17-year-old having to settle for completing the podium at the Hobbyplex.

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‘Glad we showed she has some speed’, was how Maifield summed up his first win with his new car.  He continued ‘this is the first race (with the car) for me and we did a lot of development, put a lot of work into the car and once we found out what suspension set-up she liked it was super easy to drive’.  After winning A1, he said he again got a good start to get by Tebo’s No.3 starting Kyosho and being ‘patient’ with the fastest lap of the race thrown in for good measure he would ‘capitalise on a couple of mistakes’ by World Champion Spencer Rivkin and his great rival Cavalieri t go to the front.  Once there he said he ‘maintained’ his lead to finish  3-seconds up on Cavalieri.  With the HobbyTown USA Hobbyplex track the venue for the 2016 ROAR National Championship, Maifield said the race was a good preliminary test with both his buggies. Highlighting that next year is a 1:8 Offroad World Championship year, he said with a busy 1:8 program the mileage put on the cars this weekend were really important and very encouraging.

ResultsJCNats2wOverall

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