January 9, 2015

Ronnefalk TQ’s opening two qualifiers at DHI Cup

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David Ronnefalk got his 2015 season off to the best start possible as he topped the opening two rounds of 2WD Buggy qualifying at the DHI Cup in Denmark.  The newly signed HB driver, who is running a Team C chassis as his new chassis sponsor don’t yet have a 2WD car, headed a 1-2 for the TM2 with, currently out of chassis sponsor contract, Joern Neumann using the same car to finish second in both qualifiers.  Neumann’s former Durango team-mate Michal Orlowski who was quickly signed up by Schumacher also made a promising start to his new contract as he completed the Top 3 in each of the qualifiers.

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Improving his opening TQ pace by an impressive 5-seconds, Ronnefalk said most of that was down to his set of handout Schumacher tyres being better on their second run.  Having made no changes to his chassis set-up since hitting the track at the Odense Conference Centre for the first practice in the morning, the Swede said with the tyres very aggressive on the carpet and lacking traction on the wood in Q1 this led to two mistakes. With the tyres providing better grip on the wood in the second of the four scheduled qualifiers he said the overall feeling was much better and other than once having to roll the back double once due to a bad line on the approach, he said he was very happy with his performance.  Planning to continue with the same set of tyres for Q3, he said the plan for now is then to use the last qualifier to break in a second set of tyres for the finals.

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Stiffening up the diff in his buggy for the opening qualifier, reigning European Champion Neumann said this improved the car’s earlier lack of speed out of the corner a lot.  Getting a modified top deck from the Team C ‘guys’ for Q2 he said while it didn’t feel any different to drive this further increased the buggy’s overall speed.  Returning the part after the run he will now make the same modification to his own deck by cutting it down the centre for more flex.  Much happier with the car now he feels he still needs to get more used to the car but he is much more confident now going into Day 2 of the event.

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‘Too many mistakes’ was Orlowski’s reaction to his two qualifiers.  Very complimentary of his new Cougar KF chassis, which he has not changed since free practice, the highly rated 13-year-old said the short landing on the back straight of the track is causing him particular difficulty adding that the nature of the track meant the landings where crucial with the landing having to be inch perfect to go fast and it was easy to over jump and miss the critical point on the short down ramp of the jumps.

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While Team Associated driver Niclass Mansson would post the fourth fastest time in Q1, last year’s Top Qualifier Oskar Levin would take the spot in the second qualifier.  Having had a ‘run to first’ in the first qualifier with two early mistakes leaving him 16th, the Team C driver took a safer approach to Q2.  After a better start, the Swede said ‘the pace got better and better’ and for tomorrow he hopes to build on the performance.  For Xray’s Martin Bayer qualifying netted him a pair of fifth fastest times.

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January 9, 2015

No change as Bayer & Ronnefalk top practice

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The final round of offroad practice at the DHI Cup saw no change at the top of the respective classes as Martin Bayer took top seeding for 4WD qualifying and David Ronnefalk secured the number 1 spot in 2WD.  While 4WD saw only 2 improvements from the Top 6 drivers 2WD saw the Top 7 drivers improve their pace over 3-consecutive laps with new Schumacher signing Michal Orlowski improving from 6th to second as he found almost 2-seconds in time.

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Bayer said he tested a change to his Xray XB4 in the final practice but with the traction improving from the first practice it didn’t work so well.  Almost one second off his earlier pace the former European Champion said he will go back with the set-up change for the opening qualifier which, unlike the other classes that end Day 1 with Q1, will start qualifying in Odense in the morning. In 2WD Bayer improved to third saying he managed to get a little more speed out of his XB4-2WD but added he still needs more.

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Improving to second fastest in 4WD, the class being his main focus for this his HB debut weekend, Ronnefalk said lengthening the camber links on his D413 was a step forward.  While it made the buggy feel more lazy it was a lot easier to drive having had ‘way too much side bite’ in the earlier practices. Describing the changes as putting him in the right direction for the opening qualifier, the reigning back to back 1:8 Offroad European Champion said he may try some more shock changes for the morning.  Topping 2WD with a Team C chassis, he said having tested the car for a month at home he knew it would be good and he doesn’t expect he will be making any changes again emphasising his focus is 4WD and getting to grips with that.

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Winner of all previous DHI Cup’s in 4WD, Joern Neumann ended practice third fastest.  The German said his 4WD car, the prototype Durango he used to TQ the 2013 World Championships, is good and with the top 3 ‘all (having) the same speed’ the German feels he is good for qualifying.  In 2WD he said power out of the corner is still a problem and he hopes heavier diff oil for Q1 will improve things.

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Only running in 2WD as he is also running in Touring Car, Polish ace Michal Orlowki was very happy with his final practice.  The 13-year-old said he hasn’t made any changes to his new Schumacher and the improvements are coming from better driving.  For Q1 he said he hoped he would ‘not have so much mistakes’ as the car is really good.

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January 9, 2015

Bayer & Ronnefalk top 1st buggy practice at DHI Cup

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Team Xray’s Martin Bayer and new HB signing David Ronnefalk set the buggy pace in the first timed practice at the DHI Cup in Denmark. The fourth year offroad has run at the famous Touring Car event, Bayer topped 4WD from defending champion Joern Neumann while Ronnefalk also topped the German in 2WD.

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‘It is just practice but its going pretty good’ was how Bayer summed up his early form.  The Czech driver, who was runner-up last year, said this year’s track was much better in terms of its layout and the change of carpet also made for a lot better traction and he liked how it felt to drive.  In terms of working on his car he said he has just been making small shock adjustments and working on his tyres pins between runs.  Fourth fastest in 2WD, he said while the car feels ok he is ‘missing some speed’ but he hopes to rectify this with some tuning of his shocks and slipper.

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Running without a chassis sponsor following Durango’s decision to stop its factory race team at the end of the 2014 season, Neumann said his 4WD was pretty good.  Having started the day with a standard DEX410 for the first timed practice he switched to his World Championship TQ prototype car which he said lands better and for now he will continue with that. Running a Team C chassis in 2WD, he described the car as ‘so so’.  While second fastest, he said out of the corner it had no power with it felt like one tyre is spinning.  For the final practice he will try running a stiffer suspension and also move the shocks more to the outside.

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Also running a Team C chassis in 2WD as HB dont have a buggy yet, Ronnefalk said the TM2 ‘is so easy to drive and it suits his aggressive style’.  He said while the quality of the parts are a little weak he said with a 2WD HB buggy in mind he has learned a few things already from running it.  Describing the track layout as ‘super fun to drive’, he said while he ‘drove bad’ in the first timed practice his new D413 is ‘super fast’ although for the last practice they will make some changes to try and make it a little more easy to drive.

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January 9, 2015

Track Focus – DHI Cup Odense

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

2015 marks the 15th running of the DHI Cup and the famous Danish event, which has traditionally kicked off the new season for touring car’s top drivers, is celebrating the important milestone with a big resurgence in interest with a capacity 300 entries.  On opening up registration for the Odense based event, it was quickly booked out with the organisers having for the first time to deal the issue of having a waiting list such is the renewed interest.  This being the fourth year the event has also catered for offroad racers, the two classes running simultaneously on separate tracks either side of the large double sided driver stand, the biggest change for 2015 is the hall.  Having being held in the impressive Arena Fyn since 2008, a Handball test match between Denmark and Slovenia in preparation of the upcoming World Championships in Qatar has meant the organisers have been moved to another hall within the Odense Conference centre.

While not as grand a hall as the stadium, in terms of overall floor space the host club Odense R/C Minirace still have the same room to work within.  While regulars of the race had their doubts about being moved from the stadium, the general feeling on arrival in the new location is that more enclosed hall without grandstands actually creates a better overall atmosphere in the pits.  While the hall has a much lower roof, the lighting over the track has been enhanced thanks to the Conference centre installing 80 spot lights in addition to the existing lights just for the event.

In terms of the tracks, the offroad track having been made up of black and grey carpet last year is now grey having been made using last year’s touring car track carpet.  The touring car track features new carpet although some drivers are disappointed that the growing in popularity black ETS carpet was not used.  In terms of the layout, last year’s touring car winner Ronald Volker said while traction was still low on the new carpet making it hard to get a true feel for the layout he said ‘overall it should be good’. The Yokomo driver, who is chasing a sixth DHI Cup title this weekend, added that the layout on the right side of the track could doesnt make the best use of the space and they could have made it more technical helping to increase the lap time too, 12.5 seconds being the early pace for a lap time.

Three time back to back 4WD Buggy Champion, Joern Neumann described the offroad track layout as being an improvement on last year with the carpet change also improving traction levels.  Not a fan of the speed bumps the German, who is running without a chassis sponsor after Durango opted to discontinue its factory team at the end of 2014, said the long jump on the back straight was the tracks most challenging feature as the landing into the following 180 corner was short.  In free practice a good 4WD lap time is a late 18-seconds while 2WD is a low 19-seconds.

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November 12, 2014

Hagberg TQs opening qualifier in Thailand

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Alexander Hagberg took a somewhat surprise TQ run in the opening qualifier of the 200mm World Championships in Bangkok, Thailand, the round seeing all of the Top 10 from practice having difficult runs.  Running in the second fastest heat having been 11th in practice, the Xray driver set the fastest 5-minute time by just under a second from the Serpents of Dominic Greiner and Tadahiko Sahashi, the Top 6 for Q1 all running in the same group.  An incident filled top heat would go to Mark Green but suffering a body tuck after contact with Teemu Leino, the Serpent driver’s time would only be good enough for 11th.  The top seed for qualifying having topped timed practice, Leino would end up 13th.  Defending Champion Meen Vejrak would roll his KM resulting in tyre damage that left him struggle to 36th.

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‘Surprisingly good’ was how Hagberg summed up his run.  Changing the set-up on his Orcan powered NT1, giving the car a softer front end, the Swede said this worked out well.  While struggling for pace over the 3-consecutive lap format used to determine the seeding for the heats, he said he was confident that over 5-minutes his pace would be better but ‘not as good’ as it turned out.

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Reverting back to the set-up he arrived in Thailand with, which he said was nearly impossible to drive out the pitlane without traction rolling, Greiner said with the track conditions now completely different it actually worked pretty good.  With his mechanic & the 748’s designer Michael Salven describing the change as a ‘wild guess’ he said they came ‘close’ and with some adjustments they will go into Q2 with a lot more confidence.  Describing the set-up as ‘overall OK’, Greiner said they need to try to make it a little safer with the car having ‘maybe too much steering’ but compared with where they where at yesterday he is a lot happier.

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While netting a Top 3 run, having ended up 14th in practice, reigning 1:8 World Champion Tadahiko Sahashi wasn’t overly pleased with the performance of his 748.  The Japanese ace said while the run was clean he really struggled with understeer and he has no choice but to change his set-up for Q2.  Having been the faster of the two brothers throughout practice, Yuya would have a terrible first round, a number of rolls eventually resulting in him finishing one position in front of Vejrak with the rear wing hanging off the back of his 748.

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HB’s Andy Moore would take his Maxima powered R10 to the fourth fastest time.  The former electric touring car World Champion said he ‘wasn’t really fast enough’ but he ‘cruised around with no mistakes’ and he got rewarded.  Describing the car as ‘too easy to drive’ he said this turned out to be ‘not a bad thing’ as others with faster cars ended up crashing.  Looking to ‘free up (his) car a bit’ he will make a change to reduce the high level of rear grip the car has.

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Setting the fastest lap of the opening qualifier, team-mate Leino said his Novarossi powered R10 ‘was still good’ but it was ‘just a shit run’.  The Finn had two incidents. Suffering a traction rolling and a crash he said the latter was simply driver error.  For Q2, the 2012 Top Qualifier plans to run his car unchanged.

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Owner of this year’s World Championship host track Huge RC Circuit, Surikarn Chaidajsuriya took his Mugen to fifth despite describing his MTX-6 as being unbalanced.  One of three former electric touring car World Champions contesting the event, he said in right turns the car was good but it struggled on turning left.  Hugely affecting his consistency he suspects the problem could be with unmatched shock lengths.

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Fastest Shepherd in Q1, former 1:8 World Championship finalist Simon Kurzbuch described his drive to the sixth fastest time as a ‘good safe run’.  The recently crowned Euro Nitro Series 1:8 Champion, who is somewhat a 1:10 novice, said while it was a good start to get decent points on the board, the overall set-up of both his Velox V10 and his clutch ‘still needs work’.

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17-year-old Takumi Matsuda, who is running in Heat 9 of 11, would take his Xray to the seventh fastest time.  Changing engine for the first qualifier he said the new Picco had much better power than that of the one he ran in timed practice.  Pleased to have more power, the Japanese driver said understeer was his problem today and for Q2 he will make a front camber change to his NT1.

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A former 200mm World Champion Top Qualifier, Team Shepherd’s Jilles Groskamp would open qualifying with the 8th fastest time.  The Dutch racer, who is now based in Bangkok, said he completely changed the set-up on his Velox V10 and it ‘wasn’t so good’.  Starting off fast and running ahead of Hagberg early on, he said he had to back off as the car started to lift the back wheel off the ground.  Flipping with 3-laps to go, he said this lost him a potential Top 3 run but still with 4 of 6 rounds to count and a lot of drivers having problems he was happy to take 8th.  With a lot of drivers having run time issues he said that was one area he didn’t have to worry about with his Maxima engine and he hoped to improve his car by changing shocks for Q2.

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Green said everything was the same as yesterday with his Novarossi powered 748 but the run just didn’t work out.  Starting the qualifier 4th, the British driver would find himself stuck in traffic and then have a recovering Leino on his bumper despite leading on the timing screen.  With a car in front of Green and Leino behind, the HB driver would end up hitting the back of the Serpent driver causing the body to tuck and stopping to get it fixed the lap would see him lose almost 5-seconds.

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Although he ran out of fuel with 2-laps to go, Capricorn’s Dario Balestri was very positive about how his car ran. On a potential TQ pace before his engine cut, he described his LAB C03 as ‘perfect’.  While his XRD engine was set a little rich he said even with the correct carburation the Italian said this wouldn’t make up two laps.  Initially planning to change engine and fit it with a smaller venturi and further inspection of the car it was discovered the fuel tank was leaking so a new one should rectify the problem.

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Vejrak said his HK-1 was really good as was his engine, thanks to better gearing, but it was all let down by ‘my mistake’.  Clipping the curbing in the final minute of the qualifier, the Thai driver would roll losing over 2-seconds.  However with the incident chunking both rear tyres he would have to struggle for three more laps, all in the 15 seconds compared to his best of 14.4, for a round that he hopes will be one of his two throw outs.

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October 7, 2014

3 out 3 for Matsukura in Florida

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At a somewhat subdued 1:12 World Championship, only 44 drivers contesting the longest running electric category World Championships, Naoto Matsukura made it three out three in qualifying at the Florida event. Round 3 of qualifying saw the Yokomo driver again top the times as he became the first & only driver to run 53-laps over 8-minutes to put himself on provisional pole for his quest for a fourth consecutive title. With 3 from 6 rounds to count the only way the Japanese driver can now be denied becoming Top Qualifier is for one driver to top all three remaining qualifiers, the last of which takes place tomorrow morning. Behind Matsukura the continually improving Marc Rheinard, who was 4th in Q1 and 3rd in Q2, set the second fastest time with Hideo Kitazawa completing the Top 3.

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Running a larger diameter tyre for the third qualifier, Matsukura said the change improved his R12 C3.1, a fact that was clearly highlighted by him upping the pace to 53 laps having been slightly slower than his first round pace in Q2. Describing the run as ‘95% correct’ he said he had a few small mistakes but nothing too major. Gaining his confidence, having been left somewhat stunned by Alexander Hagberg’s pace in yesterday’s practice, for Q4 he will again run his Yokomo tyres to the same larger diameter adding with that change in mind they will make some very small tweaks to the car.

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‘OK’ was how Rheinard summed up his qualifier. A former 1:12 Worlds podium finisher, the German said a change to a brand new battery left him lacking ‘punch’ towards the end of the run. In terms of his CRC he said while it had a little understeer it was easy to drive and he was happy to continue to run it as is. While his battery issue was most likely due to it only having one charge on it he will play safe and revert to the pack he used in the earlier qualifiers.

Hideo Kitazawa

While he had a tough Q2 in terms of crashes ending up only 8th fastest, Kitazawa said his Morotech was ‘now going a lot better’ after he extended the timing of his tyre sauce. Able to run a much cleaner Q3 he plans to further clean up his driving in Q4 adding with the car working well he will leave it as is.

Alexandre Laurent

Another driver benefiting from improved driving was 3-time French National Champion Alexandre Laurent. 15th and 11th in the opening two qualifiers, the Blackart driver took his XB22 conversion CRC to the fourth fastest time. Having improved the balance of the car by changing tyre size and adjustments to the front end he said while the car is still pushing a little it is very consistent over the 8-minutes. For Q4 he will focus attentions on further improving his driving style.

Masatsugu Ido

3rd fastest in Q1, Masatsugu Ido would take his Yokomo to the 5th fastest time. Describing his R12 C3.2 as running ‘really good’, the category newcomer said he lost time with a ‘couple of mistakes’ at the beginning of the run. With ‘no need to change the car’ he will try to clean up his driving for Q4.

Keven Hebert

The categories most winning manufacturer, Team Associated managed a Top 6 run thanks to US National Champion Keven Hebert. The Canadian said ultimately he drove better but added that in terms of set-up Q3 also saw them get headed in the right direction. While getting closer to what they need for the low grip track he said it is still not quite right with a general lack of steering the main issue but he is positive they have started to make progress in that area.

Mobers

Having changed tyre for Q2, something that didn’t work out leaving him with no rear traction, Markus Mobers reverted to his Q1 tyre choice to set the 7th fastest time. The On-Point creator, said while the car was good for 5-minutes he had a big drop off in traction for the final 3-minutes. Planning to stick with the same Mobgum tyre for Q4 he will run them with a larger diameter which he hopes will lead to a more consistent car from start to finish.

Lia

Setting the 9th fastest time behind CRC driver Kazuki Endo, Donny Lia would set the fastest lap of the round. Running in the top heat, the American is still having too many mistakes one of which resulted in Xray’s Olly Jefferies, who for a time was running the TQ pace, ending upside down. Needing to be marshalled Jefferies would complete the Top 10 for Q3.

Andy Moore

Elsewhere, 2012 runner-up Andy Moore would retire while running ahead of Laurent after stripping a spur gear while an electric issue with also see Touring Car World Champion Jilles Groskamp DNF. Alexander Hagberg again couldn’t translate his practice pace in a qualifying run with the Swede struggling with a lack of traction something he is putting down to the track having changed.

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