Honigl goes fastest in Germany

Hupo Honigl topped the third round of practice at the 1:8 Offroad European Championships in Germany to set a new fastest time over 5-minutes at the Sand am Main track.  The Team C driver was just shy of completing a 10-lap run with a very similarly paced Yannic Aigoin posting the second fastest time with his prototype Team Associated buggy.  In terms of outright pace former Champion Darren Bloomfield set a new fastest lap taking his Bullitt powered Agama around the track in a time of 28.365 seconds.

Running a ‘box standard’ T8 V3, the only upgrades made being some optional light weight parts, Honigl put his improved performance down to a change of tyre for the third run.  Having used Pro-Line’s Blockade and yet to be released Fugitive tyre in the opening two practices he would switch to LockDowns, his ‘love them’ reaction summing up how pleased he was with their performance.  Already very happy with how the buggy is performing since putting it on the track this morning, having not made any set-up adjustments so far, the Austrian said the new tyres gave the buggy ‘really good steering’ and he couldn’t be any happier with how it feels to drive.

Heading the reduced challenge of Team Associated, team-mate Neil Cragg opting to skip this year’s championship due to the lack of a competitive car, Aigoin described his run as ‘not bad’.  Running a prototype chassis the same as he ran at the 2012 World Championships in Argentina, pointing out the buggy was not the new car they will use at the World Championship later this year in Italy, the former 2-time European champion said while he is waiting for the track to come in he has just used the three runs to test different Pro-Line tyres.  Confirming that he will travel to the USA in the next three weeks along with Cragg to join Ryan Cavalieri to test Associated’s new world championship contender, he said with the car he has this week he is confident of at least making the Main saying the car was good enough for that at the Worlds so it should be possible to repeat that here.  Having started out the season with a prototype designed by the since departed Josh Alton, he said that car was good for high speed tracks in terms of stablity were as the car he is running now is much better in the technical infield sections. While enjoying the track layout the Frenchman described it as a little small adding this meant traffic was a bit of an issue.

Making the switch to a harder compound of Beta’s Freeride tyre, Bloomfield said the change ‘worked out well’ as this stopped his A8 from ‘squirming around’ allowing him to get better and more consistent laps times from it.  The 2012 Champion said so far everything is ‘going good’ and running the car the same for the first time in the final practice was a good way to be ending Day 1 with focus now being to ‘work on consistency’.

Reigning Champion David Ronnefalk, who ran the 5-minutes of track time but was shown as having not completed the full run, said he changed from 3 to 2.5mm rear toe on his Kyosho which while giving him more corner speed made the MP9 ‘a bit to nervous to drive’.  Planning to revert back to the 3mm set-up as it is ‘more comfortable’, the Swede will also revert to AKA’s Super soft Catapult tyre saying over the soft compound they suit his driving style better.  In terms of set-up he will also make a ‘half step’ change in his oil weights for the day’s final practice.

Having set the early pace Elliott Boots said traffic was a bit of an issue for him in P3. The World Championship Top Qualifier switched to a harder compound of Pro-Line’s LockDown tyre and didn’t like as much the feeling they gave adding he would switch for the final practice back to the softer compound he used when he set the pace in P2 but with the run nine instead of the earlier 5-minute duration he would also use the extra track time to change to a set of Fugitive tyres during the run to get a direct back to back comparison.

Winner the last time the Championships were held at Sand am Main, World Champion Robert Batlle described his third practice as ‘better’ saying his Mugen powered MBX-7 was ‘starting to be easier to drive’. Runner-up at the Warm-up Race behind Ronnefalk back in May, for the final practice the Spaniard will try a wider rear wheel hub which he said should give the buggy better rotation and stability.

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Boots sets early pace at 1:8 Offroad Euros

Elliott Boots has set the early pace on the opening day of the 1:8 Offroad European Championships at Sand am Main in Germany.  The Kyosho driver set the fastest time both in terms of overall time and single fastest lap in the second of two opening 5-minute practice runs.  Behind the British driver it was 2013 podium finisher Martin Bayer who was second fastest around the unique hill side track, the Xray driver only 1 second off on the completion of 9-laps.

A damp start to proceedings at the 34th running of the championships, Boots said while happy to lay down a good early pace he is just playing the waiting game in terms of the track coming up to expected racing conditions after yesterday’s rain.  Starting the event with the same set-up he ran during the Warm-up Race back in May he was happy with how the his Reds Racing powered MP9 ran.  Describing the track surface as now being smoother than it was at the Warm-up, he said when the track does come in he expects he might have to adjust his set-up for that but for now he doesn’t want to go changing the buggy for fear of getting lost with the set-up.  Starting out the day on X4 compound Pro-Line LockDown with the sun breaking through the clouds for the second practice he switched to X3 which worked out well.

Bayer said both his runs went ‘pretty smooth’.  Finishing 5th when the championships were previously held at the Sand am Main track, the Czech driver racing for Team Losi Racing at the 2011 event, he said he was pleased with how his XB8 ran adding they have a really good base set-up for the buggy. Only making a tyre change between runs he like his rivals said he was ‘waiting to see what the track will bring’ before making any set-up changes adding he expects it to be totally different by the end of the day when drivers will complete untimed practice with an extended 9-minute run.

Team-mate Renaud Savoya, who saw his run of 3 back to back titles come to an end here in 2011, is very confident coming into this year’s event.  Despite having only had 3-weeks to get to grips with Xray’s new XB8 platform the ‘Shark’ was runner-up in France last year after a thrilling end to the race, a result he ‘was not expecting’ but having now had a competitive 12-months with the buggy  they now ‘have a very different way of thinking’ and he is positive about his chances.  With a number of prototype parts available to him, the French ace has opted so far to run only the higher shock towers as he had the opportunity to run these in pre-event testing and so far he is ‘pretty happy’ with how it has run.  Feeling the track was a little more slippery second time round, he has started out with Sweep’s Revolt and over the remaining two practices plans to back to back compare them against the Micro Contacts tyre.

Reigning Champion David Ronnefalk was pleased with his early practice pace despite having some issues with his position on the drivers stand.  Running the first practice in the 12 position (far left) on the drivers stand he said from there it was very hard to see the whoops section but moving to the 3 position for his next run he said his view of the entire track was ‘much better’.  Winner of the warm-up race,  the Kyosho driver said he ran an unchanged set-up for both runs only changing from Super Soft to Soft compound AKA Catapult tyres.  He said the change made the car easier to drive and the plan is to wait for the traction to come up before making any changes to the warm-up set-up he is running on his Orion powered MP9.

Reigning World Champion Robert Batlle, who having just joined Mugen won his second European title here three years ago, said the second run was ‘much better now, at least for me the grip came up’.  The Mugen driver said while he expects the track to change a lot over the day, declaring tomorrow will be the real start of the event, with his MBX7 as a ‘little over active’ in the second practice he will make a shock adjustment moving to a lower position on the towers. All in all the Spaniard said it was a solid start to the event but added he hoped the weather wouldn’t make for a week of guess work in terms of car set-up.

2012 Champion Darren Bloomfield showed good pace in the second of the practices taking his Agama to the 4th fastest time.  Having made a surprise departure from Team Losi Racing at the end of last season, the British said he is looking to slow down his buggy a little for the third practice.  Having gelled well with his new British based team, he said they have found a really good base set-up for the buggy which works no matter what the type of track it is and now they need to just make little tweaks.  Admitting that the class has changed a lot over recent years with tyres playing an increasingly more critical role in getting the most from a buggy, he said he will switch to a harder compound Beta Freeride tyre for the third practice which he said while it will make the buggy slower it should make it more consistent to drive and therefore faster of the full duration of the run.  Between the first two practice he said while they tried to keep pace with the track it actually passed them out when the sun came out as he went down a little in his shock oil and stuck with the same Super Soft compound tyre in order to get a direct comparison on the shock change.

In other news Team Durango are nervously awaiting news from their star Joern Neumann on whether he will able to compete in the event.  The German is in hospital with a rather serious lip infection and is trying to get doctors to release him so he can race.  His mechanic and Durango designer Gerd Strange is already set-up and ready to go racing but said based on the latest news from his driver it will be tomorrow before he knows if his drivers will be released.

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Track Focus – Steigerwald Ring (Sand am Main)

Track Name –Steigerwald Ring (Sand am Main)
Club – Motor Sport Club Sand
Country – Germany
Location –  Sand am Main (190km East of Frankfurt)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Surface – Dirt with block & concrete sections plus astro covered jumps

Better known in r/c circles as Sand am Main, Steigerwald Ring this week hosts its second 1:8 Offroad European Championships in just three years, reigning World Champion Robert Batlle having taken the win in 2011.  Featuring a very unique ‘portrait’ layout, the main straight running perpendicular to the drivers stand, the track is also different in that it is built into the face of a hill.  The reason for this is that the track is in fact built on the start/finish line of an old motocross track, the Motor Sport Club having started out as an offroad motorsport club in 1951 before making the transition to radio controlled offroad racing and building the current rc track in 1998.  Thanks to its former motorsport background the club boasts a membership of 150 of which around 60 are active rc racers.  Apart from hosting this year’s Euros, and the warm-up race back in May which was won by reigning Champion David Ronnefalk, the club also annually holds two German National Championship races.

In terms of the track, the surface is mainly dirt with three cobble blocked corners sections,  two concrete areas and astro turf covered jumps.  Compared with the 2011 layout the track has undergone three main changes the biggest of which is the removal of the table top which has been replaced by a double, double, single jump section.  Asked about the track changes Batlle said overall it feels similar to drive as before.  Describing the track as ‘quite small’, a quick lap set to be in the high 20 seconds, he said the biggest difficulty is in fact the weather.  A wet day in Sand Am Main yesterday, it was a damp start to the 34th running of the championship this morning with the Spaniard saying it is going to be hard to predict how traction will be for each of today’s four practice runs.

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