January 10, 2014

Neumann & Bayer top Offroad practice at DHI

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European Champions Joern Neumann and Martin Bayer have topped their respective title classes in practice at the DHI Cup in Denmark.  The third year the event has featured offroad competition, Neumann took his Durango to the fastest three consecutive laps in 2WD Buggy ahead of Schumacher’s Tom Cockerill and new Team C signing Oskar Levin.  In 4WD it was Xray’s Bayer who set the pace from Neumann who comes into the event looking to complete a DHI hat trick of wins in both classes.

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The master of indoor offroad racing on carpet, the reigning Euro Offroad Series Champion was pleased with his 4WD despite being only second fastest and not so happy with his 2WD despite topping the reseeding for the qualifiers.  Describing the 4WD times between him and Bayer as super close, he said his focus now is his 2WD Buggy which was only ‘OK’ suffering from an overall lack of traction.  Having run all four off his practice runs on the same set of handout Schumacher tyres the German ace said he hopes a fresh set of rubber for Q1 will bring some improvements.  With practice for both classes complete the remainder of today’s action will now switch to two rounds of 2WD qualifying.

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Bayer described his 4WD as ‘amazing’ adding the LRP powered XB4 was ‘super easy to drive’.  Having made no changes to the set-up since arriving in Odense, he said he couldn’t be happier with how the car is running.  Only 5th fastest in 2WD, he said without mistakes his XB4 2wd would be a lot faster and for qualifying he said all should be ok over 5-minutes once he cleans up his driving.

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Cockerill described his 2WD buggy as ‘really good’ despite traction being a lot lower than expected. Preparing his Cougar KF for high traction ahead of the event he said he had to do quite a bit of work to the car in the opening practices but he is now very happy with how it is working. Admitting to focusing on his 2WD when he should be working on his 4WD he said he feels he has a really good chance in 2WD where as in 4WD Neumann & Bayer are ‘untouchable’.  The Schumacher designer took his K1 Aero to the fourth fastest 4WD time.

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Third fastest in 2WD, Levin was delighted with the performance of his new Team C TM2 V2 which he said is ‘really stable but still fast’.  His first international race with Team C, the 19-year-old Swede said he is really confident with the new car.  Having only received his 4WD Buggy yesterday after it was shipped directly from his sponsor to the hotel here at the track Levin set the 6th fastest time.  He said unlike his 2WD it needs some work in terms of fine tuning the set-up.

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Heading the home Danish challenge in practice were Kim Nielsen who set the 3rd fastest time in 4WD and Torben Højfeldt who was 4th fastest in 2WD.  Making his race debut since signing for Team Associated, up & coming 15-year-old Danish driver Jesper Rasmussen set the 5th fastest time in 4WD.

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January 10, 2014

Track Focus – DHI Stadium Arena Fyn

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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 – 14

An event that has become the traditional international season opener for electric touring car, this year is the 14th running of the famous Danish event.  Created by Kim Moldt Bendiksen who named the event after his r/c business Dansk Hobby Import (DHI), the first event took place in 2001 when it was won by now AME/ORCA frontman Andreas Myrberg.  Starting out more as a club race in a small hall, the event quickly established itself with international teams and drivers with an impressive list of past winners that includes three World Champions – Atsushi Hara, Jilles Groskamp and Marc Rheinard.  Moving to its current location in 2008, the impressive Stadium Arena Fyn, the event has since doubled up with 1:10 Electric Offroad being added in 2012.  The running of the two different categories has resulted in the creation of a rather unique temporary track by the Odense R/C Minicar Club, drivers sharing the driver’s stand standing back to back as they run on their respective onroad or offroad tracks.

A club of around 55 members, they are normally found racing outdoors in the Summer just 5-minutes from the Arena while for their Winter club racing the have a hall they use for both onroad and offroad 20-minutes away.  Acquiring such an impressive and large venue, that would under normal circumstances be prohibitively costly to rent for an r/c event the club in fact gets free use of the venue.  With the city of Odense, the third largest in Denmark, providing funding for the building of the Arena part of the deal is that a select number of days are made available for local organisations such as the r/c club to hold events.

While initially the event was run by Kim, as the event grew each year so did the input of the Odense club who would eventually take over the full organisation of the event.  With the DHI title having become so established with drivers & teams the club have maintained the name. Headed by Ulrich Rasmussen, it takes a crew of around 25 volunteers to build the double track set-up.  The addition of offroad to the event came about after a slow down in touring car entries and 2014 is looking like a come back event with both events attracting a good international entry.

In terms of the track layouts defending offroad champion Joern Neumann described the layout of the medium sized track as nice but after early practice the Durango driver said the traction is loose particularly on the black coloured carpet sections compared with the traditional grey indoor racing carpet jumps.  The driver with the most DHI wins in Touring Car, having won the title first in 2007 and then three years in a row from 2010, Ronald Volker described the track as ‘fast and flowing’.  The Yokomo ace said the layout is ‘maybe a little too wide open’ but that should make for close racing.  In terms of traction he said based on previous experience of the event he expects it to be ‘high’.

A DHI Cup fact – 5 drivers have contested all 14 DHI Cups.  Two of those are two of Denmarks top former international drivers Steen Graversenn and former European Touring Car Champion Jonas Kaerup.  The other three drivers never to have missed a year of racing are Soren Jeppesen, Soren Boy Holst and Jens Otte Frederiksen.

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January 10, 2014

‘From Race Control’ – Day 1 at DHI Cup

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Red RC kicks off its 2014 event coverage this weekend at the DHI Cup in Odense, Denmark.  Now in its 14th year, today’s opening day of action will see two rounds of free practice, followed by two timed practices which will determine the seeding of the heats for the qualifying.  A dual discipline event with offroad having been added to the long running international touring car event in recent years, Day 1 of the event will end with a single round of qualifying for the touring car drivers and two round of qualifying for the 2WD offroad competitors.

December 16, 2013

A3 wins secure runner-up spots for Rivkin, Gibson & Evans

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With Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield having wrapped up the overall wins early in A2 at the JConcepts Indoor National Series Final the final leg of Mains was all about deciding who would finish runner-up in the 3 main classes at the Hobby Plex event.  First up was the 4WD Buggy encounter and with Top Qualifier Maifield sitting out the race it was the No.2 Associated of Nick Gibson who would lead away the field.  Starting directly in front of World Champion Steven Hartson the 17-year-old would lead from start to finish, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process, to take the win ahead of TLR’s Dustin Evans to claim second overall.  Second helped Evans to complete the podium in Omaha as he tied on points with team-mate JR Mitch who had to settle for fourth overall.  A though final leg, the Californian finishing the 5-minute encounter a distant 5th, together with a non finish in A1 left Hartson only 5th overall.

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The drive of the final round of mains came in 2WD Buggy with young up & coming Arizona talent Spencer Rivkin taking an easy win over his rivals to take the runners-up spot behind his mentor Maifield in the blue ribbon class of electric offroad racing.  Having wrapped up the overall win in 2WD Stock Buggy in A2, starting from 5th on the grid the 15-year-old worked his way to the front again enjoying a good battle with Top Qualifier Taylor Larsen, the two youngster showing up their more established rivals.  In the end Rivkin would take the leg from TLR’s Cody Hollis and Associated’s Chad Due.  Unfortunately for Larsen he would plummet down the order on his final lap to finish 7th leaving him lose out on a tie break with Hartson for the final podium position.

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In the last of the 2WD Short Course encounters, Evans’ No.2 22SCT led away the field but he would drop to third with a mistake allowing Matt Olson to the front.  The pair battled it out for a number of laps with the MIP driver looking like he might pull off the win until a late mistake allowed Evans through for the win with three laps remaining.  Olson, who would take the overall win in 4WD Short Course, would finish second allowing him to compete the podium behind Maifield and Evans.

Hollis

Elsewhere in Mod Truck Team Losi Racing’s Cody Hollis took his 22T to the overall win backing up his A2 win with a second victory in A3. Overall A1 winner Cole Tollard would finish second with Associated Team Manager Brent Theilke completing the podium.

2WD Buggy Overall Result
1.(3) Ryan Maifield – Team Associated – 200 pts
2.(5) Spencer Rivkin – Team Associated – 199
3.(2) Steven Hartson – Team Associated – 195
4.(1) Taylor Larsen – Team Losi Racing – 195
5.(7) Cody Hollis – Team Losi Racing – 193
6.(6) Kyle Skidmore – Team Associated – 192
7.(10)Allen Horne – Team Associated – 191
8.(8) Chad Due – Team Associated – 191
9.(4) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 189
10.(9)Alex Sturgeon – Team Losi Racing – 189

4WD Buggy Overall Result
1.(1) Ryan Maifield – Team Associated – 200 pts
2.(2) Nick Gibson – Team Associated – 198
3.(5) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 197
4.(4) JR Mitch – Team Losi Racing – 197
5.(3) Steven Hartson – Team Associated – 195
6.(6) Matt Gosch – Team Associated – 194
7.(10)Mitchel Gardner – Kyosho  – 192
8.(8) Chad Due – Team Associated – 190
9.(7) Aydin Horne – Team Associated – 188
10.(9)Carter Flotron – Caster – 185

2WD Short Course Overall Result
1.(1) Ryan Maifield – Team Associated – 200 pts
2.(2) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 199
3.(3) Matthew Olson – MIP – 197
4.(5) Steven Hartson – Team Associated – 195
5.(8) Cody Hollis – Team Losi Racing – 194
6.(6) Taylor Larsen – Team Losi Racing – 191
7.(7) Mack Vanderbeek – Team Associated – 190
8.(4) Alec Walters – Team Losi Racing – 190
9.(10)Mike Maldonado – Team Durango – 186
10.(9)David Fast – Team Associated – 186

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