Cavalieri wins hectic opening A-main

Ryan Cavalieri has given his chances of doing the double at the Electric Buggy World Championships in Finland a major boost after winning what was a hectic first leg of the 4WD A-Main.  Crowned the World Champion of 2WD on Wednesday, the factory Associated driver benefited from a number of incidents the most cruel of which was the demise of Team Durango’s Joern Nuemann, who with almost 5-seconds of a lead had his buggy shut down with less a minute and 30 seconds left on the clock.

A relatively clean opening lap it was Top Qualifier Ryan Maifield who lead the way but on lap 5 the American got it wrong at the quad allowing the No.2 buggy of Neumann to go to the front with Jared Tebo on his tail.  Next time round however Tebo made a mistake coming to the double and it looked like the former European Champion was on his way to claiming the win.  Unfortunately it wasn’t to be.  Coming off the straight to complete his 10th lap an electrical failure caused the DEX410 to come to a halt in the middle of the track just before the step-up.

Promoting Cavalieri to the lead, the former two time World Champion was pressured by Tebo, who recovered from a clash with Lee Martin, until the Kyosho driver had a moment on the final lap.  Taking the win by half a second, Cavalieri said he made a poor start to the race but once he settled in and picked up his pace he was able to work his way up through the field.  Admitting he got lucky with Neumann dropping out the American said ‘sometimes thats just how things roll’.

Mounting a challenge on Tebo after his last lap moment, Neil Cragg couldn’t get passed and had to settle for third.  Although the fastest man on the track, setting the fastest lap of the race, Maifield was clearly annoyed with his opening performance as he finished a frustrated 4th.

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Maifield is 4WD Top Qualifier

Ryan Maifield is Top Qualifier for the 2011 IFMAR 4WD Electric Buggy World Championships in Vaasa, Finland.  The American claimed pole position for the main event with a third TQ run in the fifth & final round of qualifying this morning.  Team Associated’s second TQ honour of the week, Ryan Cavalieri having taken the top spot in 2WD, Maifield will start ahead of Joern Neumann who came close to snatching the No.1 spot for this evening’s triple A-Main.

With drivers best two of four rounds of qualifying to count following the cancellation of Q4 due to rain, only Maifield and Neumann had a chance at becoming the Top Qualifier in this morning’s final run.  Setting the pace and holding a 2 second advantage over Maifield, Neumann looked to be on target to take Q5 which due to his TQ run in Q3 being the fastest of the weekend would secure the German his and Team Durango their first Worlds TQ.  Catching fellow Durango driver Joseph Quagraine in the final minute of the run Neumann got out of shape on the step-up which in turn led to a bad run in to the quad resulting in the former European Champion putting his buggy on its roof.  Trying to push to make back the time he made a second mistake going into the double which dropped him to 3rd for the round behind Cavalieri.

Still searching for his first World title, this is Maifield’s second time to top qualify at the 4WD Worlds having started from the No.1 spot in Italy in 2005.  Asked what his game plan is for the race he said ‘things happen too fast out there to have a plan’ and he was just going to ‘take it one round at a time’.  Commenting on the track’s potential for those behind him to race for the win, Maifield said he is aiming to stay clean so as not to need to race anyone but if he has too he feels comfortable with that.  Having finished runner-up in Japan in 2007, the last time we had a legitimate World Championship, he is confident he has the equipment to get the job done this time round.

Starting from second, Neumann said ‘maybe it’s better than starting first’. Admitting passing on this track layout will be hard he said he has the package to win and now it’s just a matter of waiting and seeing what the finals throw up. In the 2WD final the former European Champion showed great race craft as he came from 9th on the grid to finish 3rd in the second leg.

Running his best qualifier in Q5, newly crowned 2WD Champion Cavalieri said he was glad to be back up there.  A two time former 4WD Champion the American ace said the switch from 2WD to 4WD had been a problem but he feels he cracked that this morning and now has the pace to race for a fourth IFMAR World title.  Believing there are good opportunities from 3rd on the grid he said he has three chances of gettinG it done this afternoon.

2007 Champion Jared Tebo starts fourth and in 2WD showed it possible to win from there taking the opening leg of that A-Main.  The Kyosho team leader feels the 2WD track layout was better for racing but happy with his Lazer ZX5 FS2 said ‘we will wait and see how it goes’.  Running a TQ round in the cancelled Q4, the US Pro feels the set-up on the opening lap is going to be ‘sketchy’.

The Top Qualifier in 2WD Neil Cragg knows only too well how it can all go wrong in the finals. Starting from fifth on the grid, the factory Associated driver will be hoping for better luck this afternoon.

After many years of trying to make the final at the Buggy World Championships Austria’s Hupo Honigl was delighted to secure 6th on the grid making it two Team Durangos in the final.  Starting behind the 2007 European Champion will be the reigning European Champion Lee Martin.  The Tamiya driver was the winner of the Warm-up race but will have is work cut out for today if he is to even make the podium.  The grid for the 14th running of these World Championships is completed by Kyosho’s Kohta Akimoto, young American talent Dakotah Phend of the TLR team and Team Yokomo’s Naoto Matsukura. Just missing out on the final due to the fact that Naoto Matsukura scored the exact same finishing time as Neil Cragg in the final round and therefore shared the same 6 points, Finnish driver Ari Heinonen will start the B-final from pole position.

Full results can be found here.

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Rain cancels Q4, Tebo denied TQ run

The fourth round of qualifying for the 4WD Electric Buggy World Championships has been cancelled due to the arrival of torrential rain over Vaasa.  Looking to protect the clay track from the impending rain the decision was called to stop racing half way through the round so it could be covered. It was to be a wise call as minutes later the rain arrived in force.  Although the top drivers had completed their Q4 run, the rotation of the running order meant the lower groups didn’t get to run meaning the entire round is scrapped.

The decision means that qualifying will now be based on a drivers best two rounds of the four, the last of which is scheduled to run in the morning after a single round of practice. Having TQ’d the opening two qualifiers Team Associated looks set to claim their second Worlds TQ honour of the week with Team Durango’s Joern Neumann the only driver who can deny Ryan Maifield from starting the triple A-Main from pole position.

The arrival of the rain, which has caused flooding across Scandinavia, was a big blow for Team Kyosho.  With Jared Tebo having run 13 laps in 5:21.191 they were on target to take a 1-2 in Q4 with Japanese team-mate Shin Adachi second fastest just over a second behind the 2007 World’s Top Qualifier and winner.

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Neumann fastest in Q3

Team Durango’s Joern Neumann has TQ’d the third round of qualifying at the World Championships in Finland denying Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield from becoming an early Top Qualifier of the event.  The German ran a new fastest time of 13 lap in 5:11.213 to take the round from Q1 & 2 winner Maifield by 4.3 seconds with Jared Tebo third a further 4.3 seconds behind his fellow American.

A finalist at the Worlds in Japan in 2007, Neumann said he made no mistakes describing it as the ‘perfect’ run.  Starting the qualifying off with non-start due to a radio binding problem, the former European Champion has made no changes to the set-up on his Speed Passion powered DEX410 and after running a TQ round he said he is really comfortable with the buggy.

Expecting Neumann to be a contender having seen him in action at the Warm-up race back in May, Maifield said himself and the German were really evenly matched in Q3 but a mistake on lap 10 ended his chances of locking up overall TQ honours. One of the biggest names in offroad despite not yet having a World title to his credit, Maifield said he is confident he can get the job done this evening in the penultimate qualifier.  Feeling the rear diff was slipping a little in the run he will rebuild it for his final run of the day.

Fourth fastest just a second off Tebo’s time, Neil Cragg said he is driving his ‘balls off’ but feels he is not fast enough.  The Top Qualifier in 2WD, the British driver said his B44.1 is dialled but 2WD was always going to be his stronger class here this week in Vaasa.  After a non finish in Q1, Cragg is conscious of the fact he still needs another good run to get himself inside the all important Top 10 of the qualification ranking.

Setting the fifth fastest time Hupo Honigl is looking good to make his first ever Buggy World Championship A-Main.  The former European Champion has only made very slight changes to his LRP powered version of the DEX410 saying his team-mate Neumann had just shown how good the buggy is.  With three Top 10 finishes in the books, the Austrian said he can now afford to drive with a little more aggression in the final two qualifiers.  Team-mate Billy Fischer managed his first Top 10 time of the week as he set the 10th fastest time for Q3.  The American said the pace came mainly from the driver but it was ‘too bad its come 3/4 the way through the week’.

Completing the Top 6 Britian’s Lee Martin said he is ‘driving it as fast as it will go’.  The Tamiya driver said the TRF511 is too easy to drive and they cant get it aggressive enough for the track. Having changed rollbars he is still struggling with direction change through the fast sections, something he says is key to being fast around the track here.

Elsewhere Kohta Akimoto ran the seventh fastest time at the controls of his Kyosho ahead of fellow Japanese racer Naoto Matsukura who managed his first Top 10 time.  Two poor opening laps for newly crowned 2WD World Champion Ryan Cavalieri saw him record his slowest run of the day ending up 9th for Q3.  After strong performances in Q1 & 2 Team Losi Racing had a tough third round.  Third fastest in Q2, Dakotah Phend struggled with a loose slipper to finish best placed TLR driver in 14th, one position ahead of Dustin Evans.

Full results can be found here.

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