Philippine Masters hots up as Tessmann delivers Buggy TQ run

The showdown between World Champions David Ronnefalk and Ty Tessmann has finally started to heat up at the Philippine Masters as Tessmann registered his first TQ run of the event in buggy. Having reigned over the Truggy class, taking the first three qualifiers, the Xray driver couldn’t match that form in buggy with Ronnefalk stamping his authority on the opening Day’s action.  This morning however in Manila, after a good night sleep, the Canadian found his rhythm to put a TQ run on the board as Ronnefalk suffered a tough round and ended up with a P7.   With 2 of the five rounds of qualifying to count, Tessmann will now take the fight to his former team-mate over the final two qualifiers.  Behind Tessmann, Kyle McBride took second for the round, the Associated driver was 5-seconds adrift.  Atsushi Hara would complete the Top 3 with his best run so far ahead of Aaron Stringer, Richard Saxton and Adam Drake.

‘The track was harder to drive but my car was easy to drive so I was just cruising around really’, was how Tessmann summed up his first TQ run.  The Canadian, who posted P2 & 3 yesterday, continued, ‘we made a few changes from yesterday to make the steering less aggressive for the high bite and it as a lot better.  We also tested a silver compound tyre (Electro Shots)’.  Feeling that going in the direction of making the car easy to drive for the high bite conditions was the right way, looking to Q4 he said, ‘we’ll wait to see how the track is and if it loses grip but going by yesterday it’s not going to so we probably stay the same’.

McBride said, ‘my car was really good but I just came in too tight and traction rolled’.  The Australian was referring to his mistake he made coming off the main straight when his RC8B3.1 ended up on its roof losing him 3-seconds while he was laying down the TQ pace.  He continued, ‘I must get myself a clean run at some stage then I think we’ll be alright’.  For his next run, he plans to ‘lift the rear hub up which should help lose a little rear traction and also help on the bumps, apart from that I’ll just go again’.

‘Better, less mistakes’, was Hara’s reaction to his first Top 3 run.  Making a tyre change on his HB Racing D817, switching to Pro-Line’s Positron, he said, ‘I had tried them before but the conditions were what they were designed for. They improved my lap times and they are OK when there is no dust but I had some mistakes and got out on the dust.  I think it will be more dusty for the next two rounds so I will change to Fugitives but I don’t change the car’.

Stringer said, ‘the car was a bit difficult to drive.  I made changes to trying to pre-empt the high grip but my diff oil was too light’.  Planning to go up in the diff oils for Q4, the Mugen driver will also change to a harder spring & heavier oil in the rear shocks as well as switch from AKA’s Grid Iron to Impact tyre.  Describing the heat as ‘pretty intense’, the 26-year-old from Brisbane said the ‘freight train with everyone except Tessmann’ had ‘slowed us all up slightly’.

Explaining his P7, finishing over 16-seconds off Tessmann, Ronnefalk said, ‘I had a bad start and flipped on the second lap’.  Making a similar mistake at the same spot on the track as McBride, he said, ‘this dropped me down into the middle of the pack and while I had some good lap times Ty had a good clean run on his own’.  Setting a new fastest lap around the VC Offroad Track in the qualifier, the Swede said he ‘got a bit too excited at the big jump and landed out in the straight’.  Making changes to his Orion powered D817 ‘it was more hard to drive’ adding the traction was also a factor.  Unlike his rivals, the World Champion is not running Truggy and following this morning’s application of molasses he said ‘you can see how black the track is everywhere today, the car was more clean today after the run’.  Switching to the O2 compound in JConcepts Detox tyre he said, ‘I will stick with those, I like them’.

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3 from 3 as Tessmann posts another TQ run in Truggy

Ty Tessmann made it 3 out of three as he opened Day 2 of the Philippine Masters with a third TQ run in Truggy.  Setting the fastest lap for the first time, the Xray driver overcame a first lap error to again top the times ahead of Kyle McBride with Aaron Stringer completing the Top 3.  Overnight track work and a new coating of molasses made for much higher traction, with drivers reporting conditions as being a lot more edgy compared to yesterday’s opening two qualifiers.

Feeling a lot fresher today following a good night sleep, commenting on his run Tessmann said, ‘It was pretty good.  The track today has a lot more grip today because of the fresh molasses’.  He continued, ‘I had a roll over on my first lap but my truck was good and I had no more mistakes so I was able to come back from that’.  Making ‘a couple of changes’ to his OS Speed powered XT8, the Canadian said the resulting extra steering had made it ‘better’ to drive.  With Pro-Line team-mate Adam Drake reporting tyres choice as a bit of an issue Tessmann said, while they are ‘still trying to figure out what we can run’ he believes they ‘have probably got it figured out’ concluding, ‘there is less tyre wear today than yesterday’.  Posting a P6 for the round, Drake said with the ‘grip super high’ today the compound he is using is border line but they only have a limited number of the tyre in harder compound which they had set aside for the long 1-hour A-Main.

‘The track is a fair bit different after they redid the molasses’, said McBride after his run.  The Team Associated driver was on the TQ pace but got caught up in traffic as Atsushi Hara & Adam Drake tried to pass a slower car and he ended up landing on top of Hara sending him on to his roof and needing to be marshalled.  Costing the Aussie around 3-seconds, he said, ‘if I didn’t have that roll it would have been a TQ run’.  With the track quite edgy to drive, McBride will make small changes to his Novarossi powered RC8T to ‘make it flow better’.

Pleased with his run in the trickier conditions, Stringer believes the start time of today’s action has given the molasses less time to dry.  With a two hour difference to the Day 1 start time, when the track opened earlier for free practice, he said this is why the track is now ‘a little more aggressive’.  With no free practice today, he expects ‘higher grip in general today’ and with this in mind, the reigning Australian National Truggy Champion will make ‘little changes’ to his Mugen to ‘make it a bit easier to drive in the high grip’.

‘Still stupid mistakes’ was how Hara summed up Q3.  Parking his HB Racing truggy nose first into the tyre at the hairpin in front of the driver’s stand losing a couple of seconds, the Japanese legend continued ‘the track conditions are better now but there was a bit too much traction for my set-up so it was hard to drive’.  Describing the balance of the truck as ‘good’, he plans to ‘make a little adjustment’ for the penultimate qualifier to make it easier to drive, but he is also hoping he can finally put in a run without any ‘stupid driving’.  Behind Hara, returning international visitor Aaron Gomez completed the Top 5 ahead of fellow American and Mugen driver Drake.

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Ronnefalk holds overnight TQ in Philippines

David Ronnefalk holds the overnight TQ at the Philippine Masters, the HB Racing driver having a perfect day to top both buggy qualifiers.  Taking the first qualifier, the World Champion would run an almost identical time at his second attempt to top the times from arch rival & former team-mate Ty Tessmann.  Behind the World Champions, Aaron Stringer would continue his strong showing to complete the Top 3 ahead of Atsushi Hara and Adam Drake.

Commenting on his Q2 performance, in which he would set the fastest lap, Ronnefalk said, ‘I made the shock package change and it was better over the bumps but it felt like I was lacking traction due to the temperature drop’ and he was ‘being careful’ toward the end of the 5-minutes as a result. Also making an engine change to have a second one ready should be need it, the Swede said his next focus will be to work on diffs with him feeling he needs to down in the oils tomorrow to compensate for the traction even if the temperatures are high again like in Q1. Looking to tomorrow’s 3 rounds of qualifying, 2 of the 5 qualifiers counting, he concluded, ‘I feel I have all the lines covered so I’m pretty happy confident for tomorrow’.

Opting to run Pro-Line Positrons, Tessmann said they made his Xray a little difficult in the dust. While feeling the run had started out OK, he said ‘with 2-laps to go I crashed on the straight away. I grabbed a hole and shot right off the track’. He continued, ‘we are still working on everything but we are getting closer every run. Having only arrived in late last night the Canadian concluded, ‘The Jet lag is starting to kick in so once we get rested tonight we should be pretty good for tomorrow’.

Switching his Mugen to a shorter wheelbase and also fitting a lower centre of gravity head to his OS Speed engine, Stringer said his car was ‘really easy to drive’. Admitting he is ‘a little slower in lap speed’ to the two World Champions, he plans to try a different compound AKA tyre tomorrow but finishing off Day 1 with a top 3, matching his closing Truggy qualifier, he said ‘it has been a good first day’.

Behind Hara, Drake was content with his run, the American also starting to feel his arrival last night as Day 1 came to a close. The Mugen driver said, ‘its not like I have great pace but I’m going ok’. Losing time when he collected a crashed car after he was unsighted by a marshal, he added, ‘my car is good but I need to get some sleep for tomorrow’. Another driver to switch engines, the OS Speed sponsored fitted a fresher unit for Q2 ‘because of how hot & humid it is’ and be prepared for the finals. Behind Drake, Kyle McBride would complete the Top 6. While the pace was there, the Associated driver setting the 2nd fastest lap time on his last lap, two rough laps at the start of the 5-minutes lost him over around 13-seconds.

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