January 6, 2017

Chassis Focus – Alexander Hagberg

Chassis – Xray T4 ’17
Motor – ORCA RT 4.5T
ESC – ORCA VX3
Batteries – ORCA 6300mAh
Tires – LRP (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa
Bodyshell – Protoform LTC-R
Remarks – Xray factory driver Alexander Hagberg is running the ’17 version of the Slovakian made T4 here at the DHI Cup in Odense. His car features an aluminium chassis, an aluminium steering system and low friction belts. The Swede’s T4 is also equipped with Hiro Seiko titanium and aluminium screws and Avid bearings. The wing of choice on his LTC-R body is the hard version of the Protoform wing.

Image Gallery

January 6, 2017

Volker from team-mate Akiyama in DHI Cup seeding

Ronald Volker has topped seeding practice at the DHI Cup presented by LRP in Denmark. The reigning champion was fastest from his Yokomo team-mate Naoki Akiyama being the only driver to run 3-laps in 38-seconds. Fastest by almost 3/10ths from Akiyama, Volker would set his quickest time in the final practice with Akiyama having topped the times in the first of the two runs. Also improving his time in the second run, Alexander Hagberg would complete the Top 3 followed by his Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky. While 2016 podium finisher Viljami Kutvonen would struggle to only the 10th fastest time, Awesomatix team-mate Freddy Sudhoff would round out the Top 5 times ahead of the VBC of Yannic Prumper.

‘I’m satisfied with how the car went’ was Volker’s reaction after practice. Chasing an 8th DHI Cup title this weekend, which marks the 16th running of the event, he added ‘we kept changing the set-up each run and managed to improve, the grip went a lot higher than expected with the car lifting tyres on the long corners’. Overall happy with the car for the final practice he said ‘it is a little edgy at the beginning of the run so we’ll probably adapt the tyre prep for Q1’.

With the biggest change to be made to his BD8 over the practice rounds being a switch to a harder diff, up & coming Japanese star Akiyama said the car was ‘better’ after the change. Having made his DHI Cup debut last year, finishing 6th, the 17-year-old plans to leave the car unchanged for Q1 feeling his driving is where the greatest improvement will come from. Running a ‘very different set-up’, he said the track which was designed by Volker has a ‘good flow’ but for the 5-minute qualifiers he needs ‘to be more smooth’ and try to get through it with ‘no mistakes’.

‘A bit better, the car feels pretty balanced’ was how Hagberg summed up his ORCA powered T4. Racing in his 13th consecutive DHI Cup, all of which he has been accompanied by his father Bosse, he added, ‘we’ll see how pace is over minutes but it feels alright’. Describing the traction levels as ‘medium-high’ and describing the track as ‘fairly open compared to last year’, the Swede said for Q1 they will make some ‘minor tweaks’ to the set-up but overall the car ‘feels alright’.

With no Formula class at the DHI Cup to dominate, ETS Formula Champion Ratheisky said his P4 pace was ‘a lot better than expected’. Asked about his car the German said ‘I just drive it and have fun’. In terms of changes to the set-up he said the only thing he changed between the two rounds was to ‘just drink coffee with milk & sugar’. Describing the layout as ‘very good’ he is confident his 3-lap pace is a true reflection of his pace saying, the car can run that time consistently for all the run’.

‘So far so good’ was how Sudhoff summed up what is his first race outing since the ETS season opener in early December. Running Awesomatix’ A800, he explained the preproduction run of the first of their new A800X kits has just started and while they have an example of the car here they don’t have enough spare parts to race it. Running his car ‘nearly the same as at the ETS’, he said the big thing is that ‘the driving style is a little different due to the tyres’, the DHI Cup using a handout LRP tyre for touring car. Looking to qualifying he said, ‘I need to make it a little more stable in the long sweepers which is our weak point for now’ concluding ‘on this track consistency is important’.

Prumper described practice as having gone ‘so so’. The German added ‘the car is to edgy and is always on two wheels and I don’t know what to change anymore’. Running a different but unchanged VBC chassis to that which he used at the ETS season opener he said ‘there is a lot traction, its normally not that high here’. For the first of the qualifiers, which will bring Day 1 of the event to a close tonight, he said, “I will keep the same set-up and change tyre prep but don’t know what exactly’.

View the event image gallery here.

January 6, 2017

Chassis Focus – Max Machler

Chassis – Awesomatix A800 X
Motor – LRP X20 13.5 Stock Spec
ESC – LRP Flow
Batteries – LRP 7500mAh Stock Spec
Tires – LRP (handout)
Radio/Servo – Futaba
Bodyshell – Protoform Mazda Speed6
Remarks – Awesomatix team manager Max Machler is testing here at the DHI Cup their latest version of the A800 called “X”. The new car features a longer chassis for an increased wheelbase, with the servo position also brought forward compared to the previous version. The sway bar mounts now feature ball bearings, and the top deck has been revised in shape and its centre mount is also new. The bulkheads and the spur mount have also been slightly updated in order to offer a better belt tension adjustment, while the shape of the wishbones has been changed to obtain more clearance to the rims at full steering lock. The linear steering system is now standard in the kit, and the hubs have been updated in the search for better handling in high bite conditions.

Image Gallery

January 6, 2017

Track Focus – DHI Cup Odense

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 – 16 (Onroad), 5 (Offroad)

After recharging their own batteries and looking to get out of the food coma that resulted from the Christmas over indulgence, for drivers the DHI Cup in Denmark marks the dawn of the new season and for the last 17 years has been the traditional opening event of the international touring car race calendar. While the event may not have its once blue ribboned international driver line up, it still packs a punch in terms of the quality of its driver line-up and it quickly books out proving that it is still a favourite among racers. Based in Denmark’s third largest city of Odense, the famed international Touring Car event has also become an important European offroad event with both the offroad and onroad classes racing simultaneously on two back to back tracks that are separated by a huge drivers stand.

On the onroad track, the entry split into 90 Super Stock and 70 Modified entries, the first thing noticeable about the carpet is that it’s grey, the DHI Cup organisers not following the trend of running the now almost standard issue Black ETS carpet. Heading the large organisation team that put on the event and impressively deconstruct the entire set-up with military precision on Sunday night, Ulrich Rassmussen said the reason for continuing to run grey carpet is that they like that after some running on the brand new carpet a visual race line develops. As for the 2017 layout, defending Champion Ronald Volker was again tasked with coming up with the plans for the track design. While his 2016 design didn’t translate to how he had envisaged it, the Yokomo driver who is chasing his 8th DHI Cup win, said ‘they did a very good job’ with building the track this year. Describing his layout as ‘not too difficult or not too easy’, he added, ‘while it has a couple of hairpins it is quite flowing’. Pointing out the short angled wooden sections that are used to layout the curved sections of the track, Volker said they are a very good system as you can run up on them without flipping the car making them a much better option than the standard corner dots.

The Offroad track, the 160 entries split evenly between 2WD and 4WD Buggy, is made up using last year’s touring car track carpet. A total of 10 wooden jumps, mostly carpet covered, making up a lap of the track, the main feature is the wall section which having been in front of the drivers has now been moved to the front right side of the track. Defending 2WD champion Michal Orlowski said while the layout is fine, the grip is low adding ‘you can hear the wheels spinning as you drive around’.

Image Gallery