Anderson is 1:12 Worlds Top Qualifier

After a thrilling final qualifier at the IFMAR 1:12 World Championship in Florida, Awesomatix’ Kemp Anderson is the overall Top Qualifier for the 21st running of the sport’s longest running electric category.  Having kicked off Day 2 of qualifying at Beachline Raceway with a TQ run in Round 4, Anderson would go into the sixth round vying for pole position against racing heavy weights Marc Rheinard and Michal Orlowski.  Top Qualifier at the last World Championship, Orlowski’s quest to repeat that result came to a spectacular end after just one lap as he wheelied his Schumacher, the impact breaking a body hanger.  Now it was just Anderson and defending World Champion Rheinard in the shoot out.  With two TQ runs to his credit, a third TQ run would give Rheinard the top spot.  Anderson on the other hand needed to TQ in a new fastest time.  A small mistake by Rheinard meant the German had to push hard to get back on terms with the rapid Anderson but that would lead to a much bigger crash that ended his challenge.  While rivals were no longer a worry, Anderson knew he was now against the clock needing a new fastest TQ time.  While the pressure was enough for his father and newly elected IFMAR President Eric Anderson to stay in the pits, the rest of the those attending the event lined up around the track.  Despite the intensity of the biggest moment of his racing career, Anderson delivered with a time 2.5-seconds quicker than the previous best set by Orlowski securing a very popular home TQ for the host nation.  With all three drivers having two TQ runs each, overall it will be Orlowski who starts second with Rheinard lining up P3 ahead of Alexander Hagberg with Donny Lia competing the top half of the grid.

Taking his TQ achievement in his stride, his father less so and understandably overcome with emotions, Anderson said, ‘I got lucky Orlowski crashed which meant I didn’t have that pressure.  Then when Marc had his mistake I knew it was up to me to get it done’.  Having struggled with a big drop off in rear end grip in the previous qualifier, the 21-year-old said, ‘after the last one we made a change and it was awesome.  I couldn’t have asked for any better’.  Looking to tomorrow’s triple finals, the reigning ROAR National Champion said, ‘1:12 Mod is always tricky at the start.  I am already happy with my week so we’ll see how it goes’.

‘I just made a wheelie, I don’t know how but I must have touched the kerb.  I was trying to make a clean first lap’, was Orlowski’s summary of his early exit.  Speaking from experience having started from pole in 2020 only to lose out on the title to Rheinard, he continued, ‘Starting second I am still happy because in 1:12 it very hard to lead.  Kemp is fast but so is Marc.  I think Marc and me are in the best positions.  All the pressure is on Kemp’.

Having held the overnight TQ taking 2 of the 3 qualifiers yesterday, Rheinard summed up today as a ‘useless day’.  Crashing out of Q4, having traffic issues in Q5 and then crashing out of the final round, he said, ‘the TQ is better for sure but I think 3rd is a good position.  It’s a different game for the finals.  Everyone is going to do small mistakes, they’re long finals’.  On his crash in the final shootout he said, ‘It was a stupid mistake at a corner it shouldn’t happen.  I was just trying to beat Kemp but after a little moment I then had to push to try come back and crashed, it happens’.

While he got a second for the final round, Hagberg said, ‘It was only because everyone else crashed’.  The 2018 World Champion and reigning 8-time European Champion explained, ‘We made some changes to the car and it was a little worse.  We are trying to figure out why because the changes didn’t do what we expected them to do’.  Asked about the finals, the Swede replied, ‘I finished all the runs today with no crashes.  I’m sure there will be a lot commotion in the finals so I hope to be in a position to pick up the pieces’.

In the 1:12 Spec class, Max Machler made it an Awesomatix double TQ.  Like Modified, the TQ battle came down to the final round with Machler facing up against his team-mate and 1:12 stalwart Mark Stiles.  With Machler opening the day by clocking up his 3rd TQ run, the British driver registered his second TQ in the penultimate round setting the stage for a potential winner takes all battle.  A early mistake put Machler out of contention for the round but now the pressure was on for Stiles to deliver a new fastest time.  While he got close just missing out on matching Machler’s 39-lap run from Q4, Stiles lost out on the tie-breaker and starts 2nd.  Behind the Europeans, Xray driver Robbie Dodge is the top American starting P3 with Raymond Darroch and Eric Anderson making up the front half of the grid that will decide the 2nd ever IFMAR 1:12 Spec World Champion.

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Orlowski takes penultimate qualifier at 1:12 Worlds

The overall Top Qualifier at the 21st running of the IFMAR 1:12 World Championship is to be decided in the final round after Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski took the penultimate round.  After crashing out of Q4 this morning, the 2020 Top Qualifier redeemed himself by putting down the fastest run of the event finishing ahead of Q4 winner Kemp Anderson by 1.6 second.  A starting order error, drivers called to start based on the results of Q4 instead of the overall qualification ranking, would see Anderson lead away the heat and the American, laying down the fastest lap, looked for a time that he might repeat his previous effort.  It wasn’t to happen however as entering into the final quarter of the run his pace faded considerably.  Having started from the back after his DNF, Orlowski took advantage to move to the top of the timing screen to take a TQ run that puts him in contention for pole position for tomorrow’s title deciding finals.  The only driver who could have wrapped up the overall TQ early, defending Champion Marc Rheinard could claim he fell foul of the starting order error as he had contact with Hayato Ishioka and needed to be marshalled having just passed the Japanese driver.  In the end he Rheinard would recover to P4 over 3-seconds off 2018 Champion Alexander Hagberg.

‘We changed the car and I was very happy with how it ran’, was how Orlowski summed up his second TQ run.  The Polish ace added, ‘It was a little sketch at the start but as I got used to the changes and my confidence after Q4 was not high but after a few laps it was all good’.   He continued, ‘It was a good battle with Kemp, I don’t know what happened to him at the end but I was happy to have the 1-second cushion’.  Having the advantage of the fastest TQ time, Orlowski said, ‘It is wide open and it’s going to be a good battle in the last one.  I will probably leave the car the same and stick with what I have.  I feel confident with it’.

Anderson said, ‘It started off good but was super loose at the end’.  Asked if he know what the problem was, the North American 1:12 Champion said, ‘I lost rear grip so we will re-evaluate and make a change for the last one’.

Reacting to his P3 run, Hagberg said, ‘Again I struggled a bit for the first minute so we didn’t solve the problem’.  The Swede continued, ‘It’s lacking steering so we will make it more aggressive and try hang on at the beginning’.  He concluded, ‘I think we are still fairly closer but we need to find something’.

Asked about his incident with Ishioka, Rheinard said, ‘The first problem is with IFMAR and the starting order.  I was all the way at the back because it was done off the last heat instead of the overall order’.   Catching and making contact with Ishioka’s Roche six laps in, the German ace said, ‘I hit the kerb a bit when I was passing him and he didn’t back off enough so he hit me’.  On his car, his best lap almost identical to Orlowski’s, he said, ‘It had a bit of understeer but it was still OK but hopefully we can make it better for the last one, we’ll see’.

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Anderson opens Day 2 of quali with TQ run

Having knocked on the door yesterday, Awesomatix’ Kemp Anderson finally delivered a TQ run as he opened Day 2 of qualifying at the 1:12 World Championship by topping Q4 ahead of Xray’s Alexander Hagberg.  Opening qualifying yesterday at Beachline Raceway with a TQ, Michal Orlowski would be one of two big retirements in the 4th of the 6 scheduled qualifier as the Schumacher driver broke his car a minute into the run.  Next to go was overnight TQ holder Marc Rheinard, the Awesomatix driver stripping a spur after riding curbs.  This left the battle between Anderson and Hagberg, the Swede closing on the American in the closing stages, the gap just under a second at the end of the 8-minutes.  Like Hagberg, getting promoted to the top heat grouping for Day 2, Donny Lia would run his fastest qualifier so far to complete the Top 3 ahead of fellow US racer Stuart Mason.

Laying down a new outright fastest TQ time, Anderson said his ‘car was really good’ but it was a tense run as he had to nurse the car to the finish after an early mistake.  The reigning ROAR 1:12 National Champion explained, ‘I had a small mistake at the first chicane and the spur gear was missing half a tooth so I had to drive conservative to finish the run’.  The 21-year-old continued, ‘Alex had a good run at the end but I was  able to hold on.’  Looking to the penultimate qualifier, he said, ‘I’ll just fit a new spur gear and run the car the same.  It is feeling really good now.  I just need to do what I just did two more times’.

Having run in the second fastest group heating after a tough start to the event here in Florida, Hagberg summed up Q4 as ‘really good’.  The record equalling European Champion said, ‘In the beginning the car was a handful up front and I had to back off the first minute but then it was really good and I was able to close on Kemp’.  For Q5 he said, ‘we need to work on the balance for the start and we’ll be right there’.  On being reseed into the top heat, having had traffic issues yesterday, he said, ‘It was definitely an advantage as I had no traffic but the big thing was I could pace against the top guys where as before I only had Donny to gauge against’.

Knocking out another P3 run to go with his one from Q2, Lia described his latest performance as ‘good’ but added ‘I just need to find some front grip’.  Organiser of the annual MonTech NYGP in New York, he said, ‘I think with more steering I will be able to drive the car not as hard and that should then help me to be more consistent.  The thing is finding more front grip without losing rear grip’.  A 1:12 specialist, Lia, who was a finalist the last time the World Championship was held in the US, said, ‘Marc and Kemp are both fast and consistent’.

Explaining his first DNF of the event, Orlowski said, ‘We made a change to the car for the morning practice and it was very loose so we came back a bit on the change for the qualifier but it was still too much and we had way too much steering.  When I crashed one of the screws on the rear pod sheared and I had to pull off’.   Rheinard said the spur gear is quite exposed on the Awesomatix and riding the curbs, as he has been doing, the angle was obviously enough for the contact that stripped the teeth.

In the Spec Class, Max Machler made it 3 from 4.  The overnight TQ holder, the Awesomatix driver became the first driver to go 39-laps over the 8-minutes.  Behind on 38-laps, Xray driver Robbie Dodge got a second for the round ahead the Awesomatix of Q3 winner Mark Stiles.

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