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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Tessmann again from McBride in 2nd Truggy qualifier

Having opened the Philippine Masters with a TQ run in Truggy, Ty Tessmann repeated the feat in the second round of qualifying to hold the overnight Truggy TQ in Manila.  The Xray driver again set the fastest time from Kyle McBride, the Team Associated driver much closer to Tessmann the second time of asking.  Now running in the same heat as Tessmann & McBride after a reseeding after Q1, Aaron Stringer would complete the Top 3 followed by American Aaron Gomez, Atsushi Hara and Adam Drake, the latter 2 having some bad laps early on.

‘Ran thicker oils that time and it was better’ said Tessmann after his heat.  Having got caught out by the mid day temperatures of the opening qualifier, having only arrived in the country last night, even with Q2 conditions being cooler the heavier oils in his XT9 worked better.  Again running on Pro-Line’s Electro Shot tyre he said the tyre wear is pretty good but added they ‘might try something different tomorrow but we haven’t decided yet’.  Asked about track conditions, he replied, ‘It seems to be holding up good.  I thought it was pretty consistent over the run’.

Summing up his second qualifier as ‘not too bad’, McBride continued, ‘We made a few changes which made the car nice and stable’.  Feeling he needs to find a little more corner speed, the Aussie said, ‘if we can get more steering in the big corners then it would be perfect’. Asked about how the CV Offroad Track was holding up, he replied, ‘it’s pretty consistent and they will fix it up each night so it will stay nice’.

Pleased to be in the top heat with traffic certainly less of an issue than in Q1, Stringer’s run wasn’t without issue.  A marshal, the organiser hiring in marshals so drivers don’t have to, would place a car down in front of him delaying the Mugen driver who later would make a mistake ‘trying to figure out passing Hara’.  He continued, ‘I’m pretty happy apart from that but for the next one I want to try to put a clean friggen run in, no mistakes’.  Again setting the fastest lap of the qualifier, the Australian said, ‘at least if I don’t get a podium I’ve got that to my name’.

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Ronnefalk takes for Buggy first qualifier

David Ronnefalk has taken the first Buggy qualifier at the Philippine Masters.  Not competing in Truggy which got qualifying at the CV Offroad Track underway, the HB Racing driver took Q1 from Kyle McBride.  Running in the second fastest heat McBride would end up 3.6-second off the TQ pace.  Having TQ’d the first Truggy qualifier, Ty Tessman would complete the Top 3 a further 3/10ths off with the Mugen of Aaron Stringer fourth fastest followed by Atsushi Hara, Richard Saxton and Adam Drake.

‘Pretty good’ was how Ronnefalk summed up his first opening run.  The Swede continued, ‘I started out with a good lap and Ty was right behind me but I felt pretty confident with my car.  Then Ty crashed which gave me a cushion and I could pace myself’.  The World Champion said the only issue to report was when, late in the heat, he landed on the outside pipe off the double before the left side triple triple saying otherwise it was a clean run. Running JConcepts Detox R2 tyre, he reported them as ‘a bit too soft at the end’ and for Q2 plans to switch to the O2 compound.  With it ‘getting more bumpy out there’ and expecting the track surface to ‘develop more like that’, he also plans to try a different shock set-up on his Orion powered D817 to ‘try find a good balance from the shock package’.

Matching his result of the opening Truggy qualifier, McBride said, ‘my car is really good and it’s easy to drive’.  In a slower heat than Ronnefalk, the Team Associated driver said, ‘I had two or three slow downs with traffic which cost me a couple of seconds but with the regroup I should be able to get a clean run next time’.  Happy with his car, he said his choice of a new set of X2 Blockades where ‘slippy’ at the start but worked good once broken in and so for Q2 he will start with a worn set so he ‘should be fine’.

‘It was OK, I started out good but then overdrove a little and had a mistake at the triple triple’ was Tessmann’s summary of the Q1.  The former World Champion continued, ‘I just need to drive a clean race next time’. Running with his bodyshell askew for a few laps, he said this was caused by him hitting a tyre on the inside of the corner and it getting caught up on the aerial.  Running X2 Electro Shots on his OS powered XB8, the Canadian said ‘I think they were OK but we’ll see how the temperature is for Q2 before deciding what to run next’.

Setting the fourth fastest time, Aaron Stringer declared it a ‘good’ first buggy run except for a first lap mistake. The 23-year-old Brisbane driver, ‘cased the 2nd triple and lost 4-seconds and consequently finished 4-seconds behind Ty’.  Feeling he lacked a little steering from his AKA Grid Iron 2 shod Mugen for Q2, he ‘might change something on the car to get a bit more steering’ but plans to continue on the same tyre.

‘Good start, shit end’ was how Hara summed up his performance as he set the 5th fastest time.  The former World Champion continued, ‘the car is good but I made too many mistakes because I overdrove a little’.  With Q2 bringing the first day of the record entry Philippine Masters to a close, in terms of the car he ‘don’t change anything’ but instead ‘drive it better’.

Completing the Top 6 ahead of reigning champion Adam Drake, Team Associated’s Richard Saxton said, ‘I drove slow and steady like over 40 class’.  The American added, ‘I drove within my limits.  I had 2-days of practice which made up for it and I got to test a few things so the car felt good’.  Looking to Q2, he said, ‘I wont change anything but with Kyle quick straight out of the blocks I might try his set-up tomorrow’.

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