Cavalieri sets pace in 2nd practice

Ryan Cavalieri has opened Day 2 of the 1:8 Offroad World Championships In Las Vegas by setting the pace in the second round of practice.  The Team Associated driver was quickest over 3-consecutive laps from TLR pairing Ryan Maifield and Dakotah Phend with the trio separated by less then a tenth of a second with Joe Bornhorst fourth fastest.  Having set the pace in the opening practice yesterday, that time half a second faster than Cavalieri Practice 2 topping time, Jared Tebo would set the 12th fastest time while reigning World Champion Ty Tessmann was 15th quickest, both driver still pleased with their cars.   Having set the fastest lap yesterday, Ryan Lutz was again the fastest driver around RC Tracks of Las Vegas with a 33.980 as he took his Tekno to the seventh fastest time for the round.

Summing up the second of the five scheduled rounds of practice, Cavalieri said, ‘My car was a little better today and I had a little more steering’.  Running in Heat 2 of 16, he continued, ‘Yesterday we had the worst track but today the track is more consistent over the entire round’ – a round taking 3 & half hours to run. Running Pro-Line super soft Grid Iron tyres on his MX powered RC8B3, the 2014 Worlds podium finisher will run different shocks for the day’s second practice saying he will try a different piston ‘just to try something different’.

Reacting to his run, the running at the opposite end of the round to Cavalieri in Heat 15 of 16, Maifield said, ‘We made a few changes and the pace is good.  The car feels good although a little twitchy but the track is still very green’.  Switching to JConcepts Triple Dees on his Reds Racing powered 8ight 4.0 he continued, ‘the track is not even close to how its going to end up so we’ll just try to keep up with it but right now everything feels good’.

‘Better today’ was how Phend summed up his his start to Day 2.  Only 27th fastest in the opening practice, the 19-year-old shared a similar view to his team-mate Maifield saying, ‘the track is still pretty dusty and there is no groove. It going to change a lot’. Planning to ‘make changes here and there’ he said all the changes would be ones that could be ‘changed back quickly of needed’, adding the track is ‘developing ruts quite quickly’.  Running Pro-Line Holeshot in the second practice, the American driver plans to run Fugatives in P3 to get his 8ight ‘a little more aggressive’.

Improving his 3-lap pace by over a second, Bornhorst said, ‘I’m just driving around the pipes and trying to get comfortable’.  Running a number of prototype parts on his Tekno, he said he is ‘making tiny little changes, nothing huge, so as to make the car more comfortable’ adding ‘the more comfortable it is the faster I can drive it’.  Describing the track as ‘not nearly where it is going to be’ he continued, ‘the practice is still valuable testing but the track will continually get slower’.   Running M3 Holeshots he plans to run the same set in P3 adding ‘there is really no tyre wear’.

Having been second fastest yesterday behind team-mate Tebo, Elliott Boots would end up P5 in the second round.  Making a roll centre change for today, the European Champion said his Kyosho ‘wasn’t bad’ but added, ‘when the track dried up the car got a bit loose’.  With the track being watered before the start of each of the 10-minute heats, the British driver said ‘bad traffic’ was an issue in terms of getting three laps together.  Running Pro-Line’s new Electroshot tyre the 2012 Worlds Top Qualifier plans to try a different tyre for P3 but will leave the car unchanged saying they are testing ‘one thing at a time’.   Behind Boots, Australian Mugen driver Aaron Stringer completed the Top 6.

Commenting on his second run, Tebo said, ‘it was really good, we did some motor work after yesterday and it ran really good although now we need to work a on the mileage’.  Running out of fuel before the completion of the 10-minutes, the 2010 Worlds Top Qualifier said, ‘Yesterday we had better mileage and I thought we could do 10 minutes’.  On only being P12 for the round, he said, ‘the traffic was really bad so I couldn’t get 3-laps but when I look at my best lap compared to the other two that I counted I know there a lot of time in there’.  Describing his MX powered MP9 as having a ‘really good balance’, the American is ‘really happy with my speed on the smooth track as its going to get rough and that suits me better’.  For P3 he will test a different set of shocks and in term of tyres will stick with M3 Holeshots, only fitting a fresh set.

Trying different shocks on his HB Racing D815V2, Tessmann said, ‘it was better definitely’.  The change meant the car ‘soaked up the bumps better, (and) it was easier to drive’.  Describing the track as ‘holding up pretty good’, the Canadian will test a softer swaybar in the evening practice, drivers only getting 2 runs a day, as well as switching from M3 Holeshots to a set of Electroshots.  Team-mate David Ronnefalk would end up only 29th fastest.  The Swede said ‘we found the steering and that was the goal but its now lacking a little traction. It was better yesterday’.  Describing his D815V2 as ‘really consistent and easy to drive’ he said, ‘we need to compromise on changes we made and go back to a few thing we had on the car yesterday’.

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The Worlds according to Ruona – The hand shaking phase is over

Well, we made it through the hand shaking phase of the worlds. You know, where everyone across teams, countries and pit areas pretend to like each other for a little while. It’s always fake, it’s always awkward and personally, I look forward to when we all go back to normal. Sure, we all respect the competition, but in all reality, let’s race already.

We’ve been here since Thursday evening and today finally got our first laps starting around 2pm on Saturday. We did have the qualifying “race in” event but let’s face it, that wasn’t really needed. For the crew that makes the tour, we all know who should and shouldn’t be in the race. I would have preferred to give the qualified drivers more practice than to a gimmick race. Oh well, let’s move on.

In the era of social media, I don’t know what people are more proud of. Actually racing the worlds or just taking a photo showing they were at the worlds. I don’t know why we aren’t trending yet, everyone says that we should be on ESPN like those cool drones. I just want to trend. Screw ESPN, I want to be trending news on social media someday. Keep pumping those hashtags, track photos and pit shots. We will be there soon.

As heavily posted already, (trending) the track and facility are top notch and well prepared. Chris Tocco has answered the call and I finally signed off on the deal when he showed me the backup water supply unit today. I try to think of everything but man, he thought of the backup water supply unit? Next level! The layout itself is nicely built and I repeat, in a smooth condition a great track for me or my driving style. I told Paul Wynn, this looks like a track we would design for our Clash event which has to work for both 1/10th and 1/8th scale vehicles. Ironically, the 1/8th guys at the Clash would normally complain it’s built for 1/10th scale. Well, this one is built for the 1/8th worlds….so there.

In my opinion, the track lacks that signature section. That wow factor that makes someone’s driving stand out over another. I’ve been here multiple times and it’s probably my least favorite layout. Knowing that Chris has thought this out quite a bit, I think he believes the conditions and bumps will be more the character we are looking for. Didn’t JQ post this already? I’m agreeing with JQ? I’m outta here…

The drama today which was once again made worse on FB was the issue with the wings. Apparently a few years ago the rules were changed and the side-dams need be a certain size for number decals. You know, those things you can’t see on the track that indicate a car number which doesn’t matter because your transponder has a number which relates to your name. If there was only a way to differentiate cars from one another on the track. In a perfect world, the cars would have different paint schemes and color combinations so an experienced race announcer could look at the vehicles and be able to separate them based on appearance…..I know, I know…race cars have numbers and it does help..I get it.

Going back to the wing, I never really considered looking at minimum size areas or rule changes. I just figured maximum size was all that mattered and for the simple fact, if we used a certain wing at the last several worlds that it would be legal for the next worlds. As Donald Trump says, WRONG! I think I was less worked up about it than anyone…I was like, just put the Kyosho wing on and be done with it. They have 400 in the hobby shop for $30 each. Some got creative and bolted a section to their standard wing. I like it! Let’s make some stuff again, too much is available perfectly out of the package. Let’s see your skills with scissors, dremel and some hardware. I guess the irritating part of the whole thing was the letter IFMAR wrote to the racers and manufactures telling everyone how stupid they are and were. Jeez, talk about a total bitch slap to the face. I can’t wait to write that press release in a few months.. ….Specifically designed with IFMAR rules in mind, the JConcepts Hybrid “IFMAR spec” wing has been carefully crafted of durable polycarbonate and pre-trimmed for that perfect fit and finish.

Overall, today was a good day for practice. There were some surprises and you could already see the affect of the track watering schedule and how it progressed into the day. It’s going to be a challenge to keep it completely consistent and also have water on it. I wouldn’t completely bet high on guys that win practice because there are going to be highs and lows depending on the water and time of day. The race will be won and lost in dryer conditions because the semi-final and mains are obviously longer. Let’s take a look at the top 15, make sure our guys are somewhere to be seen and keep motoring along. Keep an eye out for the guys that will go 10 minutes in qualifying or also in the mains….that will certainly be a factor before it’s all said and done.