January 8, 2016

Orlowski tops 2WD practice at DHI Cup

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Michal Orlowski has topped 2WD Buggy practice at the DHI Cup, the Schumacher driver setting the fastest 3-consecutive laps at the Danish event to end up almost half a second clear of former winner Tom Cockerill.  Joakim Nicolaisen would complete the Top 3, Team Associated’s up & coming talent 3/100ths faster than defending champion David Ronnefalk.  For two time 2WD winner & unbeaten 4WD Champion Joern Neumann practice would leave the Serpent driver only 9th fastest while Xray’s 4WD World Champion Bruno Coehlo, despite laying down the fastest single lap ended up 16th.

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Qualifying and finishing third in 2WD last year in Odense, Orlowski said although he came into the event prepared for low grip it was ‘even lower’ than expected.  Initially struggling for the first three practice runs, his KF2 SE ‘sliding around’, he said a switch from 15 to 10k rear diff oil together with a shortened rear camber link ‘helped a lot’ leaving the car ‘really good’ for the fourth & final practice.  Surprised that the track layout is almost identical to that of last year, the Polish ace feels he is now in good shape for qualifying which for 2WD will take place tonight following 4WD practice.

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‘Pretty good’ was how 2014 winner, then driving for Schumacher, was how Cockerill summed up his practice.  Having not attended last year’s event, Yokomo’s lead driver this weekend as Lee Martin has nitro racing commitments, said while the traction was low for carpet it was nice adding it ‘should make for better racing’. Using the practice to bed in sets of the event’s Schumacher handout tyre, the only big change in terms of set-up was with shock oils as he tries to find more steering on what he described as an ‘understeer track’.  Describing the times of the leading drivers as ‘close’ he added ‘a lot of drivers are on a similar pace and there also making a lot of mistakes so my focus is more on my driving’.

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Nicolaisen said his B5M, which features a Swedish made laydown gearbox, has been very good from the first run on the track.  Making only very small changes over the four rounds, the Norwegian said the track time was mostly used to scrub in tyres.  Describing the layout as having ‘a good flow’, he said as he is pretty happy with the car he will focus on his driving feeling he could clean up his lines a bit.

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Making his HB team debut at the event last year, but having to race a Team C chassis in 2WD with which he TQ’d and won, Ronnefalk is now running HB’s D216.  The Swede said ‘we have done quite a lot of practice since the EOS and we now have a machined chassis rather than the rapid prototype we ran in Slovakia’.  He added ‘with not as much traction as EOS this suits the car. The speed is there. I just need to make it a little easier to drive over 5-minutes.’  Behind Ronnefalk fellow countrymen David Hassel and Niclas Mansson completed the Top 6 with Xray’s Martin Bayer 7th fastest.

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January 8, 2016

Track Focus – DHI Cup Odense

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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 – 15  (Onroad), 4 (Offroad)

It might be the 16th running of the DHI Cup but Denmark’s most famous race is continuing its resurgence with this year’s event taking just 20-minutes to book out.  A unique event in that both onroad and offroad run simultaneously on back to back tracks, even increasing the entry limit from 300 to 320 left the organisers to have to turn away drivers.   Allocated 90 of the 160 Touring Car entries, Super Stock inparticular couldn’t cater for the large number of racers looking to travel to Odense. In Offroad, the organisers said they were surprised by the huge interest 4WD Buggy attracted this year with the class well oversubscribed.

Having had to move to a different hall in the Odense Congress Center last year due to a World Championship warm-up handball game, handball a big sport in Denmark, this year the event returns to the impressive Stadium Arena Fyn.  Getting access to such a facility comes thanks to the city of Odense. The third largest in Denmark, the city provided the funding for the building of the Arena and as part of the deal a select number of days are made available for local organisations such as the host Odense R/C Minirace club to host events.  The DHI Cup setting up home here in 2008 with Viktor Wilck marking the occasion with his first big international race win.

In terms of the onroad track, it is defending six time champion Ronald Volker who was asked to design this year’s layout.  While the construction of the track turned out a little different to the plans he submitted, the Yokomo driver said the chicane in front of the drivers stand is the tracks key feature. ‘Somewhere to make or lose time’, the German said ‘the biggest difference more than the layout’ is the carpet and the controlled LRP tyres.  With the ETS style black carpet now very common throughout Europe, the use of grey carpet gives a somewhat retro look to the track.  One significant but out of sight change to the track is steel plates that have been added under the carpet.  As with most exhibition halls, cable tunnels run the length of the hall and previously have caused issue in particularly on the straight as the bump unsettles cars.  With the plates running over the tunnels Volker said they were ‘an improvement’ and now they ‘didn’t feel too bad’.

Unbeaten in 4WD Buggy since the event took on the challenge of running adding offroad to the event in 2012, Joern Neumann was happy with the track layout.  ‘Its 95% same as last year and I won on that so the layout is OK’.  His first DHI outing with Serpent, having won last year with Durango, the German said ‘some parts are tricky but overall there is a good flow to the layout’.

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December 9, 2015

New in the Pits – JConcepts

Making their trackside debut at the 2015 JConcepts Indoor National Finals, JConcepts brought a number of new items to Omaha for their team drivers which will be available for general release very soon. First up is the new line of t-wrenches available in 7mm for 1/10th offroad wheel nuts and the 17mm version for 1/8th offroad wheel nuts. Made from aluminium and available in black or blue the end is extruded to allow you to ‘quick spin’ the wheel nut and features a t-handle so you can tighten down or loosen the nut. Seen on the table of Ryan Maifield is a new carbon and aluminium high end setup board. Large enough to be used with a 1/8th truggy but better suited for 1/10th scale, the outer frame has been machined from blue anodised aluminium with the work surface made from carbon fibre.

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Seen on many of the JConcepts team driver’s car is the new Stabilizer rear wing that incorporates a rear gurney flap, similar to that used on 1/8th wings, which can be bent forward to further increase downforce. Available for the B5M and the 22 3.0, as the name suggests the wing offers a lot of stability due to the large amount of downforce the wing generates. In terms of bodies, the Warrior and S2 bodies are now available in lightweight versions, perfect for dropping weight which is especially useful in stock classes.

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December 7, 2015

Maifield does double at JConcepts Finals

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Ryan Maifield has completed the buggy double at the Finals of the JConcepts Indoor National Series in Omaha.  Taking the an early overall victory in 2WD Mod after winning A1 & 2, the Team Losi Racing driver would have to wait until A3 and the final race of the Hobby Plex event to claim the 4WD win.  Top Qualifier in 4WD, Maifield would finish second to Spencer Rivkin in A1 but winning A2 it set up a straight battle between himself and his protege for the overall win.  Starting second behind his mentor, Rivkin would push Maifield hard for the win until his Associated hooked the piping.  Enough to give Maifield control of the race Rivkin would finish second with last year’s winner Jared Tebo coming home third to complete the podium at the fifth & final event of the JConcepts championship.

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Last season’s overall JConcepts INS Champion, but not able to contest enough races in 2015 to defend his title, Maifield said ‘I knew Spencer would be fast and would push me for the win.  He definitely kept me on my toes but he had a few mistakes after which I was able to just drive around’.  One of the strongest INS entries of the season with Associated sending its core team in Cavalieri & Rivkin and Tebo representing Kyosho, Maifield was pleased to be able to pull off the double him very happy with the performance of his Orion powered 22-4 and JConcepts Dirt Web tyres on the track that will host the 2016 ROAR 1:10 Offroad National Championships.

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Frustrated by losing out second overall in 2WD, his counting win and 3rd being bettered by the combined times of team-mate Cavalieri’s two second place finishes under the ROAR ruling used for tie breaks, Rivkin said he was ‘happy with second’.  Feeling he did his best to force an error from Maifield in A3, the 17-year-old full time professional racer said ‘I put pressure on (Maifield) but he just didn’t make any mistakes and I couldn’t find a way passed and then I locked a pipe’. Declaring the driver who has been influential in guiding his career ‘deserved the win’, Rivkin said his Reedy powered B44.3 was ‘really good’, a fact that was highlighted by him being the only driver to match Maifield’s 18-second lap times in the finals.

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Having done the double at the event last year, Tebo was understandably disappointed with third.  Only fourth in 2WD, the former World Champion said ‘I lost grip in all my cars today’.  The AKA team driver added ‘I got caught off guard today with tyres and ran them too low’.  Behind Tebo, Cavalieri would finish 4th followed by Brad Shearer with young talent Tom Rinderknecht completing the Top 6.

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In Mod Truck Rivkin would TQ and Win with local Kyosho driver Derek Wood and TLR’s Taylor Larsen joining him on the podium.  2WD Short Course would see Top Qualifier Cavalieri take the win after 8-minutes of racing ahead of Tebo with Alex Vanderbeek claiming the final step on the podium.

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