‘From Race Control’ – Day 2, Seeding Practice

After an inclement start to the 34th running of the 1:8 Offroad European Championships Day 2 is off to a much brighter start with early flog clearing to reveal blue skies with the sun now shinning over the Sand am Main track. Drivers will take to the track a total of four times today but it is really only two of the runs that will count for anything of significance. Starting off with a 2-minute track sweeping round of practice, the second and third rounds will be of 10-minute duration with the final 5-minutes of these counting towards the seeding of the heats for qualifying which gets underway tomorrow. After the official opening ceremony of the championships, today’s action will end with another 2-minute practice in which the drivers will run in the seeded heat groups.

Rain affects Day 1 final practice at 1:8 Euros

After a damp start to Day 1 of the 34th running of the 1:8 Offroad European Championships, the inclement weather would affect the days final round of practice arriving just as some of the title favourites took to the track for last and extended practice round at the German event.  With Darren Bloomfield having just posted the fastest time for the 9-minute run in Group 8 of 15, as group 9 headed by defending champion David Ronnefalk took to the track the rain which had been dodged all day arrived leaving the Kyosho driver to pull up after just one full lap. With the track wet no one from Group 10, which included Mugen team-mates Robert Batlle and Lee Martin, would take to the track.  Also setting the fastest lap of the round albeit 2/10ths slower than his fastest lap of P3, the closest on pace to Bloomfield’s Agama was Xray’s Martin Bayer who was only 13/1000ths off.

Running 17 laps over the 9-minutes, missing out on 18 by just 8/10ths of a second, Bloomfield was pleased with his pace having left his A8 unchanged from P3 admitting he got lucky to get the run in just before the rain.

Having made a number of changes to his Kyosho MP9 for the final practice Ronnefalk was frustrated at losing the track time but said there was little point in continuing in the wet.  Although the threat of rain is likely to be an ongoing factor throughout the week here in Germany, Batlle also felt there was little to be gained from taking to the track.

Running in Group 6, using the run to evaluate tyres, Bayer was said he was ‘happy’ with his first day of the championships.  Having only adjusted the roll bars on his LRP powered XB8 over the day he ended up on soft compound AKA Catapult tyres which he said worked ‘really good’.  Looking to tomorrow last year’s podium finisher said he will wait to see what the weather does overnight and see how the track looks in the morning before deciding on a plan of action for the day. Day 2’s schedule will see drivers get four rounds of practice starting with a very short untimed 2-minute run before getting down to the more serious business of two 10-minute seeding rounds of the which the last five minutes will determine the order of the qualifying heats.

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Honigl goes fastest in Germany

Hupo Honigl topped the third round of practice at the 1:8 Offroad European Championships in Germany to set a new fastest time over 5-minutes at the Sand am Main track.  The Team C driver was just shy of completing a 10-lap run with a very similarly paced Yannic Aigoin posting the second fastest time with his prototype Team Associated buggy.  In terms of outright pace former Champion Darren Bloomfield set a new fastest lap taking his Bullitt powered Agama around the track in a time of 28.365 seconds.

Running a ‘box standard’ T8 V3, the only upgrades made being some optional light weight parts, Honigl put his improved performance down to a change of tyre for the third run.  Having used Pro-Line’s Blockade and yet to be released Fugitive tyre in the opening two practices he would switch to LockDowns, his ‘love them’ reaction summing up how pleased he was with their performance.  Already very happy with how the buggy is performing since putting it on the track this morning, having not made any set-up adjustments so far, the Austrian said the new tyres gave the buggy ‘really good steering’ and he couldn’t be any happier with how it feels to drive.

Heading the reduced challenge of Team Associated, team-mate Neil Cragg opting to skip this year’s championship due to the lack of a competitive car, Aigoin described his run as ‘not bad’.  Running a prototype chassis the same as he ran at the 2012 World Championships in Argentina, pointing out the buggy was not the new car they will use at the World Championship later this year in Italy, the former 2-time European champion said while he is waiting for the track to come in he has just used the three runs to test different Pro-Line tyres.  Confirming that he will travel to the USA in the next three weeks along with Cragg to join Ryan Cavalieri to test Associated’s new world championship contender, he said with the car he has this week he is confident of at least making the Main saying the car was good enough for that at the Worlds so it should be possible to repeat that here.  Having started out the season with a prototype designed by the since departed Josh Alton, he said that car was good for high speed tracks in terms of stablity were as the car he is running now is much better in the technical infield sections. While enjoying the track layout the Frenchman described it as a little small adding this meant traffic was a bit of an issue.

Making the switch to a harder compound of Beta’s Freeride tyre, Bloomfield said the change ‘worked out well’ as this stopped his A8 from ‘squirming around’ allowing him to get better and more consistent laps times from it.  The 2012 Champion said so far everything is ‘going good’ and running the car the same for the first time in the final practice was a good way to be ending Day 1 with focus now being to ‘work on consistency’.

Reigning Champion David Ronnefalk, who ran the 5-minutes of track time but was shown as having not completed the full run, said he changed from 3 to 2.5mm rear toe on his Kyosho which while giving him more corner speed made the MP9 ‘a bit to nervous to drive’.  Planning to revert back to the 3mm set-up as it is ‘more comfortable’, the Swede will also revert to AKA’s Super soft Catapult tyre saying over the soft compound they suit his driving style better.  In terms of set-up he will also make a ‘half step’ change in his oil weights for the day’s final practice.

Having set the early pace Elliott Boots said traffic was a bit of an issue for him in P3. The World Championship Top Qualifier switched to a harder compound of Pro-Line’s LockDown tyre and didn’t like as much the feeling they gave adding he would switch for the final practice back to the softer compound he used when he set the pace in P2 but with the run nine instead of the earlier 5-minute duration he would also use the extra track time to change to a set of Fugitive tyres during the run to get a direct back to back comparison.

Winner the last time the Championships were held at Sand am Main, World Champion Robert Batlle described his third practice as ‘better’ saying his Mugen powered MBX-7 was ‘starting to be easier to drive’. Runner-up at the Warm-up Race behind Ronnefalk back in May, for the final practice the Spaniard will try a wider rear wheel hub which he said should give the buggy better rotation and stability.

View our event image gallery here.