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Volker tops DHI Cup practice
Defending DHI Cup champion Ronald Volker got his quest for a sixth win at the famous Danish event off to a good start as he topped the final practice in Odense. With the second of the timed practice rounds seeing improvements from the Top 14 drivers the biggest improvement came from Volker to see him jump ahead of team-mate Yannic Prumper to see the German duo seeded 1-2 for qualifying. Knocking over 6/10ths of a second of his fastest three consecutive laps, Volker would top the times by 3/10ths from Prumper with Xray’s Alexander Hagberg improving his time by 3/10ths to jump ahead of Serpent’s Marc Fisher to complete the Top 3.
Making an oil change to the diff on his LRP powered BD7, Volker said the softer set-up helped him to improve his pace. With the change making the car easier to drive while retaining the same amount of steering he said it was good step forward but added they still need to go more. Describing his final practice as ‘a consistent run’, he said they would play safe for the first qualifier, which will bring Day 1 of the 15th running of the DHI Cup to a close, and leave the car unchanged and ‘hopefully’ he can capitalise from leading away the 10 car field.
Switching to a heavier oil in the rear diff of his Muchmore powered BD7, Prumper said while he went faster he didn’t like the feeling the stiffer diff gave. Also raising the rear camber link with a 1.5mm shim he will go back to what oil he ran in the previous practice, when he topped the times, while leaving the camber link change as is.
Hagberg was pleased with changes made to his ORCA powered T4. The Swede said they ‘still need to pick up the pace a little’ but they are headed in a good direction and now have a good base set-up for going into qualifying.
Having had issues with the roof of his bodyshell being too low in the earlier practices, changes to rectify this left Fischer’s S411 shell rubbing the track. Still improving his time by more than 2/10ths he said the change to softer shocks for the tracks bumps was a good improvement and he will stick with that for Q1. In terms of the rubbing he said a new set of front body posts should eliminate that issue.
Running the upper arms on his Awesomatix wider, Vijami Kutvonen said the change moved him ‘one step closer’ as he went fifth fastest and ahead of former team-mate Freddy Sudhoff. With the A700 rolling in the corners more the Finn said he had more grip. Still looking to improve the cars overall level of steering for Q1 he is considering a geardiff change to help with that.
Completing the Top 6 Sudhoff said his ‘pace is still good’ as again he ‘just played around with small changes to see how the car reacts’. Having only had one day of testing with his new PRO5 since making the switch to the HB team, he said while Volker opened up a bit of gap in the last practice it is all open and he predicts it should make for close action.
Top Danish driver Martin Lissau would again post the 7th fastest time ahead of Marc Rheinard. Rheinard said his Tamiya was still sliding around despite changing tyres and ruling out the problem being with the set-up said he ‘hope(s) they (tyres) get better on their second run’. In Pro Stock, drivers using a handout LRP motor, it was Xray’s Marek Cerny who topped the times from Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky with Denmark’s Martin Christensen completing the Top 3.
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Bayer & Ronnefalk top 1st buggy practice at DHI Cup
Team Xray’s Martin Bayer and new HB signing David Ronnefalk set the buggy pace in the first timed practice at the DHI Cup in Denmark. The fourth year offroad has run at the famous Touring Car event, Bayer topped 4WD from defending champion Joern Neumann while Ronnefalk also topped the German in 2WD.
‘It is just practice but its going pretty good’ was how Bayer summed up his early form. The Czech driver, who was runner-up last year, said this year’s track was much better in terms of its layout and the change of carpet also made for a lot better traction and he liked how it felt to drive. In terms of working on his car he said he has just been making small shock adjustments and working on his tyres pins between runs. Fourth fastest in 2WD, he said while the car feels ok he is ‘missing some speed’ but he hopes to rectify this with some tuning of his shocks and slipper.
Running without a chassis sponsor following Durango’s decision to stop its factory race team at the end of the 2014 season, Neumann said his 4WD was pretty good. Having started the day with a standard DEX410 for the first timed practice he switched to his World Championship TQ prototype car which he said lands better and for now he will continue with that. Running a Team C chassis in 2WD, he described the car as ‘so so’. While second fastest, he said out of the corner it had no power with it felt like one tyre is spinning. For the final practice he will try running a stiffer suspension and also move the shocks more to the outside.
Also running a Team C chassis in 2WD as HB dont have a buggy yet, Ronnefalk said the TM2 ‘is so easy to drive and it suits his aggressive style’. He said while the quality of the parts are a little weak he said with a 2WD HB buggy in mind he has learned a few things already from running it. Describing the track layout as ‘super fun to drive’, he said while he ‘drove bad’ in the first timed practice his new D413 is ‘super fast’ although for the last practice they will make some changes to try and make it a little more easy to drive.
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Prumper tops opening practice at DHI Cup
Yannic Prumper topped the opening round of timed practice at the 15th running of DHI Cup in Denmark. The Team Yokomo driver headed a very closely matched Top 6 over 3-consecutive laps with Serpent’s Marc Fischer second fastest just 0.054 off his fellow German’s pace. Defending champion Ronald Volker, who is chasing a sixth DHI Cup title this weekend, completed the Top 3 with his Yokomo just 0.003 off Fischer.
Having posted only the 7th fastest time in free practice, Prumper put his improvement down to a bodyshell switch and a change of tyres. Without his regular mechanic Toni Rheinard, the 21-year-old went from Protoform’s Speed 6 to LTC-R bodyshell which together with fitting a new set of the event’s controlled LRP tyre gave him more steering. Happy with how his BD7 is running now he plans to run the car unchanged for the final practice.
Finishing free practice just one place ahead of Prumper, Fischer also attributed his improved form down to changing to a new set of tyres. Describing the second set as ‘much better’, for the final practice he plans to run softer shocks on his S411 to see if it improves the car over the bumps caused by cable tunnelling underneath the track. While he described the track layout as ‘a little boring’, he added the that ‘it is good that everyone is so close’.
Volker, who has made carpet racing somewhat boring due to his domination of events, described the practice as being ‘super close between a lot of drivers’. The ETS & European Champion was very happy with his 5-minute pace but added that they need to make some small changes to his LRP powered BD7 to make it a little easier to drive which would allow him to push just a little harder.
Making his debut for HB, Freddy Sudhoff was very happy with his early pace. Setting the fourth fastest time, he ‘thought it was a pretty good start’ with his new car. The former Awesomatix driver said the nature of the shaft driven Russian car meant he had to drive it more aggressively through corners than a belt car and he thought this was going to affect his performance this weekend but the track layout requires even a belt car like his new PRO5 to being driven hard and that’s helping with the switch. Overall he said the basic set-up of the new car is really good and he is pleased to be in the mix so early on in his first race with it.
Setting the 5th fastest time, Alexander Hagberg declared himself content with his early form describing the leading times as ‘very close’. The Xray driver, said they were still working on a ‘couple of details’ on the T4 set-up and everything should be fine come qualifying.
Completing the Top 6 was Awesomatix’ now lead driver Vijami Kutvonen. The Finn who was runner up to Volker here last year, said he is just really waiting for the traction to come-up. With the bumps an issue for most drivers, for the first timed practice he fitted a top deck to his A700 which he said improved the impact the bumps had on the car alot.
Last years other podium finisher Marc Rheinard would top free practice but could only manage 8th behind Martin Lissau in the first timed run. Very happy with the stability of his TRF419 in free practice he said having started out good the car was ‘now not so good’. ‘Sliding all over the place’ he said having done nothing to the car between the two runs he hopes that a fresh set of tyres for the closing practice run will return the car to how it was earlier.
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Chassis Focus – Freddy Sudhoff
Chassis – HB Pro5
Motor – LRP X20 4.5T
ESC – LRP Flow
Battery – LRP 6000mAh
Radio/Servos – Sanwa
Body – Protoform Speed6
Remarks – Being part of the recent recruiting campaign for HB, Freddy is running here a pre-production version of the soon to be delivered Pro5. Using the optional aluminum chassis and Lee Speed 84 pitch spur gear, he is so far delighted with the car, especially with the infinite adjusting capabilities of the camber links.
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Track Focus – DHI Cup Odense
Host Club – Odense R/C Minirace
Country – Denmark
Location – Odense
Venue – Odense Conference Centre
Track type – Temporary
Surface – Carpet (Onroad), Carpet & Wood (Offroad)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise (Onroad), Clockwise (Offroad)
Previous races hosted –15
2015 marks the 15th running of the DHI Cup and the famous Danish event, which has traditionally kicked off the new season for touring car’s top drivers, is celebrating the important milestone with a big resurgence in interest with a capacity 300 entries. On opening up registration for the Odense based event, it was quickly booked out with the organisers having for the first time to deal the issue of having a waiting list such is the renewed interest. This being the fourth year the event has also catered for offroad racers, the two classes running simultaneously on separate tracks either side of the large double sided driver stand, the biggest change for 2015 is the hall. Having being held in the impressive Arena Fyn since 2008, a Handball test match between Denmark and Slovenia in preparation of the upcoming World Championships in Qatar has meant the organisers have been moved to another hall within the Odense Conference centre.
While not as grand a hall as the stadium, in terms of overall floor space the host club Odense R/C Minirace still have the same room to work within. While regulars of the race had their doubts about being moved from the stadium, the general feeling on arrival in the new location is that more enclosed hall without grandstands actually creates a better overall atmosphere in the pits. While the hall has a much lower roof, the lighting over the track has been enhanced thanks to the Conference centre installing 80 spot lights in addition to the existing lights just for the event.
In terms of the tracks, the offroad track having been made up of black and grey carpet last year is now grey having been made using last year’s touring car track carpet. The touring car track features new carpet although some drivers are disappointed that the growing in popularity black ETS carpet was not used. In terms of the layout, last year’s touring car winner Ronald Volker said while traction was still low on the new carpet making it hard to get a true feel for the layout he said ‘overall it should be good’. The Yokomo driver, who is chasing a sixth DHI Cup title this weekend, added that the layout on the right side of the track could doesnt make the best use of the space and they could have made it more technical helping to increase the lap time too, 12.5 seconds being the early pace for a lap time.
Three time back to back 4WD Buggy Champion, Joern Neumann described the offroad track layout as being an improvement on last year with the carpet change also improving traction levels. Not a fan of the speed bumps the German, who is running without a chassis sponsor after Durango opted to discontinue its factory team at the end of 2014, said the long jump on the back straight was the tracks most challenging feature as the landing into the following 180 corner was short. In free practice a good 4WD lap time is a late 18-seconds while 2WD is a low 19-seconds.
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