Yokomo set early pace in Kissimmee
Team Yokomo are setting the early pace at the Touring Car World Championship in Kissimmee, Florida, with Naoto Matsukura fastest over three consecutive laps from team-mate and pre-event favourite Ronald Volker. With four Yokomos in the Top 5, Atsushi Hara posting the fourth fastest time and Yannic Prumper 5th after 3 rounds of practice, it is Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard who is the closest challenger taking his new TRF419 to the 3rd fastest time. Defending Champion Jilles Groskamp managed the 9th fastest time.
Having relinquished his 1:12 World title to Rheinard yesterday, Matsukura said it was a ‘good start today’ to the Touring Car event. Runner-up to Volker at the Warm-up Race at the Full Throttle RC Raceway track back in April, the Japanese driver said he is liking the new track layout but added he needs to work on the consistency of his new BD7 2015. Happy with his pace over the first minute he said the performance drops off too much towards the end of the 5-minutes adding that is something they need work on.
‘Everything good and working fine’ was how Volker summed up the early practice runs. With Yokomo, Tamiya and Xray doing extensive pre-event testing, the 4-time Euro Touring Series Champion said it was good there was a new layout for everyone describing the layout, which features a shorter straight as ‘good’. The German said the key to the track is the left/right leading onto the straight where he said its possible to lose a lot of time. Commenting on his car, he said they were working good with him running two cars each round to work on the ‘finer details’.
The same track as where he claimed the first of his three Touring Car World titles, Rheinard described the track as ‘fluid’ adding he really likes the section coming on to the straight. Getting it ‘perfect’, the German said you could gain a lot but added it was hard to do it perfect every lap. Commenting on his car he felt it was working ‘pretty good’ for the first few runs.
Hara said his driving was his biggest problem feeling he is still driving too much like he would in buggy, his last big event being the 1:8 Offroad World’s in Sicily 2-weeks ago. Conducting one day of testing with his BD7 in Taiwan before travelling out to the US, he said that track had ‘zero grip’. With the former World Champion complimenting his team’s sharing of set-up information, he said his car is working good and most improvement is going to come from the driver.
‘Getting better’ was how Prumper summed up his three runs. One of the few factory drivers to not test at the track, he said having started off with the same setup as Volker switching back to his own set-up for P3 left him a lot more comfortable with the car. The German said the problem with Volker’s set-up is that it doesn’t suit his driving style.
Debuting HB’s all new Pro 5 chassis, Andy Moore said for a new car his early pace was ok. Only his fourth day to run the car, the 2006 World Champion said the other 3-days testing took place in Thailand where conditions where totally different. Running through a plan of set-up changes in the first three rounds, he said based on that they now had knowledge to try further set-up changes. With most drivers liking the challenge of the section leading onto the straight, the British driver would be a victim of getting it wrong as in P3 just he pulled the screws out of steering hub after hitting the boards.
Team Xray’s Paul Lemieux set the 7th fastest time. The American said his pace can get a lot better through his driving. Watching both Matsukura and Volker do their runs he said they are running what don’t seem like proper lines but they’re going faster. He plans to continue to work on this but said his brain keeps telling him the tighter lines are slower.
Sitting in between team-mates Akio Sobue and Viktor Wilck on the time sheets, Groskamp said Practice 1 & 2 felt pretty good but the others stepped it up in P3. Trying a different set-up for the third run having picked the best of the two cars he ran in other runs, the Dutch driver said it didn’t feel as good. Running just 1 car in P3 to get an idea on how it felt over the full 5-minutes, he will revert back to his earlier set-up and again back to back both his cars having made heavy contact with the boards last time out.
Wilck said his practice was going ‘OK’ adding he didn’t really get 3-good laps together in P3 before he clipped boards coming onto the straight which broke a C-Hub and his servo.
Kyosho’s Christopher Krapp set the 11th fastest time but said the second of his cars was actually faster. With the timing software only registering the transponder of the first car a driver runs, the multiple Worlds finalist described his start to the event as ‘solid’. Happy he has pace to mix it with everyone but Matsukura & Volker, he said they are so much faster and he needs to try and find out how.
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