Tessmann claims deserved Worlds TQ

After dominating early qualifying, Ty Tessmann finally got to claim the overall TQ at the 1:8 Offroad World Championships in Sicily.  Topping the opening three qualifiers but suffering in rain effected Rounds 4 & 5, the HB driver posted the fourth fastest time in the final qualifier to top the final classification over Ryan Maifield, Lee Martin and Jared Tebo.  Having been the only one to challenge Tessmann before rain turned the form on its head, Maifield finally got to put his TLR top of the time sheets taking Q6 by 2.1-seconds over Martin with Elliott Boots third, a result which puts the 2012 Top Qualifier 6th overall.  Retiring from the final qualifier with a broken radio receiver, defending champion Robert Batlle will start his title defence from 6th on the grid in his Semi having qualified a lower than expected 11th.  Joining him in the same Semi final having just made the cut will be European Champion David Ronnefalk, the Swede having struggled to translate his practice pace into good qualifying runs.

‘Harder than I wanted it to be but got it done’, was how Tessmann summed up his first World Championship TQ.  Needing a good final run, with 4 of 6 to count, the US National Champion said the run started good but exiting from his pit stop he had trouble with a back marker.  Recovering from that to put in two clean laps he said on the next one he ‘screwed up on (his) own’.  Making two separate mistakes he then finished the lap by running off onto the grass after the double before the loop, his engineer Torrance Deguzman calculating all the incidents cost 10-seconds. Setting the fastest lap of the round, he said while his Pro-Line equipped D812 was pretty good the track was a little harder to drive as the grip came up a lot after the rain. With a full day off from driving, the lower finals making up tomorrow’s schedule, he said they have ‘ideas to fix it’ for the Semi but will keep an eye on the track to see how it is nearer to the time of the Semi practice.  Asked who he sees as his big threat for the finals he said it was hard to say adding that based on previous years the Main ends up being very different to qualifying in terms of the drivers who are in contention.

Happy to cap off his World Championship debut with TLR with a TQ run, Maifield said the beginning of the run was a little weird due to the track conditions with some areas looser than before and others being the most grippy they have been for the entire event.  Taking a few laps to figure out his braking and having to be patient with traffic he declared it overall ‘a good run’.  Asked if he was happy with his second overall, which will put him on pole for his Semi, he said he wasn’t reading into it, preferring to just focus on doing his own thing. With the ‘consistency nice’ and the ‘speed good’ he added he his feeling confident with his JConcepts shod 8ight going into the Semi.

Having a ‘rough start’ to his final qualifier as he got delayed by a driver waiting for the start horn, Martin was content with 3rd overall.  The 2WD Buggy World Championship runner-up also had a roll over at the end of the straight which lost him a couple of seconds but said he was happy with his Mugen MBX7R.  Running tyres with Semi in mind he said they know where they are at now in terms of having a race car.  Set to start directly behind Tessmann in the final the British driver sees this as being very beneficial with him planning to try to stick with the Top Qualifier and learn.

Running his Orion powered Kyosho the same as he ran in Q3, Tebo said his car was ‘amazing’.  Posting the sixth fastest time he said it was good enough for a TQ run but arguing with team-manager Joe Pillars about when to pit he said it broke his concentration leading to a crash that would cost him 8-seconds.  With ‘no super fast runs’, the 2010 Top Qualifier feels he has been under the radar a little in qualifying and going into the Semi he is ‘really excited’ as he feels the ‘best run is yet to come’.

Having topped the penultimate qualifier, Kyosho’s Kyle McBride secured 5th overall with the 7th fastest time in the final round.  Qualifying 8th in Argentina but going on to have a disastrous Semi, the Australian said he hoped that starting third in the Semi would work out better this year.  Making his name taking 4th in Pattaya having qualified 28th on his Worlds debut, he ran Pro-Line’s Fugitive tyre in the last qualifier as a test for the finals and said they worked well.  Confident he has a good package for the finals the 18-year old said the aim is to get a good start and just stay out of trouble.

Turning around what was a difficult start to proceedings in Italy, with him down to 30th at one point in the ranking lists, Boots was happy & somewhat relieved to be able to turn things around today to claim 6th overall.  Second fastest in Q5, the Kyosho driver backed that up with a 3rd in the final round.  With his Reds Racing powered MP9 ‘a bit edgy’ he said he just tried to make sure he played safe and made no mistakes.  Feeling he finally found his way in terms of his approach to driving the track, the British driver said he now has the consistency and once they can improve the set-up a bit he is looking forward to having a strong race.  Unfortunately in Argentina the then Top Qualifier didn’t make the main after suffering a steering servo failure in the Semis.

Taking Team Associated’s new prototype RC8 to 7th overall, Ryan Cavalieri said he is looking forward to going racing.  Struggling with a minor brake issue in Q6, the multiple 1:10 World Champion said he would liked to have ended with a better round but overall the pace of the car was the best it has felt over the event.  Confident they can figure out the braking in the Semi practice he said they should be good for the race.  Neil Cragg also managed to get Associated’s new car into the all important Top 16 ending up 12th which will see him race in the same Semi as old team-mate Ryan Maifield will lead away.

‘Happy enough’ was Ryan Lutz reaction to putting his Team Durango 8th in the ranking ahead of fellow Americans Adam Drake and Carson Wernimont.  Describing it as being ‘in or around’ his goal for qualifying, he said he hoped to be able to make his Alpha powered DNX8 easier to driver now that the grip is back up.

Batlle said he ‘thought (his) set-up was super shit’ for the last qualifier but when his Mugen started to do things on its own he knew it was a radio issue and he retired it.  With his two bad rain rounds and then the problems of Q6 he said while its not the best starting position he was happy to have ended up in the Semis. Describing the 30-minute Semis as being almost as long as a European final he said there is time to make up ground and the aim is to get a top 5 starting position for the 1-hour main.

One of the pre-event favourites, back to back reigning European Champion Ronnefalk said while he has the speed and his Kyosho felt good every run it was his driving that let him down.  Feeling he got too hooked up in thinking about how he was driving he said it led him to make too many ‘driver errors’.  Prefering longer races saying he has always been better at racing others rather than racing the clock the 17-year-old said the laps time are there and he just needs to bring the consistency to be in the mix.

View the complete ranking after 6 rounds here (PDF).

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Video – Qualifying Rd5 Heats 1 & 2

McBride exploits drying track to head Kyosho 1-2

Kyle McBride exploited a drying track to TQ the fifth round of qualifying at the 1:8 Offroad World Championships, the Australian heading a Kyosho 1-2 from team-mate Elliott Boots. A wet start to the final day of qualifying in Sicily, the round starting with Group 11 to 14 and 1 back through 10, running together in Heat 5, the last of the fast groups, McBride and the 2012 Worlds Top Qualifier took advantage of an ever improving track to put their MP9s top of the times, a much anticipated TQ challenge from Agama’s Jeremy Kortz in Heat 10 on a completely dry track failing to materialise.  With the changing conditions producing a completely unpredictable Top 16, a third for the round sees the ever consistent Lee Martin move into the provisional TQ position counting four rounds with one qualifier left to run.  The man to beat on a dry equal conditions track bagged three TQ runs from the opening three rounds, Ty Tessmann would again suffer badly with the timing of his heat, the rain returning for the start of his Heat 3, leaving the Canadian with only the 23rd fastest time.

A driver who burst onto the scene at the 2010 World Championships finishing 4th in the Main, McBride said while he ‘got a bit lucky’ he felt it was still a good run.  The 18-year-old whose best previous round was 5th in Q1, said he put in a ‘smooth run with no mistakes’ and he was ‘pretty happy’ with how it worked out.  Switching from Pro-Line’s Suburb to Holeshot tyre in X3 compound for the conditions he said they suited the track well allowing him to set the fastest lap of the round. He added, the car was ‘good to drive’ as the reduced traction took away the risk of ‘tipping over’, a problem all drivers have faced in the dry on the highly abrasive track.

Admitting it was a much needed result, Boots said as a stand alone run it was a ‘pretty good’ drive from him.  The 21-year, who like McBride switched to Pro-Line’s Holeshot tyre, said he could have done with going down in diff oils on his Reds Racing powered MP9.  Leaving them the same as he was running in dry conditions they weren’t ideal for the conditions but knowing the track was getting faster he said he just concentrated on cruising around for a clean run.

Switching to his ‘traditional wet set-up’, Martin said while his MBX7R wasn’t perfect for the conditions he felt he drove well to make the most of the conditions.  Suffering one mistake when he took out the Live RC pitlane camera, he said the rest of the run was good.  While conditions are continuing to dry up, but with the treat of future rain, he said they will tweak the set-up they ran and have it ready should it be needed.

A title contender for the last three World Championships taking the win in 2008, Atsushi Hara would benefit hugely from the track conditions to claim the fourth fastest time.  Running in the same heat as McBride and Boots, the S-Workz driver summed up the run by saying ‘Slow man, but not too bad’.  Admitting that compared to the last three Worlds his target for qualifying this time round is low saying his Q5 time was only possible because he didn’t stop for fuel and on the slower track he ‘made less mistakes’.  Having tried to run with no stop in the dry,  fuel mileage from his OS Speed engine having been one of the Japanese ace’s strengths in the past, he said he has been unable to achieve it here, running dry after attempting it in Q3.  Targeting the 1/8 or possibly the 1/4 finals he said he still has faith that his long time & trusted mechanic Masayuki Miura will figure out something for the Mains.

Recording his first Top 10 qualifier, Renaud Savoya was relieved to feature towards the top of the times saying ‘finally’.  The Xray driver said you got to take what you can and he felt he made the most of the conditions for the timing of his heat.  Running in the same heat as Martin, the 3-time European Champion said that switching to a completely soft set-up made his Sweep Battle Star equipped XB8 a totally different race car adding he couldn’t have gone any faster for the conditions.

Serpent’s Mike Truhe, who was Top Qualifier at the 2008 World Championships, completed the Top 6. The American said it was ‘good’ run with the wet track feeling more normal to the style he is used to rather than the ‘nervous onroad style’ it has in the dry.  Changing the diff oils on his TOP powered Cobra 2.0 to what he called ‘normal’ he said this worked well for the conditions. Choosing Pro-Line’s Blockade tyre in M3 compound he said he probably would have been better to have run on a set of Holeshots.

Behind Truhe Italian National Champion Alex Zanchettin took his TLR to the seventh fastest time with World Champion Robert Batlle eight.  Batlle said he was happy to top his heat ahead of French National Champion Jerome Aigoin who he said is a master of such conditions.  Running a wet set-up the Mugen driver said one plus from the run was that he knows they have a good car should such conditions return.

‘Sucks’, that was Tessmann’s reaction to the round, the HB driver having hoped he could have wrapped up the overall TQ early. Finishing his heat second, 2-seconds behind Ryan Maifield, after suffering one spin out on the tile section, he said the track didn’t dry enough for a quick run but in terms of his D812 it felt good and well balanced. Having TQ’d Round 4 yesterday evening, a round that was also effected by rain, Xray’s Martin Bayer could only manage 48th.  The Czech driver said his car had good pace but he had two costly mistakes on the double before the straight without which he feels he would have ran a Top 10 time.

View the complete ranking after 5 rounds here (PDF).

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The Worlds according to Ruona – Wednesday Qualifying

So what did you think about that 4th round of qualifying? So here’s the question.. Are you more concerned about Jared Tebo escaping tech with the body holes or the track being rained on?

I get asked all the time….what tires should I run? This can be via text, email, FB message or just a straight up post to my wall. I always respond with; send me a photo of your track. A photo is worth 1000 words, so they say? Because, you see, the track really matters. This is something that you need to learn early in R/C.

It probably took me 3-4 club races when I started racing in October of 1990 to figure this out. Only back then you wanted a watered track because it gave the most grip. I was running Trinity tires on my JRX-T and I had 3 different tread patterns. Small, medium and medium large pins. If the track was wet I ran larger pins and if it was dry I would run smaller pins. I knew that when I was running the smaller pins on the dry track it was going to be loose anyways and be slow. However, as long as everyone else was slow I was ok with it.

As I got better and started racing 2wd I had more tire options and starting paying even more attention to the conditions. Back then, watering the track was by volunteers and you could basically do it whenever you wanted. One of the fast 2wd buggy guys at our club track GOAR, Mike Spein would “volunteer” to water the track just before his qualifier and lay down a nice coat of water just before his race. He would already have the 11×2 motor with 7 cells of power ready to go and….boom. Mike was clearing jumps, full throttle, throwing red dirt roosts on his way to a potential TQ. Mike knew how to setup, prepare and cater the track conditions to his setup. We were concerned in those days that Mike had a track advantage during a 90’s club meeting at the Greater Orlando Auto Racers track.

Fast forward about 5 years and we were racing the Winter Championships where previously we hoped to be in a qualifier in the morning on a fresh / damp track for the best shot at a TQ run. Something strange happened, the track crew decided they could no longer keep up with watering the track and they let it go dry. It wasn’t 20 minutes later and the track started looking funny…. It had this groove that started to form and we started seeing fast qualifiers coming out of guys that…..well, ah, normally, ah….ok, they aren’t fast and they were beating our previous runs. Then we noticed, holy crap, the next heat is even faster, then faster again. Pretty soon you run to the heat sheet and look who’s up in the last heats of 2wd modified. Ok, these guys have the best heat now and they are almost the last ones up to race. If you were lucky you had a late heat and the potential to lay it down on the fast track.

What could the guys do who were in the first heat of 2wd modified? All they could do is watch their times get beaten by a lap or more. Yes, a lap! First heat drivers would be throwing things in the pits, this is BS, I hate this track, what a joke, I’m going home, my grandma could TQ in the last heat…ugh whatever… The next year they would still have 400+ entries.

Fast forward to where we are at now. World Championships. Over time we have decided that it’s more fair to run the track dry and it’s more consistent heat to heat and allows all drivers to compete on a somewhat even playing field. We have gone so far as to add sugar and concrete to what previously used to be dirt surfaces just to up the level of consistency. It works, the sugar, the concrete and everything else we have done actually gives the best conditions for these types of events when you want the most fair shot at a TQ no matter what race you are in.

As far back as 1997, at the Worlds at the Ranch Pit Shop, they were using concrete to patch the track. I saw a hole forming at the end of the straight and Gil Losi Jr (I miss him at the races BTW) started making it larger and squaring up the hole. I say to him, hey what are you doing… He says I’m going to make some clean edges and fill the hole with concrete. My mind is blown….I’m thinking…it’s a dirt track just fill it with dirt. Jr says, concrete is the only thing that is close to what we actually are racing on after we have grooved up the track. I was skeptical until my qualifier and I was like holy crap, this freakin works. The hole was gone and we were hauling ass again… Jr and his concrete saved the day.

Today started just as any other qualifying round would with the track being in great condition. Fast times coming down as the heats get faster everything was on track for another showdown in heats 1-5 where the fast guys are. I see the cloud coverage was moving in and I go to Ryan’s pit and he’s already looking for different compounds. I think great, this guy doesn’t need any help he’s already on it. Heat 1 hits the track and Cavalieri, Martin Bayer and David Ronnefalk are running well. 16 lap pace going down in the 10:12 range. The race is on track and things are going ok. Then I feel a rain drop and I’m like oh, crap. I see the cars start sliding on the tile and I’m like these guys are screwed. I run back to the pits and talk with Ryan and then I run to the rental and pick out a set of used but softer tires for Ryan. I didn’t have the tire I wanted but this would have to do. Have to make the changes and decisions on the fly and things were happening quickly. I’m thinking F this crap we are going to TQ this round anyways when I find the right tire. Heat 1 gets 16 laps but not the greatest after the last minute got some water. Heat 2 hits the track and Tebo was running well but I couldn’t see his lap times until Maifield was sorted for heat 3. I run to see his best lap of 40 seconds. What the hell? A 40 out of Tebo as hot lap? Ugh….I watch for a minute and they have low grip on the tile sections and pretty much everywhere. I go back to the warmup area and Maifield is asking if he should even run considering the track is so bad and he says, with a clean run I’m lucky to be in the top 60 with the way things are going. Kevin and I convince Ryan to run anyways thinking ahead of potential problems of not running the qualifier.

Ty and dad prepped his car well with new front and rear clips (thinner diff fluid and standard settings) to the chassis and some Holeshots. You know what they were thinking? Blank this crap we are going to TQ this round anyways and show everyone who the man is. Heat 3 starts and Ty, Maifield and Wernimont all ran 39 second laps… I’m thinking, if it keeps drying (it wasn’t presently raining) and the race goes long enough these guys might have a shot at it. I videoed a few laps with Ryan and added to FB quickly. He was doing well with a so/so car and last second move on tires. Then more rain fell and all of a sudden the laps slooowed down… 41’s and 42’s….ugh. It was slow now and no shot at a decent run. Maifield finished off the qualifier with 15 laps 10:33 with no crashes and a great fuel stop. Impressive run for Ty, Wernimont and Maifield but a lap off TQ. Yes…..a lap short of TQ.

You know what Maifield said afterward? What a waste of time…I’m going to be 80th. We follow back to the pits after marshaling and everyone is still fired up about getting screwed on track conditions. Maifield’s rant goes something like Ive heard before. This is BS, I hate this track, what a joke, I’m going home, my grandma could TQ in that first heat…ugh whatever… I made that up but you get the idea…

See, no matter what you try and do there is nothing you can do about the single largest factor which is the track conditions. No matter how much of a badazz you are, you can’t control the surface, weather and conditions or the organization running the event. If you are running when the track sucks it’s not always your car, tires, driving, mental approach or good luck charm….is the track fast or not?

When it’s fast we say, keep your arms and legs inside the cab at all times…you are entering the rocket race. Sometimes there is no magical tire, no magical setup….you need to be able to read the track and know to have the appropriate equipment on during that time and let the chips fall where they may.

I just wish Mike Spein was here to water the track.

Photos of the day – Wednesday