January 11, 2014

‘From Race Control’ – Day 2 at DHI Cup

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Today’s action at the DHI Cup is all about qualifying.  On the Onroad track drivers will complete three rounds of qualifying having run their opening qualifier last night at the Stadium Arena Fyn.  On the Offroad track, first up for the day is the remaining 2 rounds of 2WD Buggy qualifying before the drivers switch over to 4WD Qualifying which runs all four qualifiers today.  The line-up for tomorrow’s final will be determined by each drivers best 2 from 4 rounds of qualifying.

January 10, 2014

No surprises as Volker TQ opening DHI qualifier

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The opening round of qualifying threw up no real surprises as Team Yokomo’s Ronald Volker TQ’d the opening round of qualifying ahead of defending Champion Adrian Berntsen and Marc Rheinard.  Bringing the first day of action at the 14th running of the famous Danish event to a close Volker topped the first of the four scheduled qualifiers with a time of 25-laps in 5:11.289 with Bernsten just over 1 second adrift. Despite setting the fastest lap of Q1, Rheinard could not make a 25-lap run finishing with a time of 5:00.764.

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While it was pretty much plain sailing out front for Volker, Rheinard said his Tamiya is just sliding around with the lack of overall grip appearing to be getting worse for the German.  Admitting he is not far away from his arch rival and ETS title nemesis, he said unlike Volker for him to do that kind of pace every lap is just not possible.  Running his ‘soft’ TRF418 in Q1, the Much More powered car fitted with a more flexible chassis plate, he said for tomorrow’s second qualifier he might switch back to his ‘stiffer’ chassis again but first he plans to think about his set-up options overnight before making that decision.

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Setting the fourth fastest time Awesomatix factory driver Viljami Kutvonen described his first qualifier as an ‘ok start to the event’.  The rapid Finn said he changed his tyre preparation for the run and that was a wrong decision.  This resulted in him losing time at the start of the run but once the tyres came in he said the car was good and he feels the pace is there to mix it with both Rheinard and Berntsen. Planning to go back to the tyre prep he used in practice he said he will fine tune the set-up on his LRP powered A700 EVO as he feels he can get a little more speed out of him by getting a better balance between having more steering without bringing on traction roll.

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Serpent’s Marc Fischer kicked off his qualifying with the fifth fastest time.  The German said his Viper powered S411 was good in the beginning but a combination of mistakes that got bigger and bigger cost him a lot of time.  Feeling the car started to push as the run progressed he said without the mistakes he believes he is pretty close to Rheinard.  Not sure yet what he will change for the morning’s second qualifier he said he hopes to cure the car from developing as much understeer but ultimately he needs to cut out the mistakes for a good run.

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Completing the Top 6 was Xray team leader Alexander Hagberg.  The Swede said he had a couple of mistakes over the 5-minutes adding he is not entirely comfortable with his ORCA powered T4.  Planning to work on it tomorrow, when asked about the possibility of trying a similar set-up to Berntsen he said their driving styles are completely different as he found out when he previously tried to run the Norwegian’s set-up.

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In the Pro Stock class Oliver Franke got his debut for Awesomatix off to a great start by taking his A700 EVO to the fastest time in the opening qualifier.  The German TQ’d the round by just a little over 2-seconds from reigning ETS Pro Stock Champion Marek Cerny, the Xray driver having topped practice earlier in the day.  The Top three for the class which runs a controlled LRP X20 13.5T motor was completed by German driver Jan Ratheisky.

View the complete TC event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

January 10, 2014

Back to back TQ runs for Levin at DHI Cup

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New Team C signing Oskar Levin got his debut for his new sponsor off to the perfect start at the DHI Cup after the Swede claimed the opening two rounds of qualifying at the Danish event.  The result leaves the 19-year-old holding the provisional overall TQ overnight in Odense while some of his key rivals are under pressure to make the most of tomorrow’s remaining two qualifiers.  Defending Champion Joern Neumann finds himself only 4th overall, while Xray’s Martin Bayer is 10th and Schumacher’s Tom Cockerill is way down in 32nd after a DNF in Q1.

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Very pleased, Levin described his opening TQ run as a ‘good clean run’ but said a fresh set of tyres caught him out in Q2 and he had to work a lot harder to take that one. With his TM2 V2 a little edgy on the fresh set of handout Schumacher tyres he made an early mistake and the buggy got caught up on the piping.  Dropping him down the order he said after 2-minutes the tyres came in and the buggy was ‘really good like in Q1’ and getting his confidence back he was able to push really hard with no problems allowing him to work his way back to the front to take the round from Cockerill.

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Its a Team C 1-2 overnight at the DHI with Danish driver Kim Nielsen sitting second with his borrowed buggy.  Having only got the car this morning, driving it for the very first time in the opening practice, he straight away was very comfortable with the car which he described as being ‘easy to drive’.  Finishing second to Levin in Q1, in Q2 he took up the lead of the 5-minute run when the Swede had his early mistake but lost it again with a mistake of his own which saw the TM2 ending up on its roof and needing to be marshaled.  Despite this and a second mistake Nielsen still managed to post the third fastest time.

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Neumann, who is looking to make it three DHI wins from the 3-years Offroad has been part of the event, said his opening run to the third fastest time was ‘OK’ but ‘a little slow’.  Changing from a Cut Stagger front tyre to Mini Pins as he looked for more steering he said it was a bad call and resulted in a run with ‘too many mistakes’.  Sporting a bodyshell design this weekend that is less than pleasing on the eye, the EOS champion plans to revert to his previous tyre choice for Q3.

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Ahead & behind Neumann in the qualification ranking are the Associated’s of Swede Niclas Mansson and young Dane Jesper Rasmussen. Mansson sits 3rd overall but the 24-year-old felt while his first run to fifth was good his second run could have been better if he had not had problems with traffic.

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Rasmussen had a very strong & clean opening qualifier taking his C4.2 to the fourth fastest time.  On target for another strong run in Q2, the 15-year-old got hit by Neumann, the incident leaving him to finish up 9th quickest. Happy with the performance of his C4.2 he will leave his set-up as is as for Q3 and just focus on getting in an incident free 5-minute run.

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After his ‘car fell apart in Q1’ following some ‘bad mechanic work’ resulted in a hinge pin falling out, Cockerill said his Cougar KF was really good in the second one although the driver this time had some problems.  Having cleared it no problem throughout practice the British driver ‘crashed 3 to 4 times’ on the centre table top.  Confident that the ‘car is there’ in terms of pace, he said with a clean run it will be very tight among the top drivers and he is looking forward to tomorrow remaining two qualifiers.

View the complete Offroad event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

January 10, 2014

Volker ends practice on top

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Having set the pace in the opening round of timed practice at the DHI Cup Ronald Volker has gone on to secure the honour of top seed for qualifying after he again topped a much faster concluding round of practice at the Danish event.  Improving his time by one second over 3-consecutive laps, the German ace ran a time of 37.874 to head the ranking from arch rival Marc Rheinard and defending Champion Adrian Berntsen who improved his pace by a massive 2.1 seconds.

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Making changes to the rear end of his LRP powered BD7 2014, Volker said these improved the feeling of the car and more comfortable with it he was in turn able to push harder.  Declaring himself ‘very satisfied’ with how practice went the German ace, who is chasing a 5th DHI title, said ‘all looks good’ going into tonight’s opening qualifier.

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Switching from the stiff chassis ETS car he ran in the first timed practice to his softer chassis spare TRF418, Rheinard said both cars have the same problem with being difficult coming on to the main straight.  The 3-time World Champion said the difference between the two cars should be very noticeable but the lack of traction means you cant really feel any difference.  Having run the soft car with 400w shock oil in the front and 500w in the rear he will continue with the same car for the opening qualifier but with 450w oil all round.  Having run a new set of the controlled LRP tyres in the practice Rheinard said he will run the same set again for qualifying with the tyres so far proving to be faster on their second run.

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Berntsen said changing from a 4.5 to 5 turn motor made a very big difference with his Xray ‘much better’.  Having complained of his car being too aggressive in the first timed practice he said the reduced powered maybe made the car a little too easy to drive.  Planning to stay with the same motor he said he will most likely change his tyre preparation for Q1.

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Behind the Top 3, Finland’s Viljami Kutvonen took his Awesomatix to the fourth fastest time ahead of Martin Hudy.  Only 9th fastest in the first free practice Hudy said while he improved on his position, compared with the pace of Volker it was a terrible time.  Having changed his set-up for the final run he said it was as good as his base set-up he ran earlier in the day.  Planning to go back to that set-up for Q1 the Slovakian driver said there is better potential in the car with that set-up.  Ending up 7th fastest, team-mate Alexander Hagberg said his car was fast over a single lap but the consistency needs work.  The Swede said with a few small changes all should ‘be ok’ for qualifying.

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Completing the Top 6 was Serpent’s Marc Fischer, the German still not overly happy with his car.  Changes made after the opening timed practice made the car ‘better’ but he said it is still not fast enough.  For the first of his qualifying runs he will adjust the droop on the S411 along with running a softer shock oil in the hope of giving the car more high speed steering.

View our event image gallery here.

January 10, 2014

Neumann & Bayer top Offroad practice at DHI

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European Champions Joern Neumann and Martin Bayer have topped their respective title classes in practice at the DHI Cup in Denmark.  The third year the event has featured offroad competition, Neumann took his Durango to the fastest three consecutive laps in 2WD Buggy ahead of Schumacher’s Tom Cockerill and new Team C signing Oskar Levin.  In 4WD it was Xray’s Bayer who set the pace from Neumann who comes into the event looking to complete a DHI hat trick of wins in both classes.

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The master of indoor offroad racing on carpet, the reigning Euro Offroad Series Champion was pleased with his 4WD despite being only second fastest and not so happy with his 2WD despite topping the reseeding for the qualifiers.  Describing the 4WD times between him and Bayer as super close, he said his focus now is his 2WD Buggy which was only ‘OK’ suffering from an overall lack of traction.  Having run all four off his practice runs on the same set of handout Schumacher tyres the German ace said he hopes a fresh set of rubber for Q1 will bring some improvements.  With practice for both classes complete the remainder of today’s action will now switch to two rounds of 2WD qualifying.

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Bayer described his 4WD as ‘amazing’ adding the LRP powered XB4 was ‘super easy to drive’.  Having made no changes to the set-up since arriving in Odense, he said he couldn’t be happier with how the car is running.  Only 5th fastest in 2WD, he said without mistakes his XB4 2wd would be a lot faster and for qualifying he said all should be ok over 5-minutes once he cleans up his driving.

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Cockerill described his 2WD buggy as ‘really good’ despite traction being a lot lower than expected. Preparing his Cougar KF for high traction ahead of the event he said he had to do quite a bit of work to the car in the opening practices but he is now very happy with how it is working. Admitting to focusing on his 2WD when he should be working on his 4WD he said he feels he has a really good chance in 2WD where as in 4WD Neumann & Bayer are ‘untouchable’.  The Schumacher designer took his K1 Aero to the fourth fastest 4WD time.

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Third fastest in 2WD, Levin was delighted with the performance of his new Team C TM2 V2 which he said is ‘really stable but still fast’.  His first international race with Team C, the 19-year-old Swede said he is really confident with the new car.  Having only received his 4WD Buggy yesterday after it was shipped directly from his sponsor to the hotel here at the track Levin set the 6th fastest time.  He said unlike his 2WD it needs some work in terms of fine tuning the set-up.

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Heading the home Danish challenge in practice were Kim Nielsen who set the 3rd fastest time in 4WD and Torben Højfeldt who was 4th fastest in 2WD.  Making his race debut since signing for Team Associated, up & coming 15-year-old Danish driver Jesper Rasmussen set the 5th fastest time in 4WD.

View our event image gallery here.