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Volker sets early pace at DHI Cup
Ronald Volker has set the early pace on the opening day of the DHI Cup in Denmark, the Team Yokomo driver topping the first timed practice from last year’s event winner Adrian Berntsen. A four time winner of the event, Volker posted a time of 37.377 for his 3-fastest consecutive laps compared to Berntsen’s 37.423 with Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard third over 3/10ths of a second further a drift.
Running his BD7 2014 for the first time in Europe, having debuted the car late last year at the Yatabe Arena in Japan, Volker summed up his practice runs by saying it was ‘going good so far’. ‘Still working on some details of the set-up’, the Euro Touring Series Champion said that despite three rounds of practice now completed, the day kicking off with two 5-minute free practice runs, the traction levels are still low but he expects them to increase as the day goes on.
The defending Champion having ended Volker’s hunt for a fourth straight win of the DHI Cup last year, Bernsten said his Xray is fast over a single lap but struggling over 5-minutes. Describing his car as ‘too aggressive’, he will motor down for the second timed practice going from a 4.5 to a 5.0 ORCA motor. Hoping the traction will improve for the run the Norwegian plans to leave the chassis set-up as is. His first international win, asked if this years race brought any extra pressure he said he was just treating it like any other race. Having recently just started college, where he will study Business Management, he said this has curtailed his racing activities. Having not raced since the opening round of the 2013/14 ETS back in November, he said if he can come away with a Top 5 finish on Sunday evening he will be happy.
Rheinard described his performance as ‘Average’. A 2-time winner of the DHI Cup, he said his TRF418 is not consistent. Having run two cars during the free practice runs he chose his ETS car for the first timed run but he said the lack of traction made it hard to differentiate what the key differences were. Sharing similar thoughts to Volker that the track layout is a little too open, he said for the next & final practice he does not know whether to go with running the other car or to make changes to the set-up of his ETS car which could be a risk should the traction suddenly come up.
Setting the fourth fastest time was Viljami Kutvonen. The factory Awesomatix driver described his A700 EVO as ‘OK’ adding that with a little more steering he was confident of a good run. Having struggled last year with some of the bumpy areas on the track he said with the new car he is no longer affected by these. Planning to adjust his front set-up of the Russian designed car’s unique dampers, he said this should give him the extra steering he needs to put him in the mix.
Alexander Hagberg took his Xray to the 5th fastest time, the Swede describing his run as ‘not too bad’. Having switched over to a set-up used by Martin Hudy when the Xray designer was faster than him at the Charity Race in Italy, Hagberg said he has changed very little on his car since the opening practice preferring instead to wait for the traction to come. Hoping the track comes to him he said he was feeling confident about the weekend ahead.
Completing the Top 6 was Danish National Champion Patrick Hornum. The Serpent driver, who started the event with a brand new S411, described the car as ‘hard to drive. Planning to stiffen up his set-up for the final practice he hopes this will give him a better feeling with the car.
Team-mate & lead Serpent factory driver Marc Fischer was just 2/100ths off the Dane. The German said his Viper powered S411 is a little loose in the rear. Planning to go from 2.5 to 3mm toe he will also change front spring which he said while not different in hardness should make it easier to drive. Also racing in the offroad part of the event, running Serpent’s 2WD Spyder, asked about how that was going he said he had no idea what he was doing. Having raced 4WD Buggies over 10-years ago, he said 2WD is totally different and so after each of his runs he goes to Joern Neumann to find out what he needs to be doing to the car which he emphasised he is ‘just racing for fun’ this weekend.
Former top international Danish racer Steen Graversen completed the Top 8 with his self modified belt driven Awesomatix followed by Martin Hudy and fast Swede Magnus Vässmar.
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Track Focus – DHI Stadium Arena Fyn
Host Club – Odense R/C Minirace
Country – Denmark
Location – Odense
Venue – Stadium Arena Fyn
Track type – Temporary
Surface – Carpet (Onroad), Carpet & Wood (Offroad)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise (Onroad), Clockwise (Offroad)
Previous races hosted – 14
An event that has become the traditional international season opener for electric touring car, this year is the 14th running of the famous Danish event. Created by Kim Moldt Bendiksen who named the event after his r/c business Dansk Hobby Import (DHI), the first event took place in 2001 when it was won by now AME/ORCA frontman Andreas Myrberg. Starting out more as a club race in a small hall, the event quickly established itself with international teams and drivers with an impressive list of past winners that includes three World Champions – Atsushi Hara, Jilles Groskamp and Marc Rheinard. Moving to its current location in 2008, the impressive Stadium Arena Fyn, the event has since doubled up with 1:10 Electric Offroad being added in 2012. The running of the two different categories has resulted in the creation of a rather unique temporary track by the Odense R/C Minicar Club, drivers sharing the driver’s stand standing back to back as they run on their respective onroad or offroad tracks.
A club of around 55 members, they are normally found racing outdoors in the Summer just 5-minutes from the Arena while for their Winter club racing the have a hall they use for both onroad and offroad 20-minutes away. Acquiring such an impressive and large venue, that would under normal circumstances be prohibitively costly to rent for an r/c event the club in fact gets free use of the venue. With the city of Odense, the third largest in Denmark, providing funding for the building of the Arena part of the deal is that a select number of days are made available for local organisations such as the r/c club to hold events.
While initially the event was run by Kim, as the event grew each year so did the input of the Odense club who would eventually take over the full organisation of the event. With the DHI title having become so established with drivers & teams the club have maintained the name. Headed by Ulrich Rasmussen, it takes a crew of around 25 volunteers to build the double track set-up. The addition of offroad to the event came about after a slow down in touring car entries and 2014 is looking like a come back event with both events attracting a good international entry.
In terms of the track layouts defending offroad champion Joern Neumann described the layout of the medium sized track as nice but after early practice the Durango driver said the traction is loose particularly on the black coloured carpet sections compared with the traditional grey indoor racing carpet jumps. The driver with the most DHI wins in Touring Car, having won the title first in 2007 and then three years in a row from 2010, Ronald Volker described the track as ‘fast and flowing’. The Yokomo ace said the layout is ‘maybe a little too wide open’ but that should make for close racing. In terms of traction he said based on previous experience of the event he expects it to be ‘high’.
A DHI Cup fact – 5 drivers have contested all 14 DHI Cups. Two of those are two of Denmarks top former international drivers Steen Graversenn and former European Touring Car Champion Jonas Kaerup. The other three drivers never to have missed a year of racing are Soren Jeppesen, Soren Boy Holst and Jens Otte Frederiksen.
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‘From Race Control’ – Day 1 at DHI Cup
Red RC kicks off its 2014 event coverage this weekend at the DHI Cup in Odense, Denmark. Now in its 14th year, today’s opening day of action will see two rounds of free practice, followed by two timed practices which will determine the seeding of the heats for the qualifying. A dual discipline event with offroad having been added to the long running international touring car event in recent years, Day 1 of the event will end with a single round of qualifying for the touring car drivers and two round of qualifying for the 2WD offroad competitors.
Video – 2wd, 2wd SC & 4wd A-main Leg 3
A3 wins secure runner-up spots for Rivkin, Gibson & Evans
With Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield having wrapped up the overall wins early in A2 at the JConcepts Indoor National Series Final the final leg of Mains was all about deciding who would finish runner-up in the 3 main classes at the Hobby Plex event. First up was the 4WD Buggy encounter and with Top Qualifier Maifield sitting out the race it was the No.2 Associated of Nick Gibson who would lead away the field. Starting directly in front of World Champion Steven Hartson the 17-year-old would lead from start to finish, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process, to take the win ahead of TLR’s Dustin Evans to claim second overall. Second helped Evans to complete the podium in Omaha as he tied on points with team-mate JR Mitch who had to settle for fourth overall. A though final leg, the Californian finishing the 5-minute encounter a distant 5th, together with a non finish in A1 left Hartson only 5th overall.
The drive of the final round of mains came in 2WD Buggy with young up & coming Arizona talent Spencer Rivkin taking an easy win over his rivals to take the runners-up spot behind his mentor Maifield in the blue ribbon class of electric offroad racing. Having wrapped up the overall win in 2WD Stock Buggy in A2, starting from 5th on the grid the 15-year-old worked his way to the front again enjoying a good battle with Top Qualifier Taylor Larsen, the two youngster showing up their more established rivals. In the end Rivkin would take the leg from TLR’s Cody Hollis and Associated’s Chad Due. Unfortunately for Larsen he would plummet down the order on his final lap to finish 7th leaving him lose out on a tie break with Hartson for the final podium position.
In the last of the 2WD Short Course encounters, Evans’ No.2 22SCT led away the field but he would drop to third with a mistake allowing Matt Olson to the front. The pair battled it out for a number of laps with the MIP driver looking like he might pull off the win until a late mistake allowed Evans through for the win with three laps remaining. Olson, who would take the overall win in 4WD Short Course, would finish second allowing him to compete the podium behind Maifield and Evans.
Elsewhere in Mod Truck Team Losi Racing’s Cody Hollis took his 22T to the overall win backing up his A2 win with a second victory in A3. Overall A1 winner Cole Tollard would finish second with Associated Team Manager Brent Theilke completing the podium.
2WD Buggy Overall Result
1.(3) Ryan Maifield – Team Associated – 200 pts
2.(5) Spencer Rivkin – Team Associated – 199
3.(2) Steven Hartson – Team Associated – 195
4.(1) Taylor Larsen – Team Losi Racing – 195
5.(7) Cody Hollis – Team Losi Racing – 193
6.(6) Kyle Skidmore – Team Associated – 192
7.(10)Allen Horne – Team Associated – 191
8.(8) Chad Due – Team Associated – 191
9.(4) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 189
10.(9)Alex Sturgeon – Team Losi Racing – 189
4WD Buggy Overall Result
1.(1) Ryan Maifield – Team Associated – 200 pts
2.(2) Nick Gibson – Team Associated – 198
3.(5) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 197
4.(4) JR Mitch – Team Losi Racing – 197
5.(3) Steven Hartson – Team Associated – 195
6.(6) Matt Gosch – Team Associated – 194
7.(10)Mitchel Gardner – Kyosho – 192
8.(8) Chad Due – Team Associated – 190
9.(7) Aydin Horne – Team Associated – 188
10.(9)Carter Flotron – Caster – 185
2WD Short Course Overall Result
1.(1) Ryan Maifield – Team Associated – 200 pts
2.(2) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 199
3.(3) Matthew Olson – MIP – 197
4.(5) Steven Hartson – Team Associated – 195
5.(8) Cody Hollis – Team Losi Racing – 194
6.(6) Taylor Larsen – Team Losi Racing – 191
7.(7) Mack Vanderbeek – Team Associated – 190
8.(4) Alec Walters – Team Losi Racing – 190
9.(10)Mike Maldonado – Team Durango – 186
10.(9)David Fast – Team Associated – 186
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