Naoto fastest at halfway point of Worlds practice

With the first half of free practice for the 1:10 Electric Offroad world Championships complete in Chico, California, it is Team Yokomo’s Naoto Matsukura who set the outright pace posting a 28.629 lap of the Silver Dollar R/C Raceway.  The Japanese ace was one of only four drivers to break into the 28-second lap times in FP3 with Associated’s Ryan Maifield second fastest followed by Kyosho pairing David Ronnefalk and Jared Tebo.  In terms of total laps, and consistency, it was Associated’s Kody Numedahl who set the overall pace with 10 laps in a 4:56.156 with reigning champion Ryan Cavalieri the only other driver to clock up 10 laps.

A finalist at the 2011 Worlds, Matsukura was pleased with his pace saying a rear set-up change had made his mid-motored B-Max2MR easier to drive than in the opening two runs.  Running Proline’s Scrub front tyre, drivers having the option to run any front tyre in combination with the controlled rear Proline Suburb, the 3-time 1:12 Onroad World Champion said he will make a further small tweak to the rear end.  Liking the high traction, something the World class onroad driver would be used to, he said having in the past struggled with bigger jumps he is really liking the big jumps here with his confidence getting the landings right growing every run.

Summing up his 10 lap run, Numedahl said his C4.2 was ‘consistent but not a rocket ship’.  The Team Associated designer said his main focus over the three practice rounds was on getting the right tyre balance.  Running JConcepts Dirtweb on the front in FP3 he said for the fourth practice he will try the same tyre but with a closed cell insert as he looks to get the balance between the buggy being too easy or too hard to drive which he added is a fine line on the high traction sugar treated track.

Team-mate Maifield, who ran a 28.714 lap time, said he is still ‘battling some things’, struggling in particular with his slipper set-up, but overall summed up his early runs as ‘not bad’.  With Proline Scrubs proving the front tyre of choice, Maifield like Numedahl is running JConcepts on the front of his Reedy powered mid motored C4.2, the Arizona ace choosing orange compound Barcodes.  Another of Associated’s title contenders, Neil Cragg, who had a strong opening run, hasn’t had much luck since.  In his second practice the British ace had a servo horn break while in FP3 his slipper came loose but the former World Champion said when his C4.2 was running it was ‘working pretty good’.

Current European 1:8 Nitro Offroad Champion Ronnefalk was very happy with his RB6 adding that it was the driver that needed to be worked on and not the mid motored buggy.  Switching to a geardiff which gave him more forward traction and installing a rear sway bar which improved stability through the sweeper, a set similar to which he ran last week during his testing at Norcal Hobbies, he said the buggy feels ‘awesome’.  Very comfortable with the jumps he said the flat section in front of the drivers stand is a weak point and will be his focus for the remaining 3 free practice runs.

Making changes to his diff for FP3, Tebo said the run didn’t start well with the diff feeling like it was broken but by the end of the run it had sorted itself out with his Orion powered RB6 feeling really good by the end of the 5-minutes.  Running the same set of Proline Scrub front tyres in his three runs, he said they are now done and he will fit a new set for FP4 along with making a small change to the rear shock set-up.

Fastest in terms of overall pace in the opening practice, Pre Worlds race winner Ty Tessman didn’t have a good 3rd practice. The Canadian suffered from a lack of bottom end and was also unhappy with a front spring change he made on his Kyosho RB6.  For FP4, he will change his speedo settings as well as going up a motor along with reverting to springs he ran in his earlier runs.

Posting the fastest lap time in FP1, TLR’s Darren Bloomfield suffered a lack of brakes in his lastest run but said his biggest problem was his set-up.  The British driver said having been very dificult to drive he went too far with the set-up and now he has a buggy that he could ‘drive around the track all day without any mistakes’ adding its ‘too slow’.  Looking to ‘get speed back’ he will try to make it a little more difficult to drive by changing the position of his front shocks.

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Practice finally gets underway at Worlds

After a 7-hour delay in order to allow the track to dry after heavy rain two days ago, the 15th 1:10 Electric Offroad World Championships finally got underway at Silver Dollar R/C Raceway in Chico, California, with the track coming in for a positive reaction from drivers.  While the opening of the seven practice rounds that make up the Day 1 schedule was very much a track cleaning exercise, it was HB’s Ty Tessman who posted the fastest run time while in terms of outright pace its was TLR’s Darren Bloomfield who set the bench mark with a 29.350.  For reigning Champion Ryan Cavalieri it was not a great start to his title defense as he suffered a rear suspension arm failure early in his run.

The winner of the Pre Worlds race, Tessman said his opening run ‘seemed pretty good’ adding that the biggest obstacle was the differing levels of traction with some spots having a lot more than others.  Running a mid motored Kyosho RB6 he said the buggy ran well with just a few small tweaks planned for FP2.  Commenting further on the patchiness of the track, the dark spots having super high traction, he said he hoped ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying they will sugar the light areas to give the track a most consistent overall traction.

Unable to contest the last World Championships despite winning the Pre Worlds for the 2011 event in Finland, Bloomfield said his TLR22 was a little twitchy. Hard to drive he said he had to be very careful with his steering inputs.  Feeling the front end was too soft he said he will stiffen it up for his next run as well as changing the shock locations.

Setting the second fastest lap was TLR team-mate Dustin Evans who described his run as ‘awesome’.  Running his TLR22 in mid motor configuration he said the buggy felt really good and he plans to run it as is for the second practice as he expects the track to just get better and better each run and the traction levels to become more consistent around the track.  Describing the track as ‘a lot of fun’ to drive he said he really likes the tabletop-triple after the main straight.  Evans’ team-mate & winner of the 2WD US National Championships here back in August, Dakotah Phend said his run was ‘OK’ after he had a problem with his rear wing on the first lap.  With the rear wing on his rear motored TLR22 hanging down, the 16-year-old said while it effected the buggy’s performance he was still able to use the 5-minutes to learn the track.

Cavalieri, who is chasing a 5th Offroad World title, said he just got a bad wishbone, the centre supports of his rear right side arm breaking away and forcing him to pull up early.  He said it broke just as he was settling into his groove adding that from the running he did get he likes the track adding that it is ‘pretty technical’ with a number of ‘good jumps’.  Team-mate Ryan Maifield was happy with his opening run adding that his gearing was a little wrong but while the track will be hard to overtake on the layout is fun.  Just a little over 2-seconds off Tessman, former World Championship top qualifier said despite the ‘1000% grip’ his Associated C4.2 ran well and he was happy with his opening performance.  Planning to leave the set-up as is and wait for the track to come in he will make a slipper adjustment as well as changing his speedo profile.

Kyosho’s big title hope Jared Tebo said his mid motored RB6 felt really good despite the traction levels being ‘sketchy’.  In terms of the layout the former 4WD Champion, who would dearly love to win the 2WD title, said the track was ‘awesome’ and he plans to stick with the same set-up for his next run.  Team-mate David Ronnefalk, also declared himself pleased with his first run saying he just used the time to learn the track.  Only his second time to race electric offroad in the US, the first time being the Pre Worlds, he said he is pretty confident with the high traction due to his experience of racing on indoor carpet in the likes of the Euro Offroad Series but added that the levels are less consistent on the dirt.

Of the other key European drivers Team Durango’s Joern Nuemann said for a first run his performance was ‘maybe OK’.  The reigning European Champion said looking at the track before the run it looked like traction wouldn’t be so high but once on track he said it was ‘crazy high’.  Describing the 180 degree corners as a little difficult the German said the rest of the track had a ‘good flow’.  American team-mate Carson Wernimont had a good run being one of only half a dozen drivers to post a 29 second lap.

Multiple European Champion Lee Martin said he likes the track but said he needs to make his mid motored Tamiya easier to drive.  Planning to stiffen it up for FP2 the British driver will also add weight to the front end.

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‘From Race Control’ – Day 1 of 2WD Buggy

UPDATE (10:30 local time) – Due to the track having not fully dried the start has been now put back a further 2-hours to 13:00 local time.  We have been informed too by Masami that a recommendation has been made that timed practice be determined over 2-consecutive laps as the lap times are expected to be in excess of 30-secs.  The second delay to the start of the event means Day 1 will run under flood lighting so as to allow them get fully through the already reduced 7 rounds of practice.

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New to our event coverage we will post a short update under the heading ‘From Race Control’ at the start of each day giving a short run down of what lies ahead for the drivers.  Today is the first day of action at the 15th IFMAR 1:10 Electric Offroad World Championships here in Chico, California with seven 5-minute practice rounds on the schedule, down from the 10 rounds originally planned.  Due to heavy rain two days ago which resulted in the Silver Dollar RC Raceway track surface requiring to be repared and sugar treated, the start of the first day of 2WD action has been delayed until 11:00am local time to allow the track to dry.

Getting an update this morning just before 9am from r/c legend Masami Hirosaka, who is here as official race referee alongside Steve McLaughlin, he said he is confident that they should be able to get underway at the rescheduled 11am start time.  The multiple former World Champion said he expects the track to be ‘very dusty’ in the opening practice round with the plan being for track staff to clean the track with leaf blowers in the 1-minute between each heat adding this will only be done for FP1.  The closing practice of the day, set to start around 17:45, will be controlled with each driver’s 3-consecutive laps counting towards the only reseeding of the heats for tomorrow’s qualifying action which starts with one more controlled round of practice.

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Track Focus – Silver Dollar R/C Raceway

Track Name – Silver Dollar R/C Raceway
Owner – A-Main Hobbies
Country – USA
Location – Chico, California
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt
Previous key events hosted – 2013 US Electric Offroad Nationals

The 15th running of the IFMAR 1:10 Electric Offroad World Championships takes place over the next 7-days in Chico, California, at the Silver Dollar R/C Raceway which is only in existence a year & a half.  Owned by A-Main Hobbies, the track came about simple out of the passion for racing of company founder Kendall Bennett who 7-years ago set up the now giant online r/c retailer.  Having catered for the electric racing community with an indoor track that took up part of the A-Main Hobbies warehouse, which is located just a short distance away, Bennett wanted to create a new facility that would allow the hosting of major events.  Talking to A-Main Hobbies team manager Marty Korn about the facility he said his boss went all out making a ‘huge investment’ never with the intention to make money from it but to give racers a great facility to race at.

Landing the World Championship and ‘fortunately’ the US Nationals, Korn said preparations have been intense with daily meetings of between 17-25 staff members over the last four months.  Since hosting the Pre Worlds he added it has been a very step learning curve for the ‘giant staff’.  Its been all hands on deck pointing out that staff have embraced new roles for the Worlds, giving the example that one of their Customer Service Managers has been tasked with looking after the Tyre Tech area, continuing that every aspect of the event has been gone through ‘so many times’ to ensure everyone knows their role to ensure a successful event. Looking to the future the annual Labor Day Shootout will be one of the track’s main events but looking longer term Korn said their goal is to host the 2016 1:8 Offroad World Championships.

Since hosting the Pre-Worlds, the track is now on it fourth layout change with former Norcal Hobbies owner Kevin Jelick the man responsible for designing the track which will decide the 2013 World Champions.  Unfortunately yesterday (Saturday) it rained heavily in Chico but Korn said it didn’t hurt the track only the finished surface.  A ‘sugar track’, he said they will have to prepare the surface for tomorrow’s (Monday) opening day of practice.  Having evolved the process of sugaring the track since the Pre-Worlds he said they now have the method ‘dialed’ with the plan to put the sugar down just after sunset follow a full rolling of the track.  As a result the start to Day 1 of the event has been delayed by 3-hours and will see practice reduced to seven runs for the day, the last one of which will be the first round of controlled timed practice.  For the record the Pre-Worlds, a very different and more open track to what awaits drivers tomorrow, it was HB’s Ty Tessman who won both classes, while at the ROAR Nationals held in August he took the 4WD win while TLR’s Dakotah Phend taking the 2WD title.

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