January 11, 2014

Chassis Focus – Ronald Volker

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Chassis – Yokomo BD7-2014
Motor – LRP
Battery – LRP
ESC – LRP
Radio/Servo – Sanwa
Tires (Handout) – LRP

Four times DHI Cup champion Ronald Volker is running the new 2014 version of the successful BD7 platform in the beautiful “all black” look, equipped with a Mazdaspeed6 body from Protoform. The main new features are the new ackermann that is meant to give more steering and a different motor mount designed to vary the flex of the chassis to make the car more aggressive. The new parts now also allow for superfine adjustments thanks to smaller possible adjustment steps.

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January 11, 2014

Levin 2WD Top Qualifier at DHI Cup

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Oskar Levin has got his 2014 season & his new sponsorship with Team C off to the best start possible by securing the overall TQ honours for 2WD Buggy at the DHI Cup.  Having TQ’d both of yesterday’s opening qualifiers in Denmark giving him the provisional overnight TQ honours, TQ runs from defending champion Joern Neumann in Q3 and Schumacher’s Tom Cockerill in Q4 meant the Swede remained top of the ranking.  Cockerill will start tomorrow’s triple leg finals from 2nd with Neumann’s Durango set to line up third.

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Delighted to be Top Qualifier on his international race debut with Team C, Levin said he just did his own thing today and it paid off.  Going into Q3 he said his aim was just to go for a safe run and apart from two bobbles he was happy overall with his run to the second fastest time behind Neumann. While this put Neumann in strong contention to deny Levin the overall TQ, should the German be able to repeat it in the final qualifier, the 19-year-old stuck to his game plan for Q4.  Knowing it would give him a slower car but thinking ahead to the finals he fitted a new set of the controlled Schumacher rear tyres to his TM2 V2 so as to break them in for main event. While Neumann looked threatening for the first two minutes, a mistake by the European Champion gave Levin what he described as the ‘perfect start with Team C so far’.

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TQ’ing the final round, Cockerill said he was pretty happy although the Top Qualifier of the Euro Offroad Series season opener said he would obviously prefer to be starting as No.1 tomorrow.  Very happy with his Nosram powered Cougar KF, the British driver said it took a while to get the set-up right but he got there in the end.  Planning to just freshen up the buggy for the finals he believes there is good opportunity for overtaking due to there being no grip roll issues meaning its should be possible to throw down the inside for a pass.

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Reverting back to Schumacher’s stagger front tyre having struggled in Q2 on Mini Pins, Neumann said Q3 was a good run but in Q4 he just pushed too hard.  Also improving his Orion powered DEX210 for today’s qualifiers by running heavier diff oil, he said he just went for the TQ in Q4. While the first 2-minutes went well he eventually pushed over the limit resulting in a number of mistakes that left him only 7th fastest for the round.  Looking to maintain his 100% winning record at the DHI Cup having won the event since offroad was introduced in 2012, Neumann thinks overtaking will be difficult and that it will be down to who does the least amount of mistakes.  Back to back champion of the carpet based Euro Offroad Series, he also feels the Team C and Schumacher has an advantage on this year’s DHI track due to the fact that their motors are mounted further towards the middle of the chassis compared to his Durango.

2WD Buggy A-Main Grid
1. Oskar Levin (SE) – Team C – 310 pts
2. Tom Cockerill (GB) – Schumacher – 308
3. Jörn Neumann (DE) – Team Durango – 307
4. Kim Nielsen (DK) – Team C – 305
5. Jesper Rasmussen (DK) – Team Associated – 301
6. Jonas Kaerup (DK) – Team Associated – 299
7. Niclas Månsson (SE) – Team Associated – 299
8. Villalba Zacarias (ES) – Team C – 298
9. Martin Bayer (CZ) – Team Xray – 298
10.Thomas Andersson (SE) – Schumacher – 297

View the complete Offroad event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

January 11, 2014

Volker continues to reign at DHI

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Having topped practice and then TQ’d the opening round of qualifying yesterday, Ronald Volker continued his reign at the 14th running of the DHI Cup by kicking off Day 2 of the Danish event by topping the second of the four qualifiers.  The Team Yokomo ace took the round once again ahead of Team Xray’s Adrian Berntsen with Serpent’s Marc Fischer completing the Top 3.  Exiting the boundaries of the track twice as his Tamiya understeered off the track, Marc Rheinard failed to complete the full 5-minutes.

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‘Could not be any better ‘ is how Volker summed up his run which was over 4-seconds faster than his opening qualifying time of last night.  His first outing in Europe with Yokomo’s new BD7 2014, he said after traction rolling during his warm-up laps he knew traction was high and so he adjusted his driving accordingly. With no such issues over the 5-minutes he said the car performed perfectly.

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Summing up his qualifier as ‘pretty good’, Berntsen said he struggled a little at the start something he is putting down to his tyre preparations. Once the tyres on his T4 2014 came in, the reigning champion said he was very happy & confident with the car allowing him to close the gap to Volker for a time before making a mistake on the final lap which lost him over 1-second.  ‘Happy with second’, he plans to change his tyre preparation for Q3 after consultation with his father on what to do differently.

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After a error filled run yesterday, Fischer said both his driving and his S411 where better today.  Set-up changes made the car better in the early part of the run better but after the 3-minute mark the German once again had to contend with understeer.  Describing the run as ‘much cleaner’, for his next run the German will change to a softer front spring as well as switching from LRP to CS tyre additive to evaluate if there is any key difference between the two that might help cure his understeer.

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Having reverted to his practice set-up Alexander Hagberg was a little happier this morning as he took his ORCA powered Xray to the fourth fastest time.  The Swede said the car was now ‘OK’ but the run just contained too many small driver mistakes.  With a clean run he said he believes a Top 3 run is possible and going forward he is much more confident about the remaining two qualifiers.

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Awesomatix’s Viljami Kutvonen said changes to his A700 EVO had improved the car over how it ran in Q1 but the second run was let down by two driver errors.  Eventually posting the 5th fastest time, the Finn said he is undecided as to whether to make any further tweaks to his set-up ahead of Q3.

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Germany’s Tim Benson completed the Top 6.  Driving his LRP powered Xray with the same set-up as he ran yesterday when he posted the 7th fastest time, he said his focus for the run was to do 5-minutes with no mistakes.  Achieving that the 23-year-old said having notched up a second safe run he will use the third qualifier to try a set-up to try and gain more in corner steering.

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Running the same car as in Q1, Rheinard appears be at a loss as what to do to cure his understeer problems which are clearly visible as the former 3-time World Champion makes his entry onto the main straight.  The German said his two flying exits from the track were a result of him trying, unsuccessfully, to drive through the understeer.  For Q3 he is undecided as to whether to switch to his stiffer ETS chassis or make some radical set-up changes to his ‘softer’ TRF418.

View the complete TC event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

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.