Phend fastest in first seeding round

TLR’s Dakotah Phend set the fastest time of the opening round of seeding practice at the 1:10 4WD Offroad World Championship.  Running late into the evening at Hobby Action RC Raceway following the earlier delays caused by tyres,  Phend set the fastest 3-consecutive laps by half a second from Schumacher’s Broc Champlin who had set the pace over the four rounds of free practice.  Marcus Kaerup who completed the Top 3 as the fastest Team Associated driver just ahead of team-mate Davide Ongaro while pre race favourite Spencer Rivkin found himself 9th fastest just behind reigning defending champion Bruno Coelho.

Asked about his run, Phend replied, ‘the track was pretty good that one.  I made one small change and the car was better so I’m happy’.  Looking to the concluding run of Day 1 of the Championships, drivers set to put in a 14 hour plus day, Phend said he planned to leave his buggy unchanged and focus on a clean 5-minute run adding, ‘I don’t think it (the second seeding round) will be much faster so I should already have a good seeding’.

‘Really good’ was how Champlin summed up his first seeding run.  Running in group 13 of 14, he continued, ‘I have been running on the same old tyres so I am excited to try new tyres the next one.  There was only 1/2 a second between me ad Dakotah so it should be really close’.  On his buggy he said, ‘I have changed anything since the end of the third free practice run but the track is developing more.  It’s more polished and more abrasive in spots where you need more steering’.

Newly crowned 2WD and former 4WD European Champion Kaerup was pleased with his improved performance for seeding.  The Dane said he made new set-up change and the buggy was ‘perfect now’.  Asked about the changes the 15-year-old said, ‘we made a lot of little changes and they resulted in better rotation.’  Planning to leave the set-up unchanged for the second seeding round, he said ‘the driver now needs to step up his game’.

Struggling more than most with the long day after Craig Drescher woke the house they are sharing in the early hours of the morning as he gave coaching advise via a phone video link to his son’s soccer team who where playing a match back in England (which they won!),  Ongaro said things on track are ‘getting better’.  The Italian said both car and driver and improving and his plan for the next one is new tyres to break them in for tomorrow’s qualifying.  With Drescher highlight to the 1:8 World Champion a few lines where he could improve Ongaro said he’s looking forward to going to bed after a ‘long day’.

Eight fastest, Coelho found the his Xray difficult to drive in the first seeding round.  He said, ‘the last practice was good but the track conditions changed a little for seeding and our car was difficult to drive.  We had made a change to make it easier to drive but now its more difficult so maybe we need to try the opposite for the second round’.

Asked about his P9 pace, Rivkin said he was ‘tyre testing’ and had gathered ‘good info’ from the run.  Saying ‘new tyres are fast’, the Warm-up Race winner said he was now just getting his buggy charged up and ‘ready to roll’ indicating he was expecting a much improved pace in the final seeding round.

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Offroad Worlds is GO in Arizona

The IFMAR 1:10 Electric Offroad World Championships are finally underway in Arizona, USA.  With Hobby Action RC Raceway rising to the occasion of hosting the 19th running of the Championships with its brilliant presentation of the track and pits, drivers would find themselves having to wait a further 3-hours than originally scheduled for the first buggies to hit the track.  A Championship for which the slick tyres have been the big talking point it was the black rubber rings that would cause the delay.  With no limit on the number of front tyres for 4WD and an open tyre in 2WD, some drivers stocked up on the front AKA tyre leading other drivers short.  After meetings the decision was made to limit all drivers to 5 sets of front tyres.  Those who purchased more based on the no limit rule forced to return tyres for re-distribution for those in need.  While some drivers still only ended up with 3-sets, AKA are having extra tyres delivered to the track tomorrow and to ensure fairness all drivers are limited to running a maximum of three sets today.  With the first buggies taking to the green track at midday it would be Dakotah Phend, running in the 14th and top heat, who would top the timing screens over 3-consecutive laps from Ryan Maifield and Dustin Evans but with the track expected to change considerably over the next 3 rounds of practice little can be read into the times.

Summing up his first experience of the track Phend said, ‘I just drove around to get used to the track, nothing crazy as the track is going to change a ton’.  Asked his thoughts on the layout, the TLR drivers said, ‘there are a couple of sections that are pretty technical so I need to work on dialling those in’.  While Phend was fastest both on 3-consecutive laps and total time registering 14 laps, it was the Sworkz of Joern Neumann who had the outright fastest lap with a time of 19.792.

Reigning Champion Bruno Coelho would kick off his title defence with the 6th fastest time.  The Xray driver summed up the run as ‘good’ adding, ‘the first time is always weird as you want to go fast but you still need to try learn the track’.  Asked what he thought of the layout, the Portuguese driver replied, ‘It’s OK.  I won’t say I like it and I won’t say I don’t like it’.

The firm favourite to retain his 2WD title and also add a first 4WD title here at his home track, Spencer Rivkin would register the fourth fastest time.  The Team Associated driver was delighted to finally get down to the business of racing saying, ‘It’s finally started.  It’s go time’.  With many believing it will be difficult for his rivals to match his local knowledge of the unique Hobby Action dirt, Rivkin seemed surprised by the surface saying, ‘the track feels pretty different to normal but my last 7-laps were pretty good so we’ll build off that good foundation.  I have some stuff I want to try next run’.

Just ahead of Rivkin with his Associated, Reedy driver Dustin Evans said, ‘It’s nice to be finally out there after a lot of hanging around.  Myself and Spencer did buy a load of extra tyres so we didn’t have anything to do while all the sorting out was going on.  The delays means it’s going to be a long night’.  On his own performance he said ‘Top 3 is pretty good.  My pace was really good but the track is definitely different to normal and there are a few tricky spots out there’.

Ninth fastest just ahead of reigning 1:8 Buggy World Champion Davide Ongaro, Michal Orlowski was content with his opening run saying, ‘the track is far from what it will be later’.  The Schumacher driver added, ‘we decided to stick with our warm-up set-up for the first run and it was difficult to drive on the green track’.  Setting the second fastest lap time to Neumann, he continued, ‘the car is fast but we just need to make it easier to drive so we have some small tweaks we’ll make for the next one’.

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‘It’s going to be super hard’ – Coelho

This time last year Bruno Coelho successfully defended his Electric Touring Car World Championship title with a dominant performance in Italy.  His rivals were always battling for second place.  Tomorrow he will begin the defence of another of his World Championships when he looks to retain the 4WD Offroad title he won for Xray at their home track in Slovakia in 2019.  This time however one could say the Portuguese ace is the one on the back foot this time as the battle will take place at the home track of Spencer Rivkin on a surface that generally should favour US drivers over the Europeans.  Coelho is fully aware of this admitting, ‘It’s going to be super hard’.

Fresh from racing at the 1:8 Nitro Buggy European Championship last weekend in Spain were his race was cut short by a mechanical failure, Coelho together with the rest of the Xray team has spent the days leading up to these Worlds at SDRC in California trying to getting himself dialled back into 1:10 offroad.  A driver who represents Xray both in offroad and in onroad, winning the TITC and European Championship touring car titles in 2023, he said the switch to 1:10 offroad is always the most difficult one but he enjoys it as the category is still the ‘one I have so much to learn in’.

Attending the Worlds Warm-up Race at Hobby Action RC Raceway in Arizona back in May when the final results went well under the radar, Coelho said while there was an element of bad luck to him being in the B-Main, doing the race was never about results.  ‘We didn’t count it as a race but as opportunity to take the most information from it and learn’.  His first time to Hobby Action and experiencing its unique dirt surface, he said he has ‘never driven on such low traction’.  Describing the tyres as ‘weird slicks’, the team tried to learn as fast as they could staying on a few days extra after the race with one big take away being that the ‘small details are critical’.

Winning the first of his two 4WD Offroad World titles in 2015 on an astro turf surface at Yatabe Arena, the Hobby Action track presents a combination of surface and tyre Coelho says ‘you will find in no other part of the World but America’ and he knows this gives the US drivers ‘a bit of an advantage’.  Acknowledging the Team Associated 2WD car is ‘very good there’, he added, ‘we know our car perfectly, it is more we don’t know what the surface and what it will do on the day.  I will try to be on point’.

Despite the challenges of the surface, the Portuguese driver says he has the ‘same goal as every race – try to win’ adding the ‘result that comes is the result that comes’.  Unlike his rivals, Coelho would have preferred the event to be starting with the more traditional timetable of 2WD first so as to give him more time to learn the track surface and be more ready for 4WD.  While open about his preference for 4WD over 2WD, he said he is there to fight for the win in both categories.  Tomorrow (Sunday) will write the opening chapter of these World Championships as the four year wait finally comes to an end.

2023 IFMAR 1:10 Offroad World Championship coverage presented by Ruddog

The first of four World Championships Red RC will attend this year, our coverage from 1:10 Offroad in Arizona is being supported by Ruddog.  Founded in 2006 by Sven Rudig, himself an avid offroad racer, Ruddog is steeped in offroad racing history being a distributor for 31 times World Champion manufacturer Team Associated and iconic offroad tyre brand JConcepts to name but a few.  In addition, they have developed their own product ranges such as Ruddog Racing, a new line of electronics offered by the German company that already has a European Championship title to its credit in touring car.  Revolution Design Racing Products has established itself as a designer & producer of high-quality tuning parts and are popular upgrades among offroad racers.  Red RC’s trackside coverage of the 1:10 Offroad World Championship will kick off on September 10th with the start of the 4WD action and conclude on September 16th when the 2WD Champion is decided.

World Championship Schedule
4WD Buggy
September 9 – Check-in, Pit Setup, Tyre purchase and tyre tech
September 10 – Open Practice and 2 rounds of controlled practice
September 11 – 1 round of controlled practice and 4 rounds of qualifying
September 12 – 1 round of controlled practice, 1 round of qualifying and Mains

2WD Buggy
September 13 – Track Closed, 2WD Buggy Tyre purchase and tyre tech
September 14 – Open Practice and 2 rounds of controlled practice
September 15 – 1 round of controlled practice and 4 rounds of qualifying
September 16 – 1 round of controlled practice, 1 round of qualifying and Mains