September 30, 2025

Orlowski sets early pace at Offroad Worlds

Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski has set the early pace at the IFMAR 1:10 Offroad World Championship, the 2WD action getting underway on a lovely sunny morning here in Sydney, Australia.  With the first of the four timed practices more a break in of the new track layout and and opportunity for drivers to get their bearings, over half the track in the shade of the trees, the second practice was a much more telling run.  Orlowski would set the fastest lap with a best of 29.032 with the Team Associated of Davide Ongaro closest to that on a 29.112, that order the same over the best 3-consecutive laps.  On outright pace it was the Xray of David Ronnefalk who completed the Top 3 but over the full 5-minutes the early bragging rights went to newly crowned 1:8 eBuggy World Champion Marcus Kaerup with US drivers Aydin Horne, 1.6-seconds off, and Broc Champlin making up the Top3.

Asked to sum up his start to these World Championships, Orlowski said, ‘the track is really nice, it is a really nice layout for racing and for all levels of driver to enjoy’.  The former European Champion continued, ‘The surface is new but we have been here for the warm-up and we know how drastically the track changes as the day goes and also as the event goes on.  I mean it is going well now but the track will change so much for later in the event.  So we are not changing much and trying to just drive around but it’s nice to see we have good pace but it doesn’t mean anything at this stage.’  Backed by Elceram who just launched their new Generation 2 ESC yesterday evening, Orlowski said, ‘I am running it for the first time and it going really well so far, so I am happy about that.’  In terms of his buggy, he explained, ‘it is pretty much what we ran here at the Warm-up.  We stayed for many days after the race and put a lot of effort in to testing so at the minute we are running this with small tweaks here and there from what we learned through the Summer season racing and testing on dirt.’  With the Raw Speed supplied rear tyre controlled in 2wD, on the open front tyre Orlowski tried JConcepts Rips for the second practice.  Asked if that was his preferred choice he said, ‘it depends on the car set-up, driving style, and time of the day.  I think once you settle on the tyre it will be your choice for the whole day even when the lap times drastically change.  I just need to settle on one tyre which is now the JC but we are still looking at different options and seeing what’s best.’

The only defending 1:10 World Champion here, the reigning 2WD Champion Tater Sontag not making the trip Down Under, Ongaro summed up his first taste of the track by saying, ‘I have never been here so for sure the team helped me a lot with a good base set-up.  The second run was much better for me but I still need to work on the best line on the left side of the track because it was still a little bit wet.’  Asked about the track, the 1:8 Buggy World Champion replied, ‘the layout is good, lets say it is like an 1:8 track but smaller scale.’  Running the older 3-gear configuration on his Associated, for more weight in the rear, the Italian said for now he just needed to keep building his confidence with the track.  On front tyre choice, he has tried both pins and rips but with the conditions of each run very different however he said, ‘right now I prefer the rib, it was faster of course because of the track, so I will try the pins again and see which is faster.’

Returning to 1:10 Offroad World Championship action having not raced in Arizona 2-years ago as he only had a 1:8 programme with Mayako, summing up his first laps Ronnefalk said, ‘For sure the outright speed is there but I think the first round I was struggling a little bit.  I found some stuff I forgot to put on the car from the Warm-up like my best (set-up) here so for the second round I adjusted these things on the car.  I found that time around it was a lot better, obviously the track was a lot faster too, but I felt the car was now more similar to what I remember from July when I was here testing.  Definitely have the outright speed just didn’t have time to follow the temperature change because I was changing the car so didn’t go up in shock which I would have needed to do to be able to go at a more consistent pace.  I have the outright speed but wasn’t able to go close to that lap time too many times just because the car was moving around too much due to the shock oil being to soft.’   The reigning European 4WD Champion continued, ‘the track is going to be improving and I think is moving towards what works well for our stuff.’  Trying different front tyre options, he said he still hasn’t decided what to go for but he thinks we might see drivers using different tyre in the morning to when the track dries out.  ‘Obviously a lot of driver were on the Rips that time and I think we are going to see a lot of drivers choosing the Rips for when it is dry and then maybe pin tyres in the morning.’  In terms of his buggy compared to what he ran in pre race testing here, Ronnefalk said, ‘it is not too much different, a couple of small things that we learned we might need when I was here testing.  I came back to Xray and sent them the report and we talked about what stuff we needed to make to improve from our ideas.  There is not many parts at all, just small things here and there.’

‘The track layout is absolutely amazing, a nice flow in it when you hit the lines’ was how Kaerup described the new Hill RC Offroad track layout.’  He continued, ‘The car is really consistent, I think we are just lacking some one lap speed but I am pretty happy with how it is working it.’  Regarding front tyres, the Dane said, ‘we are working on the pin tyre, I know all of the other guys besides me, Donnelly and Jared are on the Rips or something that is not a pin tyre.  It’s just about feeling and I think we are going to get there.  I just think the pin is more consistent through out the run, I just feel it gets to darty with other tyres.  If it is necessary to run the other tyres we are going to do that.’   A previous visitor to the track having raced at the Pre-Worlds, asked about the track characteristics at different times of the day and if they are changing much for this he replied, ‘We are doing some stuff, we have the Donnelly’s and we are doing some great team work, he (Lachlan) is giving us a lot of information on how the track evolves so we have a great idea of what to change so I am sure we will be right there with great team work’.

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September 29, 2025

Racers settle in in Sydney ahead of 1:10 World Championship action

Officially the opening day of the IFMAR 1:10 Offroad World Championships, while there was no track action today in Sydney the pits were busy with drivers completing their registration, gluing tyres and making final preparations to their buggies ahead of tomorrow’s first laps on the new layout at the Hills Off Road RC track.  With the official duties of Day 1 concluding with the opening ceremony, a huge Australian team, which make up over half the entry kicking it off, and the United States, the biggest visiting nation, concluding the presentation of countries, drivers had plenty of talk about after their long journeys Down Under.  In terms of the longest journey time to get to here, this year the 40th anniversary of the first 1:10 Offroad World Championships, that honour goes to Xray’s Bartek Zalewski, the young Polish talent enduring a brutal 61-hour journey!  There were travel dramas for many drivers including 2-time 2WD World Champion Spencer Rivkin and Schumacher’s Broc Champlin, flooding in Phoenix causing their original flight to be cancelled.  Driving to LA to get a new flight, they finally arrived but without their original baggage.  Luckily carrying their buggies and radios as hand luggage, Rivkin was able to stop at his home to repack tools etc. from his 1:8 gear bags.  Newly crowned 1:8 Electric Buggy World Champion Marcus Kaerup is another without his baggage, which went awol on his stop over in Istanbul.  While a headache for Team Associated team manager Brent Theilke to have two drivers without their bags and some equipment, he said they won’t be stuck for anything while Kaerup joked he had plenty of team-mates he could ‘rob stuff from’.

Talking to the various team representatives, Sworkz a notable absentee of these Worlds, it seems teams have come with new parts more than all new cars.  Team Associated have their new the new 3-gear transmission for the 2WD, providing the new set-up to all the drivers using their buggy here.  Talking to Kaerup he said he hasn’t run the set-up before but he did try it in testing here previously in Lachlan Donnelly’s car and he liked how it felt.  In 4WD, Theilke said their buggy ‘just has some new parts’.  In the Schumacher camp designer Trish Neal said their 2WD has some modified front end parts which they previously ran at the Warm-up race.  Running a new 4WD prototype car then, that has since gone into full production, he said it’s nice to be able to hit the track with that standard car.  Asking Martin Bayer if they had anything new, the man responsible for Xray’s offroad programme, smiled and said ‘of course’ but gave little else details however they are using a different length chassis on the 2WD.  Mugen Seiki, whose efforts here will be led by Burak Kilic, are running their standard 2WD and will run their prototype/close to preproduction 4WD.  Speaking to designer Shin Adachi, he said the buggy is the same as what Kilic raced at the European Championship at the start of August at the Hudy Arena, adding they haven’t had much opportunity to test it since then as the don’t have any tracks like Hills Offroad RC in Japan.  Kyosho, who are here with factory Japanese driver Fuma Saito, have said they are running a pretty standard 2WD but designer Yoshiyuki Chikuba said they have brought a 4WD that features some new design developments, which we suspect are the basis of a new 4WD kit from the iconic Japanese manufacturer. 

Aside from the car manufacturers, Jason Ruona said after attending the warm-up race JConcepts saw some opportunities to rework their 2WD body for better aerodynamics to suit the dirt track conditions here.  With a wider rear end, the body is set to go into full production after the words.  Bringing a painted display example of the new body, that has now become a race body for Kaerup whose race bodies are in his missing baggage.  With the host club doing a great job presenting the track & facility, a huge marquee meaning plenty of space in the pits for all the drivers, the action gets underway in the morning (Tuesday) with the first round of free practice off at 07:30 local time

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