Volker, Kobbevik & Neumann set pace on Day 1 of MIBO International

It is the biggest MIBO International race yet and kicking off the third edition of the combined Czech onroad & offroad indoor event it was Ronald Volker in Modified Touring Car, Daniel Kobbevik in 2WD Buggy and Joern Neumann in 4WD Buggy who set the pace in free practice.  With both tracks opening up to racers late afternoon, to give them the Friday morning to travel to the Sports V Hotel in Hrotovice, Day 1 of the event consisted of 5 rounds of practice.  On the black carpet onroad track it was the Mugen Seiki of inaugural MIBO Champion Volker and the Schumacher of defending Champion Michal Orlowski would were the bench mark, Yokomo’s Christopher Krapp completing the Top 3.  On the grey carpet offroad track, onroad & offroad drivers standing back to back on the central drivers stand, 2WD Buggy saw Kobbevik’s Schumacher have the edge on MIBO debutant Marcus Kaerup’s Team Associated with Xray’s Bartosz Zalewski posting the third fastest time.  In 4WD, it was the Sworkz of the defending 2WD Champion Neumann that produced the fastest three consecutive laps ahead of the teenagers Kaerup and Zalewski, the later taking the win here 12-months ago.

Summing up his evening’s work at the FlySky controls of his soon to be released MTC3, which the German said hasn’t change much since its pre production debut at the ISTC World Championship in November, Volker said ‘It’s going very good so far’.  After his recent return to the podium at ETS, the former World Champion said he started out with the same set-up and has just made very small adjustments over the the 5 runs.  Despite having to stand on his radio’s carry case to get the right height on the drivers stand, asked about the track he described it as ‘very fast and very following’ concluding he is feeling ‘confident’ about the weekend ahead.

Originally set to race both onroad and offroad, a challenge at the best of times, Orlowski said he just didn’t have the energy to take racing three different cars as he enters into his fifth consecutive weekend of racing after which he will have a quick turn around before heading to Thailand to make his debut at the legendary TITC race.  Opting to run just touring car and with his offroad engineer Trish Neal here as his mechanic and support team-mate Kobbevik’s offroad efforts, asked to sum up practice the Pole replied, ‘not bad’ adding ‘we are using the track time to test some ideas to finish off the winter season of touring car’.  He concluded, ‘getting to race just one class, my plan is to enjoy the weekend.’

Runner up in 2WD last year, Kobbevik was very confident about his 2WD performance and how his buggy is dealing with the track layout.  In 4WD however the Norwegian admitted he was struggling a little but said the track is challenging everyone in terms of trying to make a clean 5-minute run.  In the final practice run of the day he would break his 4WD on the first lap on positive of which was allowing him to watch how his rivals are tackling the track.  While ending up P5 behind Sworkz’s Micha Widmaier, he concluded that they would ‘get there’ with getting the 4WD to work as well as the 2WD.

For Neumann the issue was the opposite.  He said, ‘My 4WD is very good.  The 2WD can be fast but it’s difficult to drive.’  Asked his thoughts on this year’s track layout the German responded with ‘challenging’.  He added, ‘it’s fun to drive but you can make mistakes many places and also gain time in many spots’.

Another driver who is in the middle of a busy schedule having done the EOS last week and is off the the UK next week for the Milton Keynes British Off Road Grand Prix, Kaerup said his first impressions of MIBO International were ‘great’ adding ‘I’m having fun.’  ‘Feeling pretty confident’ and ‘looking forward to tomorrow’, with 4 of the 5 rounds of qualifying on the schedule, the Dane said the carpet and how it feels is ‘quite different’ to other carpet tracks but he is enjoying the challenge of getting the car to do what he wants it to do.

Catching a quick word with Zalewski about his first evening on track, the 18-year-old reported the grip levels as being ‘very low’.  Having struggled with the set-up he started out, expecting much higher grip, he said by the end of the evening they were at a ‘good’ point with both buggies.  Asked about defending his 4WD title, the Polish racer laughed and said, ‘It will be difficult.  Marcus is very quick.’