2010 10th off road Euros

EUROS 2010 DAY Five - 4wd Qualifying.

Overcast skies seemed the order of the day on 4WD qualifying day. To save time on Saturday in case of rain - there will be an extra round of qualifying in place of one of the practice rounds in the morning.

After the one and only practice round the drivers were seeded in order of SPEED, their fastest two consecutive laps giving them the start order in their respective heats.

2WD European Champ Lee Martin put in a stellar 14 lap run in round one of qualifying to go top of the pile. Jorn Neumann looked like he might be able to surpass Lee's efforts but a slight delay getting past a back marker probably cost him the round win - losing out to Lee by just 5/100ths of a second.

Qualifying Round 1

position

name

result

1	Lee Martin	14/ 319.63
2	Jorn Neumann	14/ 319.68
3	Paul Bradby	13/ 301.00
4	Hubert Honigl	13/ 302.39
5	Neil Cragg	13/ 303.31
6	Marc Rheinard	13/ 303.78
7	Peter Pinisch	13/ 306.46
8	Martin Kreil	13/ 308.96
9	Simon Moss	13/ 309.20
10	Nathan Ralls	13/ 309.79

Jorn looked fast as always in round two but a rare error coming through the 5-set of jumps saw him roll and lose valuable seconds. No such bad luck for Lee Martin however, putting his Tamiya in TQ position with another round win.

What happened the night before:

Qualifying Round 2

position

name

result

1	Lee Martin	14/ 318.90
2	Marc Rheinard	14/ 320.79
3	Hubert Honigl	14/ 322.83
4	Neil Cragg	13/ 301.26
5	Viktor Wilck	13/ 301.50
6	Simon Moss	13/ 305.04
7	Martin Kreil	13/ 306.63
8	Yannic Prumper	13/ 306.99
9	Jorn Neumann	13/ 307.20
10=	Peter Pinisch	13/ 307.88
10=	Rene Trauner	13/ 307.88

Standard piston left - on the right the new tepered pistons

Yokomo Taper Pistons
There wasn't a whole lot new from Yokomo - earlier in the week they showed off their new white ball cups / shock bottoms.

Robert and Hosoda called us over to take a look at the new pistons they were trying out on Jorns buggy. The new pistons are tapered on one side like some other popular pistons we could mention - and they seemed to work.

They tried the pistons both ways round front and rear to get a feel for what worked best and settled on using them with taper toward the bottom (for a faster return) all round.


Hosoda shows off the new pistons - the colours signify which hole sizes they have we guess.	Yasunobu Hosoda and Robert Itoh from Yokomo were over again to support Jorn Neumann and other Yokomo drivers.

Rain came down 5-races into round three of qualifying and the proceedings were stopped before the track got too wet - everyone grabbed what cover they could and set about covering the dirt areas of the track the best they could. The wind started to pick up - blowing a gale as the guys tried to pin down the covers.


Proper mad epic manouvers to cover the track - the organisers commented on how nice it was to see all nationalities join in the effort to save these championships.	There was a rush for shelter as the rain and wind got worse.

Martial Desrameaux has a shop called M2D Racing

Martial Desrameaux from M2D-Shop in France is racing his Durango DEX410 here at the Euros.

Martial sells the Tresrey parts for the Team Durango cars and his personal car was fully equipped with the latest Tresrey parts, some of which aren't fully available yet.

The most obvious are the lightweight alloy centre drive shafts which reduce the rotating mass.

Hidden away under the wheels is the alloy hubs front and rear that house large outer bearings front and back (the new standard Durango front hubs now feature this development).


Red shock collars from Tresrey - PIMP	Rear Tresrey hubs

Martials DEX410 is fully decked out in the Tresrey parts he sells


Martial has his cell area milled down to lower the lipo	Front hubs

A quick team managers meeting devised the plan to wait and announce what was happening 30 minues in advance of any descision to restart the racing - with the next heat in round three. Some drivers that had been caught out in the rain and wind before the meeting was stopped weren't happy.

They couldn't cover the WHOLE track but tried to cover some of the most important parts the best they could.

The rain situation didn't improve enough or at all - in fact it got worse. There was no chance to finish round three, let alone run the fourth round on Friday like the organisers had hoped to do. The meeting was officially abandonned at 17:00 and round three which had started already would be completed in the morning - though even this isn't assured, the team managers were set to meet at 8:15am to decide what to do. The lack of time should see an end to more rounds of qualifying which would mean Lee Martin is already confirmed TQ in 4WD. Things change so fast and so often with the crazy weather here though that we don't honestly know.

The Czech republic team - sending their love to Standa Maly.

The Czech team consists of 8 drivers and 6 mechanics, Czech Republic is only a small place with a population of 365, meaning that 3.8% of their residents are currently in Austria. On a positive note though, Czechs get an extra ‘birthday’ each year as they also celebrate their name day - how awesome is that.
The Czech team wanted to show some appreciation for one of their team, Standa Maly, who unfortunately had to return home early prior to the event commencing, due to needing treatment for a back injury. The team are wishing Stan a very speedy recovery, and have decorated their cars appropriately to say ’Racing for Stan’.
Best wishes from Austria, Stan, we all hope you get better soon.
Races competing for Czech republic include their top touring car champion Michal Bok, and their number one off-road driver Jiri Mara.


Czech's #1 oOple fan and super team Durango driver.	Racing for Standa

#1 oOple fan!

Interview with Karel Novotny (‘Kaja’)

Age: 14

First r/c car: Tamiya. RTR touring car - Subaru Impreza

Favourite r/c track: Horni Jeleni

Best ever race attended: Euros in Bilbao last year, I made a lot of new friends.

Favourite school subject:
English.

How often do you normally race at home?
Twice a month.

What are your tracks like?
Clay, they are good tracks.

Do you race in any other classes?
I also race on-road 1/10th scale.

What is your best ever racing result?
Last year I was 2nd in Czech championship in 2wd, and 3rd in 4wd.

What is your favourite food? What sort of food is eaten in Czech-land?
Schnitzel with French fries or potato salad is my favourite meal. Czechs national dish is Vepro, knedlo, zelo - dumplings, pork and cabbage, but I don’t like this.

How long have you been racing Durango?
5 months, this is my first season with Durango.

What is your favourite thing about the Durango car?
The car is very good at jumping and easy to drive. I have improved a lot since I have this car. It is simply the best off road car I have driven so far.

How would you describe the Euros 2010 track here in Austria? What are your favourite features, and which do you find the most challenging?
The track is very nice to drive, I like the tabletop jump, the multiple jumps are difficult to drive.

Do many people in Czech drive r/c cars?
More people drive touring cars than buggies.

Father: Karel Novotny: The Durango car is very popular in Czech, but in the beginning people were afraid to buy it because of the cost. Kaja is driving very well with the Durango in the championship, and more people are starting to use the car. I find the car very easy to maintain, better than any other car I have maintained. It is really the best racing car in the field. It was designed for racing as any ordinary racing car - all the components are easy to change and it is important when you are in a hurry during the race. Compared to the other brands we had before, it is a car which does not need many spare parts as it is very robust design and there is not any damage even if it is driven on a difficult track originally made for 1:8 cars.
I like the design very much.

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