Saturday July 23rd 2011 - 4wd Qualifying.

Fastest laps from Practice Day. Elliot Boots GBR 23.388 Jared Tebo USA 23.657 Joern Neumann GER 23.660 Ryan Maifield USA 23.665 Naoto Matsukura JPN 23.669 Joseph Quagraine FIN 23.772 Dakotah Phend USA 23.773 Ryan Cavalieri USA 23.851 Dustin Evans USA 23.875 Lee Martin GBR 24.011 Kohta Akimoto   JPN 24.045 Neil Cragg GBR 24.077 Viktor Wilck SWE 24.142 Hubert Hönigl AUT 24.171 Steven Hartson USA 24.251 Matt Castellano USA 24.260 Paul Bradby GBR 24.277 Richard Lowe GBR   24.289 Martin Achter GER 24.359 Ari Heinonen FIN 24.381

The sun rose early (it possibly hadn’t set at all - we slept through that bit) and the sky was clear - a stark contrast from yesterdays mostly grim conditions. Temperatures were HOT - like really hot. Having used the Sauna first thing in the morning prior to reportage commencing, I can conclude that the outside temperature was hovering around Sauna temperatures by 10AM.

As we entered day 7 of the World Championships event the agenda was set for one round of controlled practice, followed by 4 rounds of qualifying. The overall results from the previous days practice offered a fair picture of the drivers who were really putting in some fast laps.

These guys were all showing to be fast - but by the end of today will how a much better idea of who is fast enough to make it into the A-MAIN.

Elliott Boots with his Durango had come out tops during practice day in terms of the fastest single lap, but today would be all about consistency and not binning it over the jump. Practice round 9 was run first thing in the morning prior to the start of qualifying, and ran for 5 minutes rather than the previous days 4 minute practices.

We took a look at how many drivers had booked into this event and we found that originally 147 drivers had registered to race at both 2wd and 4wd events, but due to last minute no-shows the resulting figures were 138 racing in 2wd and 141 in 4wd.

We also took the time to consider how many of these guys are professional racers - i.e. they do it for a job, get paid a salary to race (or something like that), how many contenders receive some form of support from r/c companies, such as win bonusses, discounts, provision of racing equipment or other assistance, and finally the drivers who are totally self funded with no help whatsoever.

For your visual enjoyment the data has been converted into fancy charts, so hopefully it still makes some form of sense.

Qualifying round 1.

In the intense heat which suprised us after a week of poor forecasts, the first round of qualifying commenced at around 10:10AM. Lots of 13 lappers in this round as the 2WD top-3 finishers Maifield, Tebo & Cavalieri took the top spots going 1-2-3 respectively. Lee Martin stuck his Tamiya TRF511 into 4th around 1.5 seconds back from Cavalieri. Kohta Akimoto and Dustin Evans could barely be seperated in 5th & 6th.

Bad luck for a few of the Associated drivers - Steven Hartson had thrown out a great time in first practice of the day, and had pushed his AEB44.1 to its limits all through practice without any problems, but sadly for him in qualifying round 1 his ballcup popped off. Rules at the World Championships state that marshalls are NOT allowed to make any attempts to mend de-mobilised cars, even if it is something as simple as a ball-cup (or in the case of Peter Pinisch, the switch turning itself off!), so unfortunately Stevens first round of qualifying ended just two laps in. Harsh.

Bradby had problems with his shaft slipping out which ended his run early, and for Neil Cragg it was a broken front arm which saw him out of the game 8 laps in.

Elliott Boots, who had pretty much TQ'd practice day with his last-minute best lap of 23.3 seconds, was on for a storming run and threw out some super fast laps, but unfortunately some electrical gremlins meddling with his gear saw his Durango shut down 7 laps into the race.

Jorn Neumanm, Naoto Matsukura, Neil Kovac, Gaz Stanton, and about 20 others were also victims of breakages or shutdowns during the first qualiying round.

	4WD Qualifying Round 1 - Top 10
	position name result 1 Ryan Maifield 13/5:18.743 2 Jared Tebo 13/5:19.754 3 Ryan Cavalieri 13/5:20.469 4 Lee Martin 13/5:21.917 5 Kohta Akimoto 13/5:23.678 6 Dustin Evans 13/5:23.697 7 Hubert Hönigl 13/5:24.318 8 Joseph Quagraine 13/5:24.654 9 Dakotah Phend 12/5:00.970 10 Ari Heinonen 12/5:02.452

Quadimodo

Qualifying round 2.

Maifield put in another great run in round two of qualifying, after already having taken round one he improved on his time by nearly 5 seconds. Maifield didn't require any marshalling during the second qualifying round and found that a different attitude and driving style helped him to push his TQ pace further.

Elliott Boots again had electrical problems with his car - cutting before the start and only getting fixed at the last minute. Again however his car died from unknown electrical gremlins after a few laps so with 3 qualifiers left to run and 3 to count Elliott would have to be very careful if he wanted to show his true pace in the A finals.

Tom Cockerill thermalled - and his car got hot and shut down also! Neil 'Roundy' Round came over the quad and landed on top of a back marker which gained him a penalty and smashed shock tower which ended his run.

John Spencer popped a turnbuckle on the quad. Ashley Peeler from Australia driving the Tamiya 511 broke a rear arm on the quad. Martin Achter's motor 'went bad'. Joseph Quagraine was in a bad mood after pulling out a turnbuckle on the 'quad'.

To celebrate the infamy of the mighty QUAD, some guys paid homage to the car-killer by creating a parts-monster called QUADIMODO.

Ryan Maifield - 2 for 2 and on top of qualifying by a long way right now.

Dallas vs Two Japanese racers! He's strong!

Thick dark clouds started loitering over the track at around 4pm, and rolls of thunder could be heard. A gang of birds started doing some dancing overhead too, as though they knew something was about to kick off. And within minutes there was a gaggle of Japanese racers fighting behind the rostrum, even trying to get Swedish WWF wrestler and IFMAR President Dallas into their crazy antics.

At 14:21 the rain appeared hard and fast - 24 minutes ahead of its forecast time (16:45). The proceedings were halted. and the track was covered by a gaggle of organiers within seconds - an hour halt was called as the rain got heavy.

Thanks to Dallas for posing for the photo despite many times saying no! He's a good sport!

Breakdancing!

Yokomo lads battle it out

The track crew quickly cover the track

Some rowdy racers cool down in the rain

At 5pm a quick team managers meeting was called and it was decided that since the rain has stopped that racing will resume immediately to try and get the final couple of heats of round 3 over and done. The organisers hoped also to get round 4, the penultimate round of qualifying and last scheduled round for today, finished - but this would depend on getting things done before the weather came back. To help get things done in time the organisers are really pushing to fire through heats as fast as possible with quick change overs and no long delays.

The organisers get rid of the water

......and uncover the track again.

Ryan Maifield didn't TQ round 3 but was the only driver we saw jumping the moguls - it was impressive

Round three of qualifying was able to complete (The rounds were being staggered throughout the day, so this one started with ht7) and results were finally available. This round was one for Team Durango, with Jorn taking the top spot over 4 seconds ahead of Ryan Maifield in the 2nd place. Hupo wasn't far back taking 5th in round, and at the back of the pile Billy Fister finished 10th place just a fraction of a second behind Ryan Cavalieri.

Paul Bradby was having no luck today in qualifying and didn't finish this round, nor did reigning 4wd WC Martin Achter, Aussie Primmer, one of the Russian Dmitrys, or Steven Hartson.

	4WD Qualifying Round 3 - Top 10
	position name result 1 Joern Neumann 13/5:11.213 2 Ryan Maifield 13/5:15.552 3 Jared Tebo 13/5:19.949 4 Neil Cragg 13/5:20.913 5 Hubert Hönigl 13/5:21.904 6 Lee Martin 13/5:22.040 7 Kohta Akimoto 13/5:22.230 8 Naoto Matsuzuka 13/5:22.243 9 Ryan Cavalieri 13/5:24.125 10 Billy Fischer 13/5:24.569

Part way into the 4th round of qualifying the rain started to come down again and the track was again covered but this time the rain really-really came down hard and the organisers seemed to know this was the end of the day pretty quickly. People hung around for a while not willing to risk the downpour and having some laughter in the wet conditions.

Some looked to the skies - fearful of what was about to come...	Others had fun anyway

Water-obsessed Neil Round put his Tamiya buggy in a plastic bag and drove it round out in the rain before taking it onto the track for a quick spin - all with no ill effects from the rain.

Roundy impresses everyone by his manliness

People hang about, excieted by the rain

The guys 'bag' Roundy's Tamiya 511

It works!

Neil 'Roundy' Round went out for round 4 and TQ'd - shame it was cancelled.

With only 3 of the 4 rounds completed and one left to go on finals day, Ryan Maifield looks pretty safe at the top - only Jorn Neumann can challenge his TQ status now. The final qualifying will be counting 2 rounds from 4 should the final round be run without incident - instead of the proposed 3 rounds from 5.

It's bloody dark and it's bloody raining - Neil Cragg

It's wet, basically - I'm very disapointed because my car's been on pace all day, I could have been winning club meetings at silverstone. - Matt Owen.

Rain rain go away, come again on Monday - Scotty Ernst.

You could go to pink lady tonight and still wouldn't see anything as wet as this - Unknown Amish source.

Dustin Evans and Joseph Quagraine both have one low score with two scores they'd prefer to drop - they only need a good run in the final round to be in the mix for an A-final place. Naoto looks precarious with 19 points in the number 10 position and he'll be looking to improve on the 11th he's counting on at the moment.

4WD Qualifying overall - Top 10