Sunday July 24th 2011 - 4wd Qualifying & Finals.

After the heavy rain the previous day the track had been left covered overnight and with a clear-ish early start to the day, race organisers removed the cover in order to commence a quick practice round before resuming qualifying. However proceedings were once again delayed when a brief shower drifted over part way in, and the dedicated team once again gathered to re-cover the dirt.

Once the moisture had passed, the team returned to remove the cover, and with clear skies and a touch of sunshine, practice was able to continue. By this point the event was around 50 minutes behind schedule, however by the start of qualifying this had been halved.

Qualifying Round 5 (Actually 4th counting round)

Qualifying was again staggered and started with heat 13 going out to warm the track up.

Hupo was the first driver of the day to put in a 13 lapper, and in the following heat Jorn Neumann and Ryan Maifield were battling it out for TQ - which was also the decider for overall TQ. Jorn was relying on this round to TQ the event, and was well and truly on the pace out front until a bad landing off the quad (requiring marshalling) set him back and saw Maifield take control of the game. With a flawless run from Maifield, Jorn was unable to catch up to the dominating American, and had to settle for 2nd in round and 2nd overall on the A final grid.

After his electrical problems earlier in the meeting Elliott Boots finally managed to put in a good time but it was too late to bump him to the main.

4WD Qualifying Round 5 (4th round - 4 not being completed)- Top 10

Vaasa is a city on the west coast of Finland, and has a population of 59,670. The city is bilingual with 69.8% of the population speaking Finnish as their first language and 24.8% speaking Swedish. Finland has a population of about 5,350,000 which works out at about 17 people per square kilometre - that is a lot of play space! It is also the third lowest population density in Europe, behind Norway and Iceland.

The World Championships track is located at the Pitkämäki motorsport centre, and is hosted by the Motorsport club of Vaasa. The club was founded in 1963 and has approximately 200 members and isn’t restricted to just model car racing, but also organise events in different motorsport classes, particularly karting for which there is a dedicated track near to the venue car park.

A final leg one.

Maifield crashed over the quad and Jorn was through for the lead - which he built up to around 5 seconds from Cavalieri. Jorn looked like he'd win with ease but his motor died and his car slowly came to a stop - massive disappointment for the young German driver. Team Durango pioneer Gerd Strenge looked sick as a dog as he walked away.

Maifield had pressure from Jorn right from the start of the race, and it wasn’t long before he made an error over the quad (probably one of his only quad errors, Mr Consistent) and Jorn was straight through into the lead. Maifield dropped down the order into 6th place.  It was Tebo now in second place and was hot on Jorns rear end, but Jorn was FAST and and error from Tebo soon saw Jorn pull away. Cragg was through into 2nd place but Tebo was pushing hard, and an incident between the two saw Lee Martin move up into 2nd place.
By half race distance Jorn had a lead of nearly 5 seconds and looked hot to win, when all of a sudden things got too hot and his speedo puffed out some magic smoke.
Lee was now in the lead, but the European and BRCA National champions glory did not last long, cos Cavalieri won it.

Jorn's motor dies - his Durango comes to a halt	Cavalieri on his way to win leg 1

4WD A Final - Leg 1

Press Conference.

Monkey likes Mikko and Jarmo.

Mikko Hirvonen (born July 31, 1980) is a Finnish Rally driver currently driving for the BP Ford World Rally Team in the World Rally Championship. He placed third in the drivers' championship and helped Ford to the manufacturers title in both 2006 and 2007. In 2008 and 2009, he finished runner-up to Sebastien Loeb. Hirvonen's co-driver has been Jarmo Lehtinen since the 2003 season.

Jarmo Lehtinen (born 3 January 1969) is a rally co-driver from Finland. He is currently the co-driver to World Rally Championship driver Mikko Hirovonen. To date the pair have scored 13 WRC wins, all with the Ford World Rally Team. The pair have worked together on all their WRC outings since 2003, with Subaru in 2004 and with Ford since 2006, becoming runners-up in 2008. He won his first world rally at the 2006 Rally Australia.

Lehtinen started co-driving in 1988 alongside friend Jari Mikkola. He later partnered Marko Ramanen in the Finnish Rally Championship, and he made his WRC debut in the 1997 Rally Finland.
Mikko believes that the race organisers have succeeded with their goal to create the coolest race ever, and the feedback and comments that he has heard from competitors has been positive - Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves and the organisers have done a great job.
Mikko and Jarmo both like Salmon as their favourite finnish food, despite Reindeer being available in abundant quantities.

A final leg two.
The 2nd leg of the A final started pretty messily as the cars came over the tabletop corner for the first time, and Naoto Matsukura came off best moving up to 5th place on the first lap.

Jorn was looking to finish what he started off in leg one, and was all over Ryan Maifield, pushing for another lucky error. Tebo too was keeping close and looked to make a pass at Jorn, but got out of shape. All the pressure from behind might have been too much for Ryan Maifield as he made an error coming over the quad jump, Jorn Neuman once again was in the lead, followed by Tebo, Cavalieri, and Maifield.

An error from Tebo saw Cavalieri move into 2nd place and start to hunt down Jorn. Jorn was looking good, keeping his lines nice and smooth and VERY fast, but made an error coming over the WHOOPS (Ripples) and needed marshalling. This was all that Cavalieri needed to take the lead, and kept everything under control to ride his AE B44.1 through for the 2nd leg win, taking with it his second World Championship of the week (and 4th WC title overall).

4WD A Final - Leg 2

A final leg three.
Maifield and Jorn went off from the start and no one could keep with the pair as they battled for the whole race.  Jorn got close but made a small error which allowed Maifield to pull a small gap.  Jorn wasn’t done and with lots of shouting and cheering from the crowd seeming to give him a boost Jorn quickly caught Maifield and followed close looking for a chance.   Jorn went for it on the last lap - looking for any way past as the pair came over the ripples.  

Jorn went wide on the hairpin before the big double and it looked like Maifield might be able to cruise it - but Jorn wasn’t done and kept up his immense pressure to close a little over the final few corners.   Maifield went wide for the step-up corner tabletop jump and Jorn just nailed it in a straight line - all or nothing!   Jorn shot through on the inside and went wide as Maifield hugged the inside pipe  - Jorn just edging out the dramatic win.

4WD A Final - Leg 3

After the A finals finished there was the usual champagne and trophy presentations on the track - definitely much easier to see than in the 2wd event where all this happened in the shade on the rostrum. This wouldn't be the end of the event however, as the organisers had taken the extra step to arrange an awards ceremony at the official hotel later that evening - followed by the official after party of course in Sky bar.

A press conference was held before everyone left the venue, and visiting rally superstars Jarmo Lehtinen and Mikko Hirvonen were present to join in the festivities, which included a go-kart demonstration around the neighbouring track. Racers were also invited to try out the go-karts, for a modest 50 Euros (could nearly buy a round of drinks with that kinda money).

The awards ceremony was a highly emotional event, with moving speeches from many of those who had been involved throughout the planning and implementation of this World Championships. The best bit was when Juicy kissed his Mrs.

Overall the entire week ran flawlessley, the organisers and volunteers had covered every last detail, no matter how small, to ensure that everyone had a top class experience. This helped us immensley towards producing this worlds report, from the provision of transport from airport to hotel, and then inbetween the hotel and track throughout the week, to our Mac computer and super broadband internet connection trackside. The availability of results very soon after races finished, and the many friendly staff and volunteers who always did their best to help with any enquiries. This World Championships was for sure one of the best races we have ever had the priviledge of attending and covering - the Coolest race ever.

We'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all our site supporters who help us to continue maintaining the website and producing new content. Especially Team Durango, without whom we would not have been able to attend the World Championships 2011. And of course huge thanks to everyone who has helped with report content, posing for funny photos, staging fights, dancing in the rain, participating in interviews, and bringing us food from Hessburger :) And of course big thanks again to everyone involved in the creation of such an awesome race event.