October 20, 2013

Honigl wins opening EOS 2WD main

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Team Durango’s Hupo Honigl put in a clean 5-minutes of driving to the win the opening main of 2WD at the Euro Offroad series in Poland this morning.  Starting from second on the grid the Austrian took an early lead when Top Qualifier Tom Cockerill got it wrong second time through the track’s most demanding element, the risky double.  Holding on to his lead Honigl would see off challenges from team-mate Joern Neumann, who would finish second, and Kyosho’s David Ronnefalk who completed the Top 3.  Both drivers challenge for the lead came undone at the double.

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Admitting to come close to a heart attack every time he did the double, former European Champion Honigl said he won simply because he made no mistakes.  Describing the race as ‘difficult’, adding that his main rivals were ultimately faster, he said he came close a couple of times to putting his DEX210 on its roof but luck was on his side for once.  Having never won an EOS event, he said he hopes he can repeat his steady run in Leg 2.

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With a fastest lap that was almost a full second quicker than Honigl, Neumann said at the start he struggled on new tyres.  Dropping to third after a mistake at the double on lap 6, he said once the tyres came in his DEX210 was good highlighted by his lap times, the German the only one to run 22-second lap times.  Closing to within 4/10ths of Honigl by the finish, the defending champion said the problem is that his tyres are now too worn to run in Leg 2 to so he will have to start with a new set which again will leave him with a difficult buggy at the start.

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Coming from 9th on the grid to finish third, Ronnefalk said he cant be too unhappy with the result.  Adding that he got a little lucky, Cockerill pulling up after 2-laps and the No.5 buggy of Patrick Hornum not making the start after breaking in the warm-up, he said the biggest mistake he made was to settle for second.  Running second behind Honigl, the Swede said he decided to play safe but this led to him making a mistake at the double with his RB6 needing to be marshalled allowing Neumann through to second.  Admitting he needs ‘something special’ to happen on the first lap he said its tough to go the race distance without any mistakes so anything is possible.

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After a promising opening lap for Schumacher’s Cockerill it all went wrong on lap 2, getting it wrong at the double allowing five cars through he then got it wrong at the crossover leaving him last. At the disadvantage to his rivals of only having one new set of Proline controlled tyres for the finals, the British driver decided to pull up and save then for the remaining two legs when he said he ‘needs to play it safe’.

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Having run second for 2-laps, 12-year-old Polish star Michal Orlowski would bring his Durango home fourth.  Unfortunately for 15-year-old Dutch racer Bryan van Bijnberk the race lasted just a few metres as his Yokomo shutdown due to a faulty power switch.

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.



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