April 27, 2014

Neumann retains EOS title, Matsukura win A2

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Joern Neumann has retained his Euro Offroad Series 4WD Buggy title, the outcome of the second leg of the A-Main in Wels, Austria, making the Team Durango driver unbeatable in the points standings.  Having messed up on the opening lap of A1, Top Qualifier Naoto Matsukura made amends with a near faultless win over Martin Bayer with Neumann third.  While the overall win will be decided in A3 between Matsukura, Bayer and Neumann, Nuemann’s third in A2 means the worst result he can claim this evening is third and even if his only title challenger does record his second win of the season Neumann takes the win on tie break thanks to one of his TQ’s in the opening two races of the season.

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What has been his toughest EOS campaign to date, the arrival of the Xray team and Bayer to the championship raising the level of competition,  Neumann was relieved to finally complete three in a row having sewn up the championship battle a round early in the previous two seasons.  After a dominant win in A1 it was Neumann’s turn to have a bad opening lap.  Coming onto the straight for the first time the German’s view was blocked by a marshal running to retrieve a car at the back of the field and having to guess when to turn in did so too early and hit the piping.  Dropping him to fifth he would recover to battle it out for second with Bayer setting the fastest lap of the race in the process.  Enjoying a good fight with his rival who ended his run for three 4WD European Championship titles in a row, the pair putting on a drag race down the main straight, Neumann said letting off after making contact with the Xray there was no way to make back up the time adding their pace was so closely matched.  Having been doing the maths in his head all weekend, with his head now cleared of such worries he said he wants to cap of the season with his 10th 4WD EOS win.

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Matsukura was much happier with his own performance second time round describing it as a ‘good clean race’.  Making a better start he said he just had ‘just one little mistake’ almost parking his B-Max 4 up on a corner marker.  Never a winner in 4WD, the 20-year-old said the plan for the deciding leg is to repeat the A2 race adding that his car is good enough and hopefully the driver is too.

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‘A solid race’, that was how Bayer summed up the race after his frustrating A1 encounter.   The Czech ace said with the Top 3 so tight on pace just a small mistake is really hard to recover from but he was pleased to hold off Neumann.  Asked about his chances of claiming a second overall win of the season, he said with it so close anything could happy so it just a case of ‘wait & see what happens’.

4WD Buggy A-Main Leg 2 Result
1.(1) Naoto Matsukura (JP) – Yokomo – 16/5:13.202
2.(3) Martin Bayer (CZ) – Xray – 16/5:16.679
3.(2) Joern Neumann (DE) – Durango – 16/5:16.884
4.(4) Hupo Hoingl (AT) – Team C – 15/5:00.414
5.(5) Michal Orlowski (PL) – Durango – 15/5:00.574
6.(10)Martin Wollanka (AT) – Xray – 15/5:01.595
7.(7) Ronald Volker (DE) – Yokomo – 15/5:04.214
8.(6) Lee Martin (GB) – Yokomo – 15/5:04.442
9.(9) Carson Wernimont (US) – Schumacher – 15/5:09.935
10.(8)Oliver Scholz (DE) – Team C – 15/5:14.112

View complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.



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