May 1, 2016

Coelho cruises to A1 win

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New Euro Offroad Series Champion Bruno Coelho produced a faultless drive in the opening 4WD A-Main at the season finale in Germany to win by a massive 5.7-seconds margin.   Starting from pole, the Xray driver quickly established a lead over outgoing champion Lee Martin, leaving the Yokomo to come under attack from Martin Wollanka.  With the second place battle the biggest entertainment of the race, two mistakes from Martin would ultimately give Wollanka the position.  The Austrian would resist a late charge from Martin to make it an Xray 1-2, the gap as they crossed the line 3/10ths of a second.

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Posting the fastest lap, with only Wollanka able to match his late 18-second lap time, Coelho said it was a pretty uneventful race but everything on his Hobbywing powered XB4 working ‘super good’.   Starting from second, Martin said ‘Bruno made a very fast start and while I could match him I couldn’t catch him’.  On his battle with Wollanka the 2WD Champion said, ‘I made two mistakes and Wollanka was able to capitalise.  I wasn’t really much of a race’.  Outside the Top 3 Serpent’s Joern Neumann would make up two places to finish fourth ahead of the No.4 start Michal Orlowski with young Japanese driver Kaito Kodera completing the Top 6.

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View complete event results here.

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May 1, 2016

Coelho secures EOS title with Nurburgring TQ

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Bruno Coelho is the new Euro Offroad Series 4WD Champion.  The championship rookie guaranteed himself the title by securing the bonus TQ championship point this morning at the Nurburgring.  The qualifying outcome and more importantly denying Lee Martin the overall TQ means that irrespective of the outcome of this evening’s A-Main at the season finale the title will be going to the World Champion.  The same venue Coelho made his EOS debut last September, this championship marks the first EOS title for his Xray team who become only the third manufacturer to win the high profile 1:10 Offroad championship.

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Not entirely believing the calculations that the TQ is enough to give him the title, Coelho is focused on converting his TQ into a third win of the season.  Commenting on the final qualifier which he took ahead of team-mate Martin Wollanka, he said ‘it was pretty easy.  I just tried to drive careful and made made no mistakes.  I could see that Lee (Martin) was forcing maximum and the pressure was all on him’. Pleased to be starting from pole for a third consecutive time this season,  the 22-year-old said ‘the finals are a different story but I will try to drive without mistakes’.

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Trying to repeat the double he achieved last season, getting the 2WD title wrapped up at Round 3, Martin said, ‘I knew I needed to TQ but we didn’t make it’.  Summing up his 4WD qualifying, the British ace said, ‘I just didn’t really get into it’. He added, ‘the rear of the car was strange, it is not liking the jumps’.  With the pressure of an outside chance at the title now lifted, he said ‘now we can just try and win the race’.

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Wollanka, who almost missed the start of the final qualifier, said ‘its always the same I am missing something to get the TQ position’.  Qualifying for every race this season inside the Top 3, the Austrian, who was second at the opening two rounds, said ‘for sure I want to win but it will be difficult’.  Able to match his team-mate on outright pace, he added ‘we will just see what happens but its easy to make mistakes’.

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Securing his best 4WD grid position of the season with fourth, Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski would have a strong final qualifier getting a P3.  The 14-year-old said they discovered the cambers were wrong on the car for Q3 following another set-up change made and with the cambers corrected for the final qualifier it was ‘now competitive’.  ‘Very happy’ that they have ‘improved the  car a lot’, looking to the final the Polish driver said ‘I hope there are some crashes like 2WD and that I can get lucky but we have really good pace now so we can race the others’.

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Completing the top half of the grid, Yannic Prumper said he messed up his final qualifier with ‘a big mistake’.  Running on new tyres, the VBC team driver said this made his Xray XB4 edgy at the beginning but after 2-minutes it got better.  Asked about the finals, the German touring car ace replied, ‘lets see, everything is possible’.

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Lining up 6th on the grid, former 3-time 4WD Champion Joern Neumann feels he should be ok for the final.  Coming off the back of an encouraging performance in 2WD yesterday when he qualified 7th but ended up 4th being a race winning contender going into A3, he is ‘confident’ of good 4WD result.  Running Serpent’s new shaft drive car fitted with a number of prototype parts, he felt in the final qualifier his car could have done with more mid corner steering and he will go with a harder front shock set-up for A1.

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View complete event results here.

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May 1, 2016

Chassis Focus – Lee Martin

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Chassis: Yokomo YZ-4
Motor: RC Concept 5.0T
ESC: RC Concept SC120
Batteries: RC Concept Omega 4500mAh
Radio/Servo: Sanwa/Xpert
Remarks – Defending champion and a title contender going into the last round here in Germany, Lee Martin is running a version of the YZ-4 that features front double joint driveshafts and new aluminium uprights. His car is also equipped with long graphite suspension arms and an optional aluminium steering system.

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