Martin doubles up to top 4WD at EOS
Having topped 2WD practice earlier in the day to put himself top seed for qualifying, Lee Martin repeated the feat in 4WD practice at Round 2 of the Euro Offroad Series in Slovakia. A race at which Xray was expected to have the advantage, it was Martin and his Yokomo that would deny the home manufacturer from dominating the seeding times. The reigning EOS Champion would top the time sheets from the World Champion Bruno Coelho, Martin Wollanka, Martin Bayer and Ales Bayer with Marc Rheinard the next best non Xray driver with the sixth fastest time as the XB4 filled 6 of the Top 10 times.
Summing up the opening days action at the Hudy Arena as ‘a good day’, Martin said they made ‘good improvements with the YZ-4’. ‘Only the car’s third race’ which he ‘hasn’t driven since the Worlds’, he said they have made a lot of progress since debuting the car at the EOS season opener at the Nurburgring where he took the win. Having taken a different direction with the car’s set-up since then he declared it was now ‘working good’. ‘Happy with how the car is running’, the 6-time EOS race winner plans to leave it unchanged for the opening round of qualifying.
‘Super good I bet Bayer’ joked Coelho when asked about his performance. Having topped the times in the first of the two controlled practice runs, he said a mistake on one of his best 3-consecutive laps in CP2 that cost him the top spot. Having struggled with a lack of low speed steering in free practice, he described his XB4 as now being ‘perfect’ after a change of caster angle greatly improved steering. Team-mate Wollanka would end the day P3. Having had problems with a lack of braking in the FP3, the Austrian was much happier with his consistency after a motor change improved the brakes but in terms of his chassis set-up he feels the car is ‘too smooth’ and he needs to make it more aggressive for qualifying.
The driver would did the majority of the development work on the XB4, Martin Bayer said it was amazing to have so many cars in the Top 10. Speaking of his own performance the Czech driver said new tyres were better for him, using them for the first time in CP2 having run used tyres in the earlier runs. Feeling he ‘drove too hard’, this left him unable to make 3 clean laps. A driver who enjoys a great working relationship with his team-mate Coelho, the pair always joking about their comparative pace, he added everything is good except ‘I’m unhappy that Bruno beat my fastest lap time on his last lap’. Behind Bayer was his younger brother Ales. The 1:5 European Champion said he was ‘not super happy with his driving’ and for qualifying he needs to improve his XB4 on the landings.
Completing the Top 6, as he did in 2WD, Rheinard said his YZ-4 was easy to drive but he was having issues with it doing wheelies on the main straight. Dropping into the main straight off a corner table top upon talking with team-mate Lee Martin he said the problem appears to be down to his driving, with him needing to keep more on throttle on the jump down rather than coming off and then hitting full throttle on landing.
Completing the Top 10 behind the Serpent of Joern Neumann, Michal Orlowski said it was ‘not want I wanted’ adding he was ‘surprised by his lack of pace’. The Schumacher driver said while his car was good in the corners but bad on the jumps, a change of set-up for controlled practice to improve the landing had made the car bad at both. For qualifying, the Pole is considering fitting a front wing as well as taking a different direction with diff set-up. Behind Orlowski would be David Ronnefalk. Improving his D413 for CP2 having been unable to get a competitive 3-laps in the first round, the factory HB driver improved his time before suffering a servo failure with a minute still left to run.
View complete event results here.
View our full event image gallery here.