Martin top 2WD seed at EOS Finale

Lee Martin goes into tomorrow’s 2WD qualifying at the Nurburgring in Germany as the top seed.  The Yokomo driver was fastest in the two rounds of timed practice, bettering his opening 3-consecutive lap time by 0.064 to again top the times from Team Associated’s Neil Cragg.  Cragg improved his time too in FP2 but the gap between the two British drivers remained almost unchanged.  Having only been 7th after TP1, Bruno Coelho made a big improvement to put his Xray in Top 3 ahead of American AE pairing Ryan Cavalieri and Spencer Rivkin.

On his final practice Martin said, ‘it started really well but went off at the end because of two loose screws in the anti squat blocks’.  Using TP2 to run in new tyres, he said his RC Concept powered YZ-2 ‘drives good’ and its down to him to put in a good drive over the 5-minute qualifiers.  With the track layout requiring ‘a lot of concentration’ he added ‘its easy to get out of the flow (of the track).

Debuting Associated’s new B6, Cragg said, ‘the car has been good all the way through practice’.  Feeling his slipper was not tight enough he said they adjusted it for the final practice but went ‘a little too much’.  Hoping to ‘find a sweet spot’ on his slipper for qualifying, the former world Champion was very happy with his 5-minute time.  With ‘a lot of places to crash’ he said ‘not crashing is going to be key’ to a good qualifier adding ‘I need to not over jump and make sure I hit the down slopes’.

Opting to not change his car after TP1 despite a lack of high speed steering, Coelho said his improvement came from making less mistakes.  Struggling to get in 3 error free consecutive laps he said second time round he made a better job but feels ‘there is still room for improvement’. Closer on pace to his rivals he said ‘we are still too slow compared to them’ stating ‘we need to do something (to the car) to reduce this’. Top Qualifier for the event at the season opener, he said things are ‘completely different in qualifying’ and his aim is to ‘drive safe’.

Fourth fastest Ryan Cavalieri was another driver happier with his driving.  The multiple World Champion described his final 2WD practice as ‘really good’ adding he ‘felt (he) drove more consistent’.  Looking to adjust his Orion speedo to get it smoother on power, he is also confident that on new tyres he ‘will be a little faster too’.  Team-mate and designer of the B6 Kody Numedahl was one of the few leading drivers not to improve on their opening time.  Ending up 8th, he felt he ran much the same pace as before adding the key for him was that he was ‘able to run the whole 5-minutes with no mistakes’.

Taking his B6 to the fifth fastest time, EOS debutant Spencer Rivkin said ‘I’m not the fastest out there but the car was easier to drive that time’.  Motoring down for TP2, the World Champion said the slower motor ‘made a big difference’ but ‘it took a few laps to get used too’.  Happy with his car, he said for qualifying, ‘I still need to work on my driving and make sure I hit my marks’.

Completing the Top 6 ahead of EOS Round 3 winner Marc Rheinard, Michal Orlowski described his pace as ‘not so bad but it could be better’.  Happy to have been able to improve his 3-consecutive laps time, the Polish driver feels they still need to work on bettering the steering for what he called the ‘tight & technical track layout’.

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