Neumann fastest at Euro Offroad Series

Having set the pace in 2WD Buggy practice, Team Durango’s Joern Neumann went on to also top 4WD Buggy on day 1 of the TLR/Spektrum Euro Offroad Series season opener in Poznan, Poland.  The defending champion of both classes, the German was in a league of his own setting a blistering pace of 52.974 over three laps compared with the second fastest time of team-mate Hupo Hönigl who posted a best run of 54.290.

At the end of practice Neumann said he had to do very little to his Speed Passion powered DEX410 during the evening’s five runs and he was just able to focus on driving it.  Pulling off a clean sweep of wins in 4WD Buggy during last season’s EOS, he said with the buggy working perfectly from the first practice run he planned to use his subsequent 5-minute runs to scrub in tyres for qualifying.  With the traction low he said the buggy felt safe on a brand new set of the controlled dBoots Nanobytes tyres and so there was no need to run his qualifying sets today.

Hönigl also ran his LRP powered example of the DEX410 the same all evening.  Having planned to try a different set-up in one of his runs he said due to also running in 4WD Short Course he didn’t get to give it a try due to a lack of time.  The former multiple European Champion said he was happy with how the buggy felt, but the size of the advantage Neumann has he is going to have to up his game tomorrow.

Setting the third fastest time with his aging Losi buggy, Dustin Evans sat out the final practice saying he knew his first timed run was decent and he wanted to save the buggy for tomorrow.  Admitting he has no chance of running with Neumann, he said buggy actual felt ‘pretty good’ but his main focus this weekend is 2WD Buggy and 4WD Short Course in which he ended both classes second fastest.  With a ‘better’ set-up this year for his Losi Ten-SCTE, the American split the Durangos in practice, Hönigl fastest and Neumann third, and is confident that he now has a package to challenge for a win in the class having struggled last season to be a match for the Durangos duo.

A late arrival to the event flying in today from the UK, Danny McGee took his Tamiya 511 to the fourth fastest time being the only driver in the Top 6 to improve their time in the final practice run.  Happy with his 4WD the British driver said having only arrived in time for the final 2WD practice which he said didn’t go very well his main focus is on getting that car sorted for tomorrow morning’s open practice.

Just behind McGee was fellow British racer Tom Cockerill who didn’t have a great day.  Only going the full distance in his fourth practice run, the factory Schumacher driver suffered a lot of unusual breakages but this aside he said his Cat SX3 felt pretty good.  Reverting to the set-up he started the day with for P5 he said that proved he made progress over the day as it was not as good as what he ran in P4 and he will revert back to that for the first qualifier tomorrow.

Impressing in 2WD Buggy earlier in the day Polish talent Michal Orlowski carried his form through to 4WD posting the 6th fastest time with his Tamiya TRF511.  Running the same set-up through the evening the 11-year-old said it felt ‘very good’ so there was no need to change anything.  Behind Orlowski former German National Champion Benni Gröschel and Czech racer Kája Novotny set the 7th and 8th fastest times respectively.

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