Orlowski tops 2wd seeding at wet Arena33

Practice has been completed at the Arena33 for the 2wd class, with both rounds of seeding taking place on a damp track while drivers continued to use the silver compound Mini Darts. It was defending champion Michal Orlowski who was quickest over 3 laps, like most, the Schumacher driver’s first round time quicker than his 2nd round time as the track began to dry and get more slippery. Bruno Coelho was 2nd, some 3 tenths behind, with Wesley van Helmond in 3rd, one of only 2 drivers in the top 10 to improve in the 2nd heat. Joona Haatanen, lead Yokomo driver this weekend Paul Crompton and Hupo Honigl, complete the top 6 after practice. Talking with Orlowski he said ‘now it feels slippy’, further explaining that ‘when there is standing water on the track it has more grip’. Continuing to run the laydown gearbox in his Schumacher he says while it might not suit the current conditions he doesn’t want to change it to the stand up version so that he will be ready when the grip does eventually come up.

Taking the second spot after 2 rounds of practice, Bruno Coelho would go 2 seconds slower over 3 laps in his second round and so counted his 1st round time. Continuing to try different things to make his Xray XB2 more stable and to generate some more traction in the difficult changing conditions he felt that the track was getting less traction but that they would ‘keep working for qualifying’.

Ending with 3rd spot in the 2nd round, Dutch driver Wesley van Helmond used the stand up gearbox in his Schumacher, which proved to be the right choice for the tricky half wet half dry conditions currently at the Arena33. Team mate Jorn Neumann was the only other driver in the top 10 to improve in the 2nd round of practice, the German putting his relative pace down to trying a number of things but joked that seeing the pace of his team mate, may choose to change to the stand gearbox also.

Joona Haatanen, who ended seeding as 4th fastest, described his 2 rounds of practice as ‘not too bad’. The Finnish driver, like most others, was continuing his search for ever elusive rear traction but was pleased with the overall balance of his car. Feeling he is too hard on the throttle the Associated driver was seen changing the rotor in his Reedy motor in an attempt to reduce the punch, something that is not desired in these slippy conditions. Leading the Yokomo challenge Paul Crompton took 5th, both his team mate Lee Martin and that of Haatanen, Neil Cragg, both unable to attend due to clashing dates with the British Nitro Offroad Nationals. Drivers now have 4 rounds of qualifying and it is planned to run racing late into the evening to make up for the delayed start before running the finals tomorrow morning.

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Track Focus – Arena33

Name – Arena33
Owner – Tonisport
Country – Germany
Location – Andernach (130 km East of Frankfurt)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Surface – Astro
Previous key events hosted – 1 x EOS Outdoor & 1 X EOS Indoors

Making its debut on the EOS calendar last season as the first ever outdoor race in the series, Arena33 returns this year as the first of two outdoor events that make up the remainder of the 2018/19 series. The astro turf surfaced track, which takes up an area of 24 meters by 41 meters, is located to the rear of the Tonisport owned Arena33 in Andernach, and alongside the astro turf main surface the jumps feature new EOS carpet. With converted shipping containers as a drivers stand, drivers are pitting inside the adjacent Arena33 pit area.

In terms of layout, it remains largely unchanged from last season with only the addition of a small roller on the centre left side of the track and the spacing of the larger jumps has been brought closer together to make it easier for everyone. Having rained all morning forcing a delay to the start of Rd5 of the series, and with organisers working hard to remove the standing water, the track is still wet and so the racers will run handout wet tires, more specifically the Schumacher Mini Darts in silver compound.

Speaking with last year’s winner Michal Orlowski, the Polish driver sealing both the 2wd and 4wd titles here some 12 months ago, the Polish driver described the track as having a very unique feeling especially compared to the UK astro tracks, elaborating by saying it feels ‘slightly softer’. Liking the layout he said ‘last year was very successful for us and we have prepared a lot for this race’, continuing ‘the weather is not so good this weekend but I enjoy racing in the rain’. Feeling it is very important to be smooth, Michal says the track has some ‘sneaky bumps which can catch you out’ and so to be quick you have to ‘learn the bumps’.

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