Easy win for Bayer in opening 4WD Main

Martin Bayer took an easy win in the opening A-Main of 4WD Buggy at the Euro Offroad Series, the Top Qualifier being the only driver to complete 14 laps of the Hudy Arena.  Securing his first EOS victory earlier when he took the overall 2WD win, the Xray driver briefly lost the lead on the opening lap to Naoto Matsukura but once back in front took control of proceedings to win ahead of a much improved Joern Neumann.  While Matsukura would only finish 7th, his Yokomo team-mate Lee Martin completed the Top 3 10-seconds back behind the defending champion.

Losing the lead at the second corner, Bayer said the TQ position made the start difficult due to how close it was to the first jumps of the lap.  Having started 2nd in 2WD, he said that was much easier, and having to go safe over the jumps it was this that allowed the No.2 buggy of Matsukura to get down his inside to go to the front.  Retaking the lead after the Japanese driver rolled on a landing on lap 2, the European Champion said being able to build up a gap over his rival helped by a second off he was then able to control the race to the finish.  Looking to become the first driver to beat Neumann in 4WD he said it was ‘a very good way to start of the 4WD finals.

A driver who has dominated the class since the creation of the EOS, winning all nine races to date, Neumann has struggled this weekend after the race said his event has ‘now just started’.  Finding an issue with the diff in his DEX410 which he believes was the reason for his mysterious lack of traction in qualifying, he said the buggy was much better highlighted by the fact that he ran his first 22-second lap of the weekend.   A mistake early in the race left him short of time to catch up Bayer by the time he got up to second but going into A2 the World Championship Top Qualifier is confident about his chances.

Despite finishing one position higher than he started, Martin said he ‘wasn’t fast enough’.  The British ace said his Viper powered B-Max4 didn’t want to land flat so he had to play safe.  Trying to jump long he said the buggy would just crash and so for A2 he will change to a different suspension set-up.  He said the issue was compunded by a little understeer with his fastest lap some 7/10ths slower than team-mate Matsukura.  Matsukura said after a good start his race just went downhill.  Suffering some spectacular cart wheels as he dropped down the field, he said his car was ‘good’ and the next one will be ‘better’.

Starting 8th on the grid David Ronnefalk was pleased to finish 4th.  Changing the toe in on his Kyosho from 4 to 3, something he said he should have done earlier in the event, it made it much easier to drive.  Declaring his race as having went ‘pretty good’, the Swede is looking forward to A2 adding he is confident of a good result now that he knows what his buggy can do.

4WD Buggy A-Main Leg 1 Result
1.(1) Martin Bayer – Xray – 14/5:21.970
2.(3) Joern Neumann – Durango – 13/5:02.832
3.(4) Lee Martin – Yokomo – 13/5:12.612
4.(8) David Ronnefalk – Kyosho – 13/5:15.229
5.(6) Hupo Honigl – Team C – 13/5:16.291
6.(5) Renaud Savoya – Xray – 13/5:17.019
7.(2) Naoto Matsukura – Yokomo – 13/5:19.310
8.(10)Robert Batlle – Yokomo – 13/5:31.307
9.(7) Miguel Matias – Xray – 12/5:03.133
10.(9)Oskar Levin – Team C – 6/2:29.553

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Bayer claims Xray’s first EOS win

Martin Bayer has claimed both his and Xray’s first Euro Offroad Series victory, an unexpectedly easy win in A3 giving the Czech driver & his XB4-2 the overall win at the Hudy Arena. Becoming only the fifth different winner of the championship’s largest class, Bayer’s surprise win, his first win expected to come in 4WD, ends the winning streak of Naoto Matusukra the Yokomo driver finishing second overall after struggling in the third leg. Finishing second in the final 2WD encounter, Team C’s Hupo Honigl completed the podium in Slovakia.

‘Amazing, the class I didn’t expect to do so well in and I win’, that was Bayer’s reaction to his popular home win. Admitting the deciding Main was a lot more straight forward than expected, he said that he went into race with the strategy of keeping his buggy on four wheels and waiting for other’s mistakes.  After the thrilling A2 encounter, he knew that Matsukura’s ‘super aggressive driving style’ would make it near impossible to run the full race without error on what has been a difficult track. On the opening lap thats exactly what happened, Matsukura rolling on the landing after the tricky finger jump in front of the drivers stand giving Bayer’s No.2 starting Xray a lead he would never relinquish.  3-laps later a further mistake, which saw the Top Qualifier needing to be marshalled, would give Bayer the big break of the race allowing him to cruise to that first win.

Matsukura, who posted the fastest lap of the race by over 1/2 a second, said he had no comeback from his two early errors this time round for Bayer. Fitting a new set of tyres to his B-Max2 MR he said it made it very edgy and he wasn’t able to push like he did so easily in A2.  While disappointed at not being able to pull off the perfect record in 2WD, having done so in qualifying with three TQs from three appearance, the 4WD Vice World Champion said Martin won 2WD this time but I will win 4WD later’, the action at the Hudy Arena now switching to the 4WD finals.

Honigl said overall in terms of the championship 3rd was an OK result.  Having TQ’d the second qualifier, the Austrian said based on his opening two qualifiers he was confident he could have challenged for his second win but he lost his edge from Q3 onwards.  With 4WD Qualifying being run between Q2 and Q3 of 2WD qualifying, the former European Champion said the track lost traction for the second part of qualifying and the finals and with that he lost pace.

A drivers whose form went the opposite direction to Honigl’s, Schumacher’s Tom Cockerill was delighted to claim fourth overall.  Just scrapping into the final winning the tie break with Xray’s Renaud Savoya for 10th position, the season opener’s Top Qualifier said after a ‘shit start to the weekend it finished pretty good’.  Turning his fortunes around by going with his DHI winning set-up on his Cougar KF half way through qualifiers, he said in A3 he just capitalised on everyone else mistakes of which he said ‘there were a lot’.  The result was fourth for the leg which gave him fourth overall on tie break with Miguel Matias and fellow Brit Lee Martin.

Elsewhere it was an event to forget for defending champion Joern Nuemann.  Breaking his DEX210 in the warm-up for A3, which he was allowed extra time to repair, the race would not see his luck change.  Contact with Cockerill while battling over 5th would send his buggy rolling across lanes and into the path of the three way battle for second between Honigl, Matsukura and David Ronnefalk.  Unfortunately Ronnefalk’s Kyosho made a direct hit breaking the shock tower on the RB6 and ending the Swede’s challenge for an overall poduim finish.  In the end the German would finish the leg 9th having popped a ball cup after contact with Lee Martin on the straight but overall he goes away with a 10th for the 3rd round of the championship.

2WD Buggy Overall Result
1. Martin Bayer (CZ) – Xray – 2 pts
2. Naoto Matsukura (JP) – Yokomo – 3
3. Hupo Hönigl (AT) – Team C – 5
4. Tom Cockerill (GB) – Schumacher – 9
5. David Ronnefalk (SE) – Kyosho – 11
6. Miguel Matias (PT) – Xray – 11
7. Lee Martin (GB) – Yokomo – 11
8. Peter Pinisch (AT) – Team Associated – 12
9. Martin Wollanka (AT) – Xray – 14
10.Joern Neumann (DE) – Durango – 17

2WD Buggy A-Main Leg 3 Result
1.(2) Martin Bayer – Xray – 13/511.474
2.(3) Hupo Hönigl – Team C – 13/5:15.697
3.(1) Naoto Matsukura – Yokomo – 13/5:23.607
4.(10)Tom Cockerill – Schumacher – 12/5:02.428
5.(5) Lee Martin – Yokomo – 12/5:03.811
6.(6) Martin Wollanka – Xray – 12/5:04.859
7.(9) Miguel Matias – Xray – 12/5:10.094
8.(7) Peter Pinisch – Team Associated – 12/5:23.864
9.(8) Joern Neumann – Durango – 11/5:12.424
10.(4)David Ronnefalk – Kyosho – 5/2:00.682

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Bayer wins from Matsukura in thrilling A2

Martin Bayer won a thrilling second 2WD A-Main at the Euro Offroad Series in Slovakia this morning, his win over Naoto Matsukura putting the Xray driver ‘back in the game’ as the overall winner of the 3rd round of the championship will be decided in the third main.  Taking the lead on the opening lap the Czech ace lead from start to finish but mistakes by both him and the hard charging A1 winner Matsukura meant the race would be a last lap dash to the line.  Team C’s Hupo Honigl would complete the Top 3.

Finishing third in A1, having led yesterday’s encounter for a time, Bayer was delighted with his A2 win but admitted to finding the race stressful.  Moving to the front on the opening lap after a mistake by Matsukura, who would drop to the rear of the field, he said after pushing hard for a few laps he then took the approach to drive safe.   Having set the fastest lap of the race, this change of driving style only ended up leading him to make a number of errors.   Coming short on a number of jumps, he said he could see the recovering Matsukura, a driver famed for his hard charges, was ‘super fast’ and closing quickly and this caused the stress levels to get pretty high.  Relieved to get to the finish, Matsukura getting right within striking distance until an error one corner earlier, Bayer said he was ‘very happy to be back in the game’ and looking forward to challenge for his & Team Xray’s first ever EOS victory.

Matsukura was clearly frustrated with his driving directly after the race.  Chasing a perfect score this weekend, looking for a third win in as many EOS appearances, the Top Qualifier said everything was there in terms of his equipment and it was just stupid mistakes that cost him the win.  Able to quickly catch back up to Bayer after each one of his errors, he said this was the most frustrating thing as he kept throwing away his recovery with another ‘stupid mistake’.

Finishing a distant third, Honigl said he hadn’t much to say about the race other than he was ‘very disappointed with (his) driving’.  The Austrian, who won the season opener, said he ‘made too many mistakes’ which was totally down to his driving as his TM2 V2 as really good as highlighted by it recording the 2nd fastest lap of the race, only Bayer going quicker.

Benefiting from a multiple car pile up, David Ronnefalk held second for three laps early on before slipping back to 9th by the end of the 5-minutes.  The Kyosho driver said having had good steering in A1 when he finished 2nd, today he had ‘zero steering’.  Unable to do anything about catching Bayer, the Swede said he just tried to hold on to his position but with no speed he quickly got caught up.  Making a few small mistakes he started dropping back down the order before an incident with Martin Wollanka left him frustrated leading to further errors that dropped him to ninth, the last finisher.

For defending champion Joern Neumann, the race ended in retirement.  The Durango driver said he made a perfect start going from 8th to 4th but with Wollanaka, who was running second, getting out of shape and coming across his path he would drop to last.  One lap later a bad landing would see the German pop out a drive shaft ending his race.

2WD Buggy A-Main Leg 2 Result
1.(2) Martin Bayer – Xray – 13/5:22.651
2.(1) Naoto Matsukura – Yokomo – 13/5:26.029
3.(3) Hupo Hönigl – Team C – 12/5:01.899
4.(9) Miguel Matias – Xray – 12/5:08.092
5.(7) Peter Pinisch – Team Associated – 12/5:08.776
6.(5) Lee Martin – Yokomo – 12/5:09.586
7.(6) Martin Wollanka – Xray – 12/5:09.994
8.(10)Tom Cockerill – Schumacher – 12/5:11.959
9.(4) David Ronnefalk – Kyosho – 12/5:18.337
10.(8)Joern Neumann – Durango – 3/1:20.733

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‘From Race Control’ – Day 3, Finals

It’s the deciding day of Round 3 of the Euro Offroad Series at the Hudy Arena in Slovakia.  After last night’s opening leg of Mains in 2WD buggy, Day 3 gets underway with the continuation of the 2WD finals.  Once the remaining two rounds of mains, all drivers getting triple mains, are complete the prize giving will bring the first part of the day’s proceedings to a close.  The second half of the day will see attention switch to 4WD again with three rounds of Mains to be run.

Matsukura takes first A-Main in Slovakia

Naoto Matsukura moved one step closer to making it three from three as he won an action packed first A-Main of 2WD Buggy at the Euro Offroad Series in Slovakia tonight.  Top Qualifier for the third round of the championship, the Japanese driver took the win from David Ronnefalk and Martin Bayer, the latter really putting it up to the Yokomo driver over the first two laps before a mistake on lap 3. While the Berlin winner would take a comfortable win over Ronnefalk’s Kyosho who in turn had a good gap over Bayer it was the battle for third that provided the entertainment.

Fist pumping the air it was clear Matsukura was relieved to take the opening win having clearly struggled to match Bayer at the start. Describing traction as being lower than qualifying, he said he struggled for the first half of the race as his B-Max 2 suffered more understeer than normal. Able to build up a gap he said it was only in the last two minutes that he felt he had full control of the race.

Ronnefalk said by the time he got up to second the gap was too much to pull back even though he was able to run a faster lap of the race than Matsukura.  Taking risks over the table top he said he did close the gap somewhat but after catching some track tape that caused him to spin out he decided to settle for second knowing that following all the ‘carnage behind’ he had a comfortable gap over third.  Describing his RB6 as ‘awesome’ the Swedish teenager said based on how A1 went he is really looking forward to tomorrow’s two encounters.

Having found a way passed Matsukura on the first pass over the table top to take the lead, Bayer was understandably disappointed with third.  A mistake by Matsukura at the double before the corner table top looked to give the Xray driver an early break but in the same second Bayer would turn too early and get caught up in the corner marker losing over 6-seconds.  Dropping back to 5th, a coming together with defending champion Joern a lap later caused him to have to wait on the German leaving him last.  Setting the fastest lap of the race, and benefiting from key errors by Peter Pinisch, Lee Martin & Tom Cockerill, Bayer would recover to third, a result he said considering all that happened was ‘OK’ but still nothing like what could have been where it not for his ‘stupid mistake’ on lap 3.

Already a winner this season, Hupo Honigl would finish fourth. Starting third the Team C driver said an early error cost him dearly as he was never able to recover the lost ground.

2WD Buggy A-Main Leg 1 Result
1.(1) Naoto Matsukura – Yokomo – 13/5:15.981
2.(4) David Ronnefalk – Kyosho – 12/5:01.890
3.(2) Martin Bayer – Xray – 12/5:05.317
4.(3) Hupo Hönigl – Team C – 12/5:07.909
5.(10)Tom Cockerill – Schumacher – 12/5:08.192
6.(5) Lee Martin – Yokomo – 12/5:09.393
7.(7) Peter Pinisch – Team Associated – 12/5:12.728
8.(8) Joern Neumann – Durango – 12/5:18.268
9.(9) Miguel Matias – Xray – 12/5:18.595
10.(6)Martin Wollanka – Xray – 4/1:42.360

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Three 2WD TQ’s in a row for Matsukura

Naoto Matsukura is Top Qualifier for 2WD Buggy at the Euro Offroad Series in Slovakia, the Japanese ace maintaining his 100% qualifying record as he claimed his 3rd pole position in as many appearance in the championship.  The Team Yokomo ace secured the overall TQ at the Hudy Arena after topping the fourth & final qualifier from Martin Bayer, who earlier claimed his first EOS TQ in 4WD,  with Q2 pace setter Hupo Honigl third, this also being the order in which they will line up on the grid for the triple A-Main.  Proving to be a tough weekend for defending champion Joern Neumann, the final qualifier was his best but starting 8th on the grid the German is unlikely to be challenging for his first 2WD win of Season #3.  Having TQ’d the penultimate round of qualifying to put himself in contention for the pole position, a costly early mistake by David Ronnefalk left him nowhere in Q4 but the Swede will still line up a competitive 4th.

Targeting his third win, Matsukura was pleased to secure the overall TQ but was cautious about predicting he would have an easy race.  Setting the fastest lap of the race as he did in all four qualifiers, the 1:12 World Champion said Bayer’s pace is very strong and he expects the Czech driver to push hard on a track where mistakes are very easily made.  Unfortunately for Matsukura’s team-mate Lee Martin Q4 saw a DNF due to a broken caster block and the British driver starts 5th.

Honigl, who won the season opener, said while his Team C may have lost a little pace to his rivals as the track has lost some of its traction, he is pleased to be starting third.  With two sets of the series Pro-Line controlled tyres scrubbed in the Austrian is confident, him proving in Q2 that his TM2 V2 is better on second run tyres.

Describing his final qualifier as ‘shit’, him losing 9-seconds on 1 lap, Ronnefalk said at the start of the run he was able to run with Matsukura and Bayer so he knows he has the speed.  The Swede is very happy with his RB6 saying that the finals are down to him, driver costly errors having been common theme today for the 17-year-old.

Neumann said his final qualifier was a ‘mistake free, clean run’ but his DEX210 is ‘way too slow’.  The three time back to back EOS champion said he has no steering and considering this making the A-Main this weekend is a result in itself.  Starting from the back end of the grid, the European Champion says he doesn’t expect to he’ll be standing on the podium for a third time this season.

2WD Buggy A-Main Grid
1. Naoto Matsukura – Yokomo – 310 pts
2. Martin Bayer – Xray – 308
3. Hupo Hönigl – Team C – 307
4. David Ronnefalk – Kyosho – 304
5. Lee Martin – Yokomo – 303
6. Martin Wollanka – Xray – 301
7. Peter Pinisch – Team Associated – 298
8. Joern Neumann – Durango – 297
9. Miguel Matias – Xray – 296
10.Tom Cockerill – Schumacher – 295

2WD Buggy Q4 times
1. Naoto Matsukura – Yokomo – 13/5:18.392
2. Martin Bayer – Xray – 13/5:19.375
3. Hupo Hönigl – Team C – 12/5:02.310
4. Joern Neumann – Durango – 12/5:02.641
5. Martin Wollanka – Xray – 12/5:03.144
6. Peter Pinisch – Team Associated – 12/5:03.160
7. Miguel Matias – Xray – 12/5:03.633
8. Marc Rheinard – Tamiya – 12/5:05.005
9. Joakim Nicolaisen – Team Associated – 12/5:05.917
10.Martin Kreil – – 12/5:06.487

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