Video – 2wd A-main Leg 1
Matsukura wins first A-Main with flawless drive
EOS debutant Naoto Matsukura has won the first leg of the 2WD Buggy A-main with a dominant performance in Germany. Having secured overall TQ honours earlier in the day the factory Yokomo driver took his B-Max2 MR to a tone to tone victory ahead of defending series champion Joern Neumann with German National Champion Oliver Scholz working his way up from 7th on the grid to complete the Top 3.
A flawless drive from the Japanese ace his rivals were not able to pull off such a clean race. First to hit trouble was Team Durango’s Joern Neumann, a mistake on the second lap allowing TLR’s Dustin Evans and Tamiya’s Lee Martin through. Evans would hold the No.2 spot for next five laps but coming through the crossover section his TLR22 traction rolled leaving the American requiring to be marshaled. Having got back passed Martin earlier this allowed Neumann back up to second. Up front however Matsukura was clearly in control of the race with Neumann’s best efforts not enough to close the gap the pairing separated by 1.6 seconds at the end of the five minutes.
The win is a huge confidence boost for Matsukura who is experiencing European style indoor offroad racing for the first time but the 19-year-old will have to wait till tomorrow to see if he can secure the overall win as the action in Langenfeld now reverts to 4WD with four rounds of qualifying set to bring Day 2 of the EOS Round 2 to a close.
In the 2WD Short Course class, the Top Qualifier also took the win in Leg 1 with local driver Michael Rybski taking his Losi to a 4.5 second winning margin over Tom Bujara with reigning champion & EOS track designer Gerd Strenge taking third from 10th on the grid.
2WD Buggy A-Main Leg 1 Result
1.(1) Naoto Matsukura (JP) – Yokomo – 15/5:15.081
2.(2) Jörn Neumann (DE) – Durango – 15/5:16.682
3.(7) Oliver Scholz (DE) – Team C – 15/5:21.234
4.(4) Lee Martin (GB) – Tamiya – 14/5:00.962
5.(3) Dustin Evans (US) – TLR – 14/5:03.572
6.(5) Hupo Honigl (AT) – Durango – 14/5:05/380
7.(8) Christopher Krapp (DE) – Kyosho – 14/5:09.178
8.(9) Otto Ausfelt (SE) – TLR – 14/5:09.460
9.(6) Darren Bloomfield (GB) – TLR – 14/5:11.142
10.(10)Tom Cockerill (GB) – Schumacher – 10/3:39.386
Complete event results can be found here.
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Chassis Focus – Joern Neumann
Chassis Name – Durango DEX210
Motor – Speed Passion Competition 3.0
ESC – Speed Passion Reventon Pro
Tires – dBoots (handout)
Radio/Servos – Futaba
Remarks – The reigning EOS Champion is running an unchanged DEX210 from the car he ran at the opening round of the series in Poland, which he won. The only difference is that he is now running Futaba radio equipment following a change of sponsor. In terms of setup the Reedy Race Champion has positioned the battery slighter further back in the car to help give more traction on the slippery wooden surfaces.
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Chassis Focus – Naoto Matsukura
Chassis Name – Yokomo B-Max 2 MR
Motor – Nosram Pure Evolution 2
ESC – Nosram Comet
Tires – dBoots (handout)
Radio/Servos – Sanwa
Remarks – Japanese National Champion and World’s finalist Naoto Matsukura is making his and the car’s international carpet offroad debut and having TQ’d the event it seems to be going rather well. The Yokomo B-Max 2 has been around for some time, but its mid motor MR configuration is only new and is designed specifically for high grip conditions such as this carpet surface. Naoto is running the standard kit car with Nosram electronics.
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Matsukura is 2WD Top Qualifier at EOS
Japan’s Naoto Matsukura is the 2WD Buggy Top Qualifier for the TLR/Spektrum Euro Offroad Series Round 2 in Langenfeld, Germany, after the series debutant backed up his Q3 topping run with an even faster 5-minute pace in the fourth & final qualifier. The Yokomo driver, who has never raced offroad on a carpet & wood surface track before, took Q4 ahead of Tamiya’s Lee Martin after both Joern Neumann and Dustin Evans with whom he was swapping the lead pace each made costly mistakes. Finishing on the same points as Neumann’s Durango which TQ’d Rounds 1 & 2 of qualifying, Matsukura secured pole on tie break thanks to his Q4 pace and will start ahead of the reigning champion for what is an interesting grid line-up with four different buggies filling the Top 4 places. Third on the grid will be Evans’ TLR22 while the No.4 will be carried by Martin’s TRF201.
Matsukura was understandably ‘very happy’ to take the TQ saying he actually likes the high grip surface more than clay adding that his touring car experience benefited him. The 4-times reigning Japanese National Champion said the result is great for the new B-Max2 MR buggy and he hopes he can convert the TQ into a win. Asked about the finals the 19-year-old said on pace he thinks himself and Neumann are very closely matched with his advantage being in the corners and the Germans strength being the jumps. With all the drivers saying passing will be difficult Matsukura said starting at the front is going to be a huge advantage.
Neumann agreed with his fellow World Championship finalist that overtaking will be hard but added that running the full 5-minutes without a mistake was just as hard and the race would be decided by who made the least amount of mistakes.
Evans said the technical design of the Gerd Strenge built track was going to make for ‘pretty exciting racing’ with the key to passing being to force the driver in front of you into a mistake. Although his buggy started to push in the final laps of the last qualifier due to his front tyres going off, Evans is confident he his buggy is a match for the two starting ahead of him and it will come down to who drives the cleanest finals.
The first A-Main will take place later this evening with Legs 2 & 3 scheduled for tomorrow.
2WD Buggy Q4 times
1. Naoto Matsukura – Yokomo – 14/5:00.195
2. Lee Martin – Tamiya – 14/5:04.407
3. Hupo Honigl – Durango – 14/5:06.232
4. Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 14/5:07.591
5. Dustin Evans – TLR – 14/5:07.726
6. Tom Cockerill – Schumacher – 14/5:10.452
7. Otto Ausfelt – TLR – 14/5:12.216
8. Bjorn Prumper – TLR – 14/5:12.550
9. Benni Groschel – Durango – 14/5:14.604
10.Markus Metsch – – 14/5:14.762
2WD Buggy A-main Grid
1. Naoto Matsukura (JP) – Yokomo – 310 pts
2. Jörn Neumann (DE) – Durango – 310
3. Dustin Evans (US) – TLR – 306
4. Lee Martin (GB) – Tamiya – 302
5. Hupo Honigl (AT) – Durango – 302
6. Darren Bloomfield (GB) – TLR – 302
7. Oliver Scholz (DE) – Team C – 301
8. Christopher Krapp (DE) – Kyosho – 299
9. Otto Ausfelt (SE) – TLR – 298
10.Tom Cockerill (GB- Schumacher – 298
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Matsukura TQ’s Round 3
Team Yokomo’s Naoto Matsukura has TQ’d the penultimate 2WD Buggy qualifier at Round 2 of the TLR/Spektrum Euro Offroad Series in Germany, the Japanese ace taking Q3 by the narrowest of margins from TLR’s Dustin Evans. The result took some time to be made official as it originally looked like Evans’ penultimate lap hadn’t counted. Manually giving the American what was thought to be a missed lap it resulted in the first 15 lap run of the event but Yokomo did their own calculations which showed the time given wasn’t possible.
With timekeeping pulling up the readings from the loop for Evans TLR22 it was discovered that a blistering final lap from the former US Champion was quicker than the minimum 21-second lap time set in the timing software. Crossing the loop at 5:02.694, the computer discarded the rocket 20.952 second lap allowing Evans to go on to run another lap and stop the clock at 5:24.117. Ultimately it was a bad lap three laps from the end of the run which cost Evans the TQ run as he got out of shape a number of times losing over 3 seconds. and handing the lead to Matsukura. Building on his Top 6 time in Q2, Team C’s Oliver Scholz completed the Top 3 for the round, the German Champion clearly happy with his run.
Having comfortably topped the opening two qualifiers Joern Neumann struggled after switching to a new set of tyres for the run. Expecting to have more grip the Team Durango driver said for some reason the fresh tyres gave him ‘zero traction’ on the wood sections. Struggling through the run the defending champion could only manage the 11th fastest time.
2WD Buggy Q3 times
1. Naoto Matsukura – Yokomo – 14/5:02.614
2. Dustin Evans – TLR – 14/5:02.694
3. Oliver Scholz – Team C – 14/5:04.469
4. Darren Bloomfield – TLR – 14/5:05.468
5. Otto Ausfelt – TLR – 14/5:07.846
6. Lee Martin – Tamiya – 14/5:08.420
7. Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 14/5:09.854
8. Hupo Honigl – Durango – 14/5:11.158
9. Bjorn Prumper – TLR – 14/5:13.019
10.Oliver Speith – Durango – 14/5:14.090
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