Orlowski brings home the win at EOS Poland

Michal Orlowski delivered a convincing victory today in his home city of Warsaw today winning Round 2 of the Euro Offroad Series on the championship’s return to Poland.  With every sports person wanting to win in front of a home crowd, Orlowski claimed only his second ever EOS race win with conviction putting in an dominant 2WD performance in A2, something he would do again in A3 as a tactical championship move.  Having missed out on victory last season en route to becoming Vice-Champion for the second season running, today’s TQ and win puts the 15-year-old top of the championship table with the EOS next moving to the Hudy Arena – venue of his first EOS win.  Behind the Schumacher ace, reigning champion Lee Martin would claim second overall to move him into second in the standings.  Travelling to Poland as the early points leader it wasn’t to be a good race for Marc Rheinard, the Yokomo driver finishing a disappointing 9th. For Neil Cragg Poland would be somewhat of a break through for the Team Associated driver as he claimed his first podium finish, the European Champion proving much more competitive than he was at the season opener when he was only 6th.

Reacting to his home win, Orlowski said, ‘Obviously I am very happy to take the win in Poland’.  With his last win coming in May 2015, he continued, ‘the car was good all weekend once we found the right set-up in free practice’. Commenting on A2 he said, ‘As I said before the plan was to make a gap at the beginning and then as the race would settle down control the pace out front and this time I did that and could take it home’.  He added, ‘Once I had around 1.5 seconds of a lead I could control the race making sure I didn’t slow the pace too much to allow them to catch me’.  On moving into the championship lead he said, ‘hopefully at the Hudy Arena we can also get another good result.  The car is a lot better now than in Round 1 and hopefully it will work similar to how it has performed here’.  Summing it up as a ‘great weekend’, 4WD still to run tomorrow, he said, ‘I have to thank Tris(tram Neal) and my dad for all the hard work ahead of this event. Trish gave me a very good car with which to do the job’.

‘I always want to win but from the start we were not on a lightening pace and I think I drove well to get second because we definitely were not the fastest’, was how Martin summed up his 2WD performance.  Mounting his closest challenge to Orlowski in A3, he said, ‘I tried hard to hustle but he always had enough in hand to be honest and when he got out front I knew I had 2nd wrapped up unless we both messed up’.  Improving in his opening result of a 3rd at the Nurburgring, the British said the lesson from today was that ‘we need to go away and try harder’.

Claiming his first EOS podium, Cragg said, ‘before I didn’t appreciate how hard the EOS is so to get my first podium I’m pretty pleased’.  The Team Associated driver added, ‘2nd was the best we could have got today and I got 3rd so it’s not bad and I hope we can carry that to the next round.  We learnt a lot of things here with the car.’  Asked about his closing final having been in a good battle for second with Martin, he said ‘I had one stupid crash then went to 8 or 9th. I’m angry with myself over my driving’.  Top Qualifier at last season’s finale but ending up 8th at that event, he concluded, ‘I need to work on my driving in the finals’.

Finishing off the podium, Cragg’s 13-year-old Associated team-mate Joona Haatanen was happy with how he ended the race but felt had he had the same car starting out the event he could have challenged for his first EOS win.  From 9th on the grid, 4th was a great result for the highly talented Finn, him taking a 3rd place in A2.  Summing up Round 2 as ‘pretty hard’, he said he didn’t have the best of cars but a rear shock piston change was a break through for the finals with the car then ‘easy to drive’.  10th at the season opener, he said today’s result was ‘something to build on for the future’ and he is looking forward to the 2017 section of the championship.  Behind Haatanen, Christopher Krapp would finish 5th. A great drive in A3 – when he took 3rd after holding off Cragg, Krapp and Marc Rheinard – Jesper Rasmussen secured a 6th place finish.

View complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.

Chassis Focus – Jesper Rasmussen

Chassis: Team Associated B6
Motor: Reedy Sonic 6.5T
ESC: Hobbywing Xerun V3.1
Batteries: Reedy 5300mAh
Radio/Servo: Sanwa/Reedy
Remarks – Having spent his 18th birthday at the track here in Warsaw yesterday, Danish talent Jesper Rasmussen celebrated today by putting his B6 into the A-Main qualifying 7th. His car sports a front brass bulkhead in addition to steel weight plates under the servo and the ESC. The Associated supported driver is also using hard wishbones, titanium turnbuckles and a rear aluminium suspension mount.

Image Gallery

Orlowski cruises to A1 victory

Michal Orlowski has taken a dominant victory in the opening 2WD A-Main at the Euro Offroad Series in Poland.  Starting from the pole, the Schumacher driver however would get the first jump slightly wrong with his error leading Lee Martin and Neil Cragg to tangle delaying the field and giving him an early break he would only go on to extend.  With Hupo Honigl coming off best from hectic first lap to go from 6th to second, Cragg’s move into second short lived as he crashed at the quad, Orlowski was then able to extend his lead crossing the finish almost 6-seconds in front. Holding second for 4 minutes and 45 second, with Martin right on his rear wing, Honigl would make a mistake handing second to the reigning champion with a lap to go. Eventually finishing 5th as Cragg and Christopher Krapp also went through on the last lap to claim 3rd and 4th, the former race winner said afterwards, ‘I want to shoot myself, I don’t even know how I crashed’.

A very popular win in front of a huge crowd of visitors to the Warsaw Moto Show, Orlowski said, ‘I got a bit lucky at the start.  I was worried about the first jump before the race and then got it a bit wrong but saved it from crashing’.  He continued, ‘I got it a bit too short but Lee gave me space and that caused the crash behind.  Once the race settled, the 15-year-old said, ‘I could see Hupo was defending in second so I just focused on doing my laps and making sure I didn’t make any more mistakes.  Hopefully the next one I won’t have the same problem with the first jump’.

Giving his view on the start, Martin said, ‘Orlowski was a bit short and I was also a bit short.  He bounced wide but I could see he was coming back in so I gave him space.  Neil hit the the jump good and carrying speed he hit me.  It was just a racing accident’.  The Yokomo driver would set about a recover catching up to Honigl summing up the Austrian’s frustration with ‘Hupo was out front for 4:45. How unlucky’.  Hoping for a better start in A2 to try and push the race decider into A3, the Brit said, ‘Michal is fast, he is comfortable and he’s driven well so far.  I think it’s going to be hard to unsettle him but we’ll try’.

‘Third is a pretty good salvage’ was how a frustrated Cragg summed the opening A-Main.  The Associated driver continued ‘I got unlucky at the start and climbed all over Lee’.  I still managed to get away in second but then rolled on the same lap and had a few more uncomposed laps. I got a lucky third on the last lap’.  Feeling he could have challenged Orlowski he said, ‘I would like to see him under pressure from the start but instead we gave it to him on the first lap’.  Behind Cragg, Krapp who was involved in the early battle for second would also drop back after a mistake but recover to finish 4th, one place up on his starting position.  Starting ahead of his fellow German, Joern Neumann’s return to the front of the EOS grid didn’t go well as the former champion came off worst of the first lap bunching up of the pack as he came out of it in last place to finish 8th behind EOS Round 1 winner Marc Rheinard.

View complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.

Chassis Focus – Lee Martin

Chassis: Yokomo YZ-2 CA
Motor: RC Concept 6.0T
ESC: RC Concept SC120
Batteries: RC Concept Omega 4500mAh
Radio/Servo: Sanwa/Xpert
Remarks – Lee Martin is set to start second on the A-Main grid in Poland, having topped the last round of qualifying here at the Warsaw Moto Show. His Yokomo YZ-2 CA is equipped with the same prototype Yatabe springs used at the Nurburgring in the opening EOS round and features a rear brace that Lee’s engineer Shin Adachi cut to obtain more flex. To suit better the different characteristics of the tight Polish track, this time they opted for using the old version of the Japanese car’s rear hubs.

Image Gallery