Coelho opens final day of EOS Slovakia with TQ run

Bruno Coelho has continued the Xray domination of the 4WD at the Euro Offroad Series in Slovakia by taking the third round of qualifying this morning at the Hudy Arena.  Again it was Coelho and team-mate Martin Bayer who set the pace until a late mistake by the latter cost him the chance to repeat last night’s Q2 TQ run. Dropping to third this allowed Coelho to take his second TQ of the event with team-mate Martin Wollanka also benefiting to get second out of the round.  The result means it will be either Coelho or Bayer who will be the overall Top Qualifier, Bayer needing to take the last round in a faster time than Coelho set in Q3.  Again it was Yokomo’s Lee Martin who was best of the rest as he posted the 4th fastest time with Joern Neumann’s Serpent the next best in P7.  Expected to break up the Xrays at the top of the time screens, 2WD winner Michal Orlowski would crash resulting in a broken front rollbar meaning his run lasting less than a minute. Running new tyres on his new Associated B64, Neil Cragg found the car very aggressive ending up 10th fastest but the team will make a number of changes to car for the final qualifier feeling they have been too conservative with changes so far.

After a run with ‘too many mistakes’ and ‘3 mistakes on one jump’ last night, Coelho said this morning his driving was much better. Aiming to ‘drive without mistakes’, the Portuguese driver said, ‘I still had two mistakes but the car landed on its wheels’ and it was only Bayer’s mistakes that allowed him take the TQ. One issue the reigning champion said he is having is with servos. He said the servo he normally runs was not strong enough for the high speed corners on the track layout and changing to a different servo the feeling is different which is an extra difficulty to contend with on an already difficult track.  Still not happy with the feeling he will fit another different servo for Q4.

‘It was a nice run, I had no mistakes’ was how Wollanka summed up the penultimate qualifier.  Having changed the front flex on his XB4, the Austrian said the result was the car ‘drivers smoother but the lap times are not as fast’. Asked if he would make further changes for the final qualifier he replied, ‘I will go back (with the set-up), I need the lap times’.

Commenting on his latest qualifier Bayer said, ‘It was a better run than last night almost. But I had two small errors’.  The head of development for Xray’s offroad platforms, the Czech driver and two time winner of the EOS at the Hudy Arena said, ‘the car is really good and really consistent and I had a comfortable lead but I threw it away with those 2-mistakes’.  With a chance of taking the TQ from his team-mate Coelho he said the car was there to do the job and it was ‘just a matter of driving it without mistakes’.

‘I had a 2-second error which realistically cost me second’, was Martin’s view of his run.  The former champion continued, ‘I still feel I need to find a few more seconds’.  Asked where he felt he was losing time to the Xrays he said, ‘landing the jumps as it takes a split second for the car to settle and this is were they can get away’.  He concluded, ‘If we can find a way around that we have a chance’.

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Q2 Update – Bayer holds overnight TQ

Martin Bayer holds the overnight TQ at the Hudy Arena after the Xray driver ended Day 2 of the Euro Offroad Series third round with a TQ run. Having battled with team-mate Bruno Coelho for the TQ in the opening 4WD qualifier, Bayer would get it done in the second round despite a third lap error to head another another Xray 1-2 this time ahead of Hupo Honigl.  With Coelho’s run full of errors, leaving him 9th, the second qualifier wasn’t the same strong dominance shown in Q1 with both Yokomo’s Lee Martin and Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski challenging for the TQ.  While Orlowski would drop out of contention with a big mistakes ending up 6th, Martin’s challenge was hampered by traffic as he got stuck behind Kája Novotný.  Improving his car through a slipper adjustment while the car still lacked the grunt he was looking for Martin was encouraged by the improved performance ahead of tomorrow’s remaining two qualifiers.  Behind Martin, former Champion Joern Neumann would post the fourth fastest time, the Serpent driver having a good run despite running in the second fastest heat.  Behind Neumann, Novotný would complete the Top 5.

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No surprise as Coelho leads Xray 1,2,3,4 in opening quali

There was no surprise in the opening round of 4WD qualifying at the Euro Offroad Series as Bruno Coelho led an Xray 1,2,3,4 at the Hudy Racing Arena.  Having topped seeding, the reigning Champion’s biggest challenge would come from Martin Bayer as the former event winner swapped the TQ pace with him throughout the 5-minute but in the end Coelho had the advantage by 1.3-seconds.  With Martin Wollanka and Kája Novotný setting the third and fourth fastest times, the best non Xray driver would be Lee Martin, the Yokomo driver fifth fastest but almost 7-seconds off the TQ pace.  Taking the 2WD win earlier in the day, Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski would complete the Top 6 running an almost identical time to Martin.

Reporting a lack of steering in the final practice after he made a shock change to his XB4 and saying he obviously had done something wrong, Coelho would find that he had but the C-hubs back on the car on the wrong sides.  With them corrected for Q1, he said, ‘the car was much better but it felt strange at the beginning as it was too aggressive compared to practice but I got back my feeling as the run went on and everything was good again’.  His returning confidence in the car highlighted by the fact he set the fastest lap of the qualifier on his penultimate lap and based on that he plans to ‘leave the car the same’ for Q2.

Setting the 8th fastest time in seeding practice, Bayer said he found afterwards that his drivetrain was too tight and with new bearings fitted for qualifying the car was ‘perfect’.  A two time 4WD EOS winner at the Hudy Arena said, ‘Leading Bruno was hard for me and I drove way too safe in the last laps but I’m still super happy with second’. Looking to Q2, which will bring Day 2 of the action in Trencin to a close, he said ‘the car is perfect so I just need to drive and enjoy it’.

Adjusting his speedo setting for more power for the opening qualifier Wollanka described his opening qualifier as ‘really good’.  The Austrian who finish runner-up to team-mate Coelho at the event last season, said he is preferring the track layout with 4WD having finished 7th in 2WD. Feeling his XB4 has too much steering he plans to change the front flex for Q2. Posting the 4th fastest time backing up his strong pace in practice, Novotný was pleased with his opening run. Getting ‘super close’ to a Top 3 run, the gap to Wollanka just 1/10th of a second, he said having ‘had a few small bobbles but nothing critical’ the plan for the second round was to ‘change nothing on the car and hopefully have a few less bobbles’.

‘I don’t have the instant power & pace out of the corners, in the curve of the turn its nice and smooth’, was Martin’s response to being so far off the Xrays. The former champion hopes modifying his slipper will help but added, its the Xray chassis layout that is giving them the distinct advantage they have over their rivals in 4WD but added the rest would soon catch-up but not this weekend.

Orlowski declared himself happy with 6th adding he didn’t drive very well leading to a couple of mistakes.  Admitting to feeling tired, the 15-year-old feels that his car has the pace to match the Xrays. With the car aggressive in practice a change for Q1 had made it ‘easy & fast’ and the aim for the day’s final qualifier was to make a clean 5-minute run and with a good nights sleep put in more of an attack in the morning’s remaining two qualifiers. With Hupo Honigl next up behind Orlowski, Neil Cragg would be the only other non Xray driver to make the Top 10 with his first ever qualifier with the Team Associated’s new B64 netting the 8th fastest time but the British driver did show strong early pace and but for a 26-second lap was on target to be best of the rest behind the Xrays.

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Coelho tops 4WD practice in Slovakia

With the action switching over to 4WD in Slovakia at the third round of the Euro Offroad Series following Michal Orlowski’s 2WD victory, Bruno Coelho showed beating Xray on home ground in the reigning champions class is going to be a challenge as he led a 1-2-3 in seeding practice.  Over the two rounds of practice at the Hudy Arena, Coelho would post the fastest 3-consecutive laps on the second run with Kája Novotný just 0.067 off and Hupo Honigl a similar margin off in third.  Best of the visiting teams would be Neil Cragg who laid down the fourth fastest time, Slovakia marking the Team Associated driver’s first 4WD outing of the season and the European debut of the B64.  For Michal Orlowski the switch to 4WD would see the EOS Poland double winner set the 9th fastest time, an improvement on where 2WD had started out yesterday.

Reacting to topping the times as was widely expected, Coelho said, ‘I had zero steering and was super surprised when I saw the timing screen after the run’.  Having rebuilt the shocks on his Hobbywing powered XB4 after the first practice to try and get it to land better he said this had left him with no steering saying, ‘normally our car has super steering’. Admitting his shock rebuild was somewhat rushed he said he must have done something wrong and he hopes to find out what before tonight’s opening qualifier.

‘Perfect. Right now its amazing’ was how Novotný summed up his XB4 after practice. The Czech National Champion adding he is ‘just loving the car’ and having left it unchanged between rounds it was ‘even better on the second run’.  Pleased with his three lap pace, the 20-year-old said running a clean 5-minutes was going to be difficult given the track layout but added ‘its offroad and I would prefer too many jumps than not enough’.

Honigl said, ‘I’m a bit surprised by my pace but I happy with that’. Leaving his car unchanged between runs and going on to set the fastest lap of practice, the only driver to manage a lap in 21-seconds, the Austrian said based on this he ‘wont touch it’ for the opening qualifier.  In terms of the track layout for 4WD compared to running 2WD on it, he said, ‘there are too many jumps which means you are more flying in the air than driving’.

Having not raced 4WD since last September,  Cragg was ‘pretty pleased’ with his second practice run.  Describing his first practice as ‘sketchy’, the British driver said a set-up change ‘transformed’ the car.  With no practice with the new car he said, ‘we are going to have to learn quick this weekend’ adding his pace in the second practice was ‘very encouraging’.  With only 3 of the new B64s running in Slovakia Joona Haatanen would also put his example in the top qualifying heat having set the 7th fastest seeding time.

Behind Xray’s Martin Wollanka, Lee Martin would post the 6th fastest time.  The Yokomo driver said his ‘car feels consistent as long as you don’t crash it’.  Sitting third in the championship standings, the former champion said while ‘4WD is always fast & furious’ in terms of the track layout ‘there is probably a bit too much going on’. Changing his shock set-up between rounds he said it improved the car but he still needs to work on improving the car through the middle of the corners.

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Chassis Focus – Neil Cragg

Chassis: Team Associated B64
Motor: Reedy Sonic 4.5T
ESC: LRP Flow
Batteries: Reedy 5300mAh
Radio/Servo: KO/Reedy
Remarks – British driver Neil Cragg is running the new B64 from Team Associated, making its European debut at the EOS here in Trencin. With this being the first outing for the buggy on carpet, Neil is using heavy duty gears for the high bite conditions, as well as stiffer springs and sway bars conceived for this kind of surface. His car also sports a pre-production aluminium option steering rack.

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