2008 World Championships - Part 3 of 3
The third and final installment of CML Team Manager Dave Duggan's race diary from the 2008 Off-Road World Championships.
Saturday 21st
We arrived at the track around lunchtime to watch some of the lower finals before Neil had to take to the track in the final race of the day. Bump up king of the day was Adrian Bertin who bumped through 6 finals before falling at the last hurdle on Saturday.
Neil?s final went very much the same way as his qualifying had been. He actually got a good start before a mistake ridden lap put him back in the pack and he was never able to recover from there. A stop and go penalty harshly awarded for a wheel to wheel moment with Bertin did not help much either.
The UK team will now only have 2 representatives on the Sunday programme with Graham Alsop and Jon Hazelwood going in the 1/8ths.
A few days of good weather and the track was back to top racing conditions.
Sunday 22nd
Graham Alsop was out in the first final of the day and put in a really good drive making good use of his ability to run more than 10 minutes on 1 tank of fuel. Unfortunately Graham missed out on the bump up position by one place and his meeting was over. Jon Hazelwood also missed out after a terrible final where he could not get back into contention after being taken out early on.
The semi finals were both excellent spectacles and showed the class and ability of the top guys in the world to the full. From semi A Mike Truhe, Taylor James, Robert Battle, Renaud Savoya and Travis Amezcua all secured bump up spaces and with Adam Drake 6th, he was hoping that the other semi was slower and allowed him to take one of the fastest loser spaces.
The second semi final was a great battle between the two Associated team mates Cavalieri and Maifield. It was Maifield that took the win by a second or so and with it the pole position spot for the main final. Cavalieri would line up second as he also beat the time set by Truhe in the first semi. Jared Tebo, Atsushi Hara and Ty Tessman were the other direct qualifiers.
The second semi was in general much faster than the first and it was to mean that the 6th and 7th placed finishers would be the ones who took the fastest loser slots in the final. Those drivers being Jesse Robbers and Cody King. Jeremy Kortz was run out of fuel by his pit crew and therefore failed to place his Hyper 9 in the final.
In the 2 hour interval between the semis and the main the AE guys went through their cars and just checked everything over. Richard Saxton was working on the clutch for Maifield and ensuring that it was all just perfect. Team Manager Brent Thielke was making sure that they had eaten and were drinking water, all in an effort to make sure that they were ready in all ways possible for the 1 hour final.
The crowds would sit anyway to get a good view of the final!
The main final is probably the best race I have ever seen! Maifield, Truhe and Hara put on a display of driving that was truly worthy of a world championships. These 3 were always close on the track and rarely made any mistakes. Maifield was having run 6.40 fuel stops, Truhe 7.30 and the joker in the pack was Hara who was running 9 minute fuel stops. Others who were in the frame early on were Savoya who was never out of contention for the full hour and Tebo who at about 20 minutes was looking strong. By this time, Cavalieri was out with a front brake problem that locked the front brakes on and the nuked the clutch. King had also broken and Amezcua was out with a servo failure.
The pace at the front was frantic and as the race entered the later stages it was Hara who was starting to look the strongest. Maifield couldn?t quite make up the time needed for the extra fuel stops and actually ran out of fuel in the pits at the last stop. This was to drop him out of contention for the podium, and leave him down in 5th.
As it was Hara held a 5 second lead or so from Truhe and saw it out over the last minutes after the last stops, cruising his last lap to ensure no errors and taking the win by a second from Truhe. Frenchman Savoya took third after another great drive after his Euro win in Crete.
2008 1/8th World Champion Atsushi Hara.
Hara was running the new Proline ?Revolver? tyre as was Savoya and Truhe was running the Bow-fighter set up, and with Proline having 8 of the 12 runners on their rubber it was certainly a successful event for the US manufacturer.
After the final everyone returned to their hotels for the banquet, where every driver received an IFMAR plaque and we enjoyed some good BBQ food. The main finalists were paraded on stage and the winner Hara gave a speech to thank everybody who helped him to achieve his 2nd world title, after his Touring car success 8 years ago. It was a good opportunity for people to have a chat with some of the folks they hadn?t caught up with during the race and we then retired to the pub.
I must say a big thank you to Bobbi Jo at Byron Fuels for supplying all the UK guys with fuel, Scott Hughes and Daniel Adams at Proline for keeping our guys in tyres, Rody Roem at RB, and of course Associated and Hobao for their fantastic hospitality.
The event was a great showcase for what is the currently the biggest class in R/C racing, and despite a few organisational issues and a day of terrible weather, it has been a great event.
Well off to catch another flight and get back to my desk now?.
A few days of good weather and the track was back to top racing conditions.
Sunday 22nd
Graham Alsop was out in the first final of the day and put in a really good drive making good use of his ability to run more than 10 minutes on 1 tank of fuel. Unfortunately Graham missed out on the bump up position by one place and his meeting was over. Jon Hazelwood also missed out after a terrible final where he could not get back into contention after being taken out early on.
The semi finals were both excellent spectacles and showed the class and ability of the top guys in the world to the full. From semi A Mike Truhe, Taylor James, Robert Battle, Renaud Savoya and Travis Amezcua all secured bump up spaces and with Adam Drake 6th, he was hoping that the other semi was slower and allowed him to take one of the fastest loser spaces.
The second semi final was a great battle between the two Associated team mates Cavalieri and Maifield. It was Maifield that took the win by a second or so and with it the pole position spot for the main final. Cavalieri would line up second as he also beat the time set by Truhe in the first semi. Jared Tebo, Atsushi Hara and Ty Tessman were the other direct qualifiers.
The second semi was in general much faster than the first and it was to mean that the 6th and 7th placed finishers would be the ones who took the fastest loser slots in the final. Those drivers being Jesse Robbers and Cody King. Jeremy Kortz was run out of fuel by his pit crew and therefore failed to place his Hyper 9 in the final.
In the 2 hour interval between the semis and the main the AE guys went through their cars and just checked everything over. Richard Saxton was working on the clutch for Maifield and ensuring that it was all just perfect. Team Manager Brent Thielke was making sure that they had eaten and were drinking water, all in an effort to make sure that they were ready in all ways possible for the 1 hour final.
The crowds would sit anyway to get a good view of the final!
The main final is probably the best race I have ever seen! Maifield, Truhe and Hara put on a display of driving that was truly worthy of a world championships. These 3 were always close on the track and rarely made any mistakes. Maifield was having run 6.40 fuel stops, Truhe 7.30 and the joker in the pack was Hara who was running 9 minute fuel stops. Others who were in the frame early on were Savoya who was never out of contention for the full hour and Tebo who at about 20 minutes was looking strong. By this time, Cavalieri was out with a front brake problem that locked the front brakes on and the nuked the clutch. King had also broken and Amezcua was out with a servo failure.
The pace at the front was frantic and as the race entered the later stages it was Hara who was starting to look the strongest. Maifield couldn?t quite make up the time needed for the extra fuel stops and actually ran out of fuel in the pits at the last stop. This was to drop him out of contention for the podium, and leave him down in 5th.
As it was Hara held a 5 second lead or so from Truhe and saw it out over the last minutes after the last stops, cruising his last lap to ensure no errors and taking the win by a second from Truhe. Frenchman Savoya took third after another great drive after his Euro win in Crete.
2008 1/8th World Champion Atsushi Hara.
Hara was running the new Proline ?Revolver? tyre as was Savoya and Truhe was running the Bow-fighter set up, and with Proline having 8 of the 12 runners on their rubber it was certainly a successful event for the US manufacturer.
After the final everyone returned to their hotels for the banquet, where every driver received an IFMAR plaque and we enjoyed some good BBQ food. The main finalists were paraded on stage and the winner Hara gave a speech to thank everybody who helped him to achieve his 2nd world title, after his Touring car success 8 years ago. It was a good opportunity for people to have a chat with some of the folks they hadn?t caught up with during the race and we then retired to the pub.
I must say a big thank you to Bobbi Jo at Byron Fuels for supplying all the UK guys with fuel, Scott Hughes and Daniel Adams at Proline for keeping our guys in tyres, Rody Roem at RB, and of course Associated and Hobao for their fantastic hospitality.
The event was a great showcase for what is the currently the biggest class in R/C racing, and despite a few organisational issues and a day of terrible weather, it has been a great event.
Well off to catch another flight and get back to my desk now?.
