Day One of the IFMAR EP Off Road World Championships was Monday 5 October and restricted
to six twenty minute practice runs.
Following on from the disappointing apparently orchestrated boycott of the South African 1:5 Worlds
by manufacturers and their drivers, this event has also attracted a similar staged boycott,
resulting in a small field with only 17 registered drivers.
There’s obviously an agenda in all of this and no doubt it will be revealed in time, however those who are here will be racing for a World Championship title and their names will go down in IFMAR history as World Champions for 2009-10.
It’s a pity this selfish and ignorant attitude of some has denied Hayato (2WD) and Tebo (4WD) the opportunity to defend their titles won in Japan in 2007.
There are three international drivers present: Craig Laughton (Australia), Martin Achter and Stefan Ippy, both from Germany.
None of them have reported being mugged, robbed or otherwise threatened, just enjoyable times at and away from the track.
We can report, however, IFMAR Chairman Dallas Mathiessen, was attacked–bitten by a lion at a lion park.
We will let him explain the circumstances.
Craig is a multiple Australian champion, Martin more recently placed eleventh at this year’s Euros while Stefan is usually found racing GP off road.
Leading the home charge is the experienced Dean Steenmans and Albert Claassens.
The TRAP track is of hard packed clay and offers a series of challenges to drivers including an enticing triple, table tops and other jumps with a fair sized straight.
Probably because of the low field, grip today was not high although tire wear was.
The control tire for 2WD is Pro-Line’s Holeshot M3, standard insert.
The fast guys–and there are quite a few apart from those mentioned–are posting around the 22 second mark but that time should drop tomorrow and again on Wednesday as competition heats up.
The TRAP facility is a magnificent complex, comprising an on road circuit and two off road circuits – one for 1:10 EP and the other for 1:10 GP with the usual car maintenance and cleaning facilities.
Day Two – Qualifying
First up today was the opening ceremony, over quite quickly as you can imagine.
Then it was into a round of controlled timed practice.
It had been decided earlier the groupings would remain as published for the practice day with the controlled practice times determining starting grid positions for Q1.
The pace was up straight away today, Martin Achter’s best time 21.23 with Craig Laughton next with 21.65 and Albert Claassens 21.89 the only drivers to go under 22 seconds.
Laughton set the overall best result.
Q1 went to Laughton, six seconds ahead of Achter with Claassens a further half second back.
Dean Steemans was fourth.
Achter has recorded the fastest lap time (20.61).
He had recorded a 25 second lap the previous one so obviously he had a crash, got angry with himself and nailed it!
Q2 was an easy win to Achter, Laughton making a series of mistakes giving him no chance of catching the flying German while Claassens took a consistent second.
Both Achter and Laughton reported there was less grip than in Q1.
Achter went three seconds quicker than Laughton’s Q1 time, both drivers going under 21 seconds –Achter 20.82 to Laughton’s 20.83.
Steenmans is starting to get his act together, could go well on the back half of the day.
He dumped the last lap in his run but posted a quickest lap time of 20.77.
There are two qualifiers to go today and the weather is getting quite warm, tomorrow is forecast to be hotter.
Steenmans in Q3 got the afternoon off to a bad start, breaking the front end of his Losi, putting him under pressure with only two qualifiers left to get to the pointy end of the qualifying list.
Three out of the five qualifiers count.
The win in the first group went to Gerrit Gouws with a slow 14 laps although he did pull out the fastest lap of the round–20.51.
Achter led his heat and looked good out in front although Laughton had narrowed the gap to a fraction of a second with Claassens close by. Achter then broke a rear shock tower ball stud, giving the lead to Laughton who in turn made a string of errors over the last two laps to hand the Q3 round to Claassens.
It’s setting up a great finish for TQ honours over the final qualifier today and tomorrow’s fifth round.
Laughton and Claassens at this stage both have a 1-2-3 finish record and will be fighting for the top qualifier
honour over the remaining two qualifiers and Achter, despite his woes, is not out of it.
He looks the best of the trio on the track and has a 1-2-DNF result so far.
Q4 and Achter looks the likely top qualifier with another almost flawless display, winning his group from the again consistent Claassens with the inconsistent Laughton dumping on the last lap to drop back to third.
There’s a round of qualifying tomorrow but Achter will go into the fifth and final qualifier with a 1-2-DNF-1 record.
Achter is using Pro-Line’s old narrow four rib fronts on cut down rims.
He’s pretty wrapped in them and is going through a set of rears per race.
A champion responds to pressure situations and in the last race of the day, Steenmans drove a super fast and mistake free race and looked certain to set the fastest time of the day until, two laps from home.
He’d suffered some momentary glitch in his electronics and that plagued him for the rest of the race.
He dumped on the final lap but still managed to be fourth overall at the end of the day.
Top 10
1.Martin Achter
2.Craigh Laughton
3.Albert Claassens
4.Dean Steenmans
5.Gerrit Gouws
6.Brandon Joynt
7.Charles Hollander
8.Jaco van Eeden
9.Stefan Fourie
10.Stefan Ippy
Day Three – Finals
Martin Achter of Germany is the new IFMAR 2WD World Champion.
He started the day by winning Q5 and thus started from pole position in the A Main legs.
Craig Laughton won the first leg then Achter won both second and third legs with very cool driving.
Third was Albert Claassons so the A Mains form went the same way as qualifying.
2WD OVERAL RESULTS
1
Martin Achter
2
Craig Laughton
3
Albert Claassens
4
Dean Steenmans
5
Gerrit Gouws
6
Charles Hollander
7
Jaco van Eeden
8
Brandon Joynt
9
Stefan Ippy
10
Stefan Fourie
Tomorrow (Thursday) with 4WD practice beginning Friday.
