Euro Touring Series

May 11, 2014

Chassis Focus – Ronald Volker

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Chassis – Yokomo BD7 2014
Motor – LRP 4.5
ESC – LRP
Batteries – LRP
Tires – Ride (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa
Bodyshell – Protoform LTC-R

Remarks – Running a stock BD7 for the most part, Ronald said with his setup being good since the start of the event and with the track staying pretty consistent throughout the weekend he just tried some different camber adjustments on Friday but ended up reverting back to his standard asphalt setup. Running the latest firmware release for his LRP speedo, he said he is delighted about the added power and much improved consistency of the brakes, much needed here for this kind of track.

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May 11, 2014

Video – Modified & Pro Stock A-main 1

May 11, 2014

Volker heads Yokomo 1-2 in A1 at ETS Austria

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Ronald Volker took an easy win in the opening A-Main at the fourth round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Austria this morning. The Top Qualifier headed home a Yokomo 1-2 as team-mate Yannic Prumper also finished in the same position he qualified. The race was made all the easier for the Yokomo pairing as a first corner coming together between the No. 3 and 4 starting Tamiya’s of Viktor Wilck and Marc Rheinard gave them an early break. Benefiting from the first corner chaos, Marc Fischer would finish third, the Serpent driver coming on very strong at the end of the encounter to mount a challenge on Prumper only to run out of time.

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‘Great to get the first Main done’, that was Volker’s reaction to his rather straight forward A1 win of which he also posted the fastest lap. Building up a gap over Prumper, the defending champion said for the second half of the race he was about to take a mostly safe approach taking wider lines adding that just the smallest of contacts risks damaging a C-Hub or servo. Looking to secure his 10th ETS race win today, he said the plan for A2 is to ‘try repeat the same again’ but he added that due to Prumper’s tyre strategy he expects a much tougher challenge from the 20-year-old.

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Prumper said the race was ‘pretty easy after Marc & Viktor crashed’. Running used tyres, while Volker raced a fresh set, he pushed as hard as he could but said today’s conditions seem to now favour new tyres. Coming under pressure from Fischer in the last minute of the race, the 2-times race winner said Fischer had the better car at the end of the race but for A2 he is confident his BD7 will be more competitive.

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Happy with his race, Fischer said he got a lucky start joking that hopefully the Tamiya team will make a similar start in the next leg. The German said for the first 4-5 laps he struggled a little with understeer but after that his S411 ERYX 3.0 just got better and better and by the end it was ‘really good’. Happy to work around the early understeer he will leave his set-up unchanged for A2.

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Recovering to finish fourth Marc Rheinard said it was a disastrous race as he ‘destroyed both Tamiya cars race’. Running into the back of Wilck’s TRF418, the 3-time World Champion said ‘this start shouldn’t happen’. Called by the race referee to wait to allow Wilck back passed, Rheinard found himself 8th at the end of the first lap but describing his car as ‘better than yesterday’ he was able to recover to take fourth snatching the position from Andy Moore on the last lap. Wilck was understandably not in a talkative mood saying little more than his race finally ended when he clipped the piping in the final 30 seconds of the race while running 9th.

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‘I dont know what happened’ was former World Champion Moore’s reaction to the his impressive start from 10th in the grid to 4th. The British driver said at around the 3-minute mark of the race he could see Rheinard was going to be a problem come the end of the race and pushing as hard as he could he said he couldn’t hold him off for that one last lap. Describing his TCXX as pretty good for most of the race he said by the end it really started to struggle with understeer. Starting from 6th on the grid Dominik Fleischmann completed the Top 6.

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In the Xray Pro Stock class Top Qualifier Jan Ratheisky led home an Xray 1-2 with the Top 3 finishing as they started. Defending champion Marek Cerny looked like he might mount a challenge on his team-mate until he clipped the piping eventually finishing just 3/10th behind. Schumacher’s Martin Hofer completed the Top 3 with former race winner Oliver Franke having a good race to bring his Awesomatix home 4th from 8th on the grid. In Formula Ratheisky made it look very easy as he won convincingly from the No.4 starting Roman Pichler.

Ride Modified A-Main Leg 1 Result
1.(1) Ronald Volker (DE) – Team Yokomo – 25/5:13.124
2.(2) Yannic Prumper (DE) – Team Yokomo – 24/5:01.582
3.(5) Marc Fischer (DE) – Team Serpent – 24/5:01.839
4.(4) Marc Rheinard (DE) – Tamiya Racing Factory – 24/5:06.866
5.(10)Andy Moore (GB) – HB – 24/5:07.114
6.(6) Dominik Fleischmann (DE) – Team Yokomo – 24/5:09.731
7.(8) Freddy Sudhoff (DE) – Awesomatix – 24/5:10.247
8.(9) Christopher Krapp (DE) – Kyosho – 24/5:11.465
9.(7) Alexander Hagberg (SE) – Team Xray – 23/5:05.286
10.(3) Viktor Wilck (SE) – Tamiya Racing Factory – 21/4:34.496

Xray Pro-Stock A-Main Leg 1 Result
1.(1) Jan Ratheisky (DE) – Team Xray – 22/5:03.496
2.(2) Marek Cerny (CZ) – Team Xray – 22/5:03.832
3.(3) Martin Hofer (DE) – Schumacher – 22/5:08.931
4.(8) Oliver Franke (DE) – Awesomatix – 22/5:11.071
5.(9) Tony Streit (DE) – Serpent – 22/5:12.628
6.(5) Tobias Seidl (DE) – Team C – 22/5:12.830
7.(6) Andreas Myberg (SE) – Xray – 22/5:13.508
8.(7) Barnabas Toth (HU) – Yokomo – 22/5:14.112
9.(4) Henrik Heitsch (DE) – ARC – 21/5:01.554
10.(10)Florian Botzenhart (DE) – Team C – 21/5:01.623

View the complete event results here.

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May 11, 2014

‘From Race Control’ – Day 3, Finals

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What a good decision in was to put a massive tent over the track here at fahr(T)raum as Day 3 of the ETS in Mattsee is a wet one. While some might of questioned the tent’s purpose yesterday when it was a lovely hot sunny day, today it is the saviour of Round 4 of the championship. With the track nice and dry the schedule can go on uninterupted by the heavy rain and on that timetable are three rounds of Mains all of which Red RC will broadcast live on their Youtube channel which can be viewed here

May 10, 2014

Euro Touring Series Rd4 – Saturday Action

May 10, 2014

Chassis Focus – Alexander Hagberg

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Chassis – Xray T4 ’14
Motor – Orca 4.5
ESC – Orca
Batteries – Orca
Tires – Ride (handout)
Radio/Servo – Futaba/KO Propo
Bodyshell – Protoform LTC-R

Remarks – With this being a World Championship year and many of the title contenders having attended the Warm-up race in Florida last month our chassis focus feature is rather restricted this weekend as teams are running various prototype parts on their cars. While allowed to photograph Alexander Hagberg’s Xray, the car does feature a number of undisclosed development parts which they team didn’t not wish elaborate on. In terms of setup here in Mattsee moving additional weights on his T4 from the front to a more central position improved stability in the fast direction changes, and he decided to run progressive springs that allow a slightly harder driving style without compromising the overall side bite. Other changes of note is that the whole team opted for using heavier steel differential outdrives instead of the usual aluminum ones. Also, after trying different roll centre options, he finally decided to use some antidive in the front end.

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May 10, 2014

4 out of 4 for Volker

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Having already secured his 14th overall TQ in the penultimate round of qualifying at the fourth round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Austria, Ronald Volker would go on to complete a clean sweep of qualifying at the fahr(T)raum hosted event. The fourth & final qualifier would see the defending champion head a Yokomo 1-2-3 with team-mates Yannic Prumper and Dominik Fleischmann both posting their best runs of the weekend. The result means it will be a Yokomo 1-2 line-up for tomorrow’s A-Main as the result secures Prumper second on the grid directly behind Volker. Once again Volker was the only driver to run 24-laps of the track, Q2 being the only time any of his rivals could achieve such a pace. Despite retiring from the final qualifier with electrical problems, Tamiya Racing Factory’s Viktor Wilck is the top non Yokomo qualifier, his TRF418 set to start 3rd just in front of team-mate Marc Rheinard who also failed to complete the last qualifier.

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Having suffered a heavy impact and quite a bit of damage to his MuchMore powered BD7 in Q3, Prumper said following the rebuild his car seemed to be fine with him declaring Q4 ‘a good run’. Suffering from a touch of understeer at the start, something he admits all drivers are having to deal with, the 20-year-old believes he has a good car for the final but admits the nature of the track means overtaking is going to be close to impossible. Despite this he said he will try to push his team-mate as much as he can and ‘see what happens’.

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Suffering from a problem that left his car with no steering when he was on the brakes, Wilck will do a complete change of electrics fitting a new speedo, receiver and steering servo to his car for the triple leg Mains. Challenging Volker for the TQ pace in the opening laps of Q4, he said when the car was free of the electric gremlins it was ‘OK’ and for tomorrow he will leave the same setup on for A1. The Swede said passing is going to be difficult and hinted that his focus might be more on trying to defend his 3rd position from the two Marcs starting behind him – Rheinard and Fischer.

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Deciding to pull up late in the final qualifier after he crashed following contact with a marshal’s shoe, Rheinard said he is still not fast enough. Looking to reduce the roll in the car his engineer Kiyo Suzuki fitted hard springs to the TRF418, which like many cars here this weekend features World Championship test parts, but this resulted in slightly more understeer. The German, who hasn’t been on the podium since the season opener, expects tough finals saying mistakes are going to be the only way to pass but when a driver in front does make an early one it’s going to be very hard not to get involved in their crash.

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Set to start 5th, Marc Fischer is really happy with his Serpent this weekend but said it was his driving that was at fault in the final qualifier. Catching the piping three times he said without the mistakes he could have been very close to Prumper and even Volker’s pace. Asked about the final, he said ‘starting behind the tank it was not going to be so easy’, the tank being Rheinard. He said he hopes his fellow countryman will attack but conceded it is going to be a hard race. In terms of his car he will leave the set-up the same.

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Completing the top six on the grid, Fleischman was very happy with his final qualifier. The newly crowned German Indoor National Champion said he was nervous going into the qualifier as two bad opening rounds meant he needed a good result. Having rebuilt the diff in his LRP powered BD7 for the final run he said this transformed the car and he was able to make a clean run to the third fastest time.

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Unfortunately for Round 2 winner Alexander Hagberg, who sits second in the championship points standings, he is going to have his work cut out for him starting from seventh on the grid. The factory Xray driver said his final qualifier was similar to the one before and for the finals he is going to have to consider something radical with his set-up if he is to find the pace he has been lacking all day. Behind Hagberg, Awesomatix’s Freddy Sudhoff, Kyosho’s Christopher Krapp and HB’s Andy Moore complete the grid.

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While Hagberg hasn’t had the day he would have liked, in contrast his Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky pulled off the perfect day to TQ both the Xray Pro-Stock class and Formula. In Pro-Stock there was three way points tie for the overall TQ as Henrik Heitsch became the fourth different driver to top a qualifier. Ratheisky took the tie-break over team-mate and defending champion Marek Cerny with former Champion Martin Hofer’s Schumacher set to carry the No.3.

Ride Modified A-Main Grid
1. Ronald Volker – Team Yokomo – 310 pts
2. Yannic Prumper – Team Yokomo – 306
3. Viktor Wilck – Tamiya Racing Factory – 305
4. Marc Rheinard – Tamiya Racing Factory – 305
5. Marc Fischer – Team Serpent – 302
6. Dominik Fleischmann – Team Yokomo – 301
7. Alexander Hagberg – Team Xray – 301
8. Freddy Sudhoff – Awesomatix – 297
9. Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 296
10.Andy Moore – HB – 296

Ride Modified Round 4 Qualifying – Top 10
1. Ronald Volker – Team Yokomo – 24/5:12.616
2. Yannic Prumper – Team Yokomo – 23/5:00.910
3. Dominik Fleischmann – Team Yokomo – 23/5:01.487
4. Marc Fischer – Team Serpent – 23/5:02.394
5. Alexander Hagberg – Team Xray – 23/5:02.632
6. Freddy Sudhoff – Awesomatix – 23/5:03.606
7. Andy Moore – HB – 23/5:04.800
8. Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 23/5:05.041
9. Magnus Vassmar – Team Xray – 23/5:06.550
10.Kono Takayuki – Tamiya Racing Factory – 23/5:08.932

Xray Pro-Stock A-Main Grid
1. Jan Ratheisky – Team Xray – 508 pts
2. Marek Cerny – Team Xray – 508
3. Martin Hofer – Schumacher – 508
4. Henrik Heitsch – ARC – 505
5. Tobias Seidl – Team C – 504
6. Andreas Myberg – Xray – 502
7. Barnabas Toth – Yokomo – 501
8. Oliver Franke – Awesomatix – 497
9. Tony Streit – Serpent – 496
10.Florian Botzenhart – Team C – 494

View the complete event results here.

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May 10, 2014

Volker is Top Qualifier at Austrian ETS

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Ronald Volker is Top Qualifier for the fourth round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series, another fastest run in the third qualifier of the Austrian event securing the German his 14th pole position start of the championship. Claiming his third valuable bonus TQ championship point of Season #7, the defending champion was the only driver to do 24-laps in Q3, topping the round from Tamiya Factory Racing team-mates Viktor Wilck and Marc Rheinard. With two from four rounds counting towards the final order Q4 will decide who lines up behind the defending champion on the grid with five drivers in contention. A US boards style track, something that has not been seen in the ETS before, grid position is expected to play a big part in the racing with drivers predicting it will be tough to pass on the narrow and unforgiving track.

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Pleased to add this to his record run of TQ’s, Volker said he struggled with an overall lack of traction due to running on used tyres adding that his team-mate Yannic Prumper had better pace. Unfortunately for Prumper a crash 2-minutes in while on a TQ pace would end his challenge to force the TQ battle to go to the fourth & final qualifier. Describing Q3 as ‘a good clean run’, Volker, who having so far finished all three rounds on the podium this season is Mr. Consistent, said he was very pleased to take the bonus point from his rivals with his gap now 8 points over Team Xray’s Alexander Hagberg. Looking to tomorrow’s finals, Volker said starting out front on this track is a big advantage and his plan is to just focus on building up an early gap on the pursuing pack. The German, who will be chasing his 10th championship win this weekend, said mistakes here have the potential to not only effect the driver who makes them but also the following drivers with very little room to take evasive action.

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Setting the fastest lap of the race, Prumper would do extensive damage to his BD7 as he pushed hard to maintain his TQ pace. Through the double right he would hit the track boards at full throttle. Twisting the front bulkheads, breaking the car’s top deck and pulling off the rear body posts, his mechanic Toni Rheinard said luckily his bodyshell and set of tyres came out of the incident undamaged.

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Despite his speedo losing brakes during the qualifier, Wilck said the run was ‘not too bad’. Just 0.315 of a second off a 24-lapper, the two time ETS race winner said his TRF418 is good at the beginning of the run but later on it starts to lose steering. With all drivers running LRP Carpet 2 tyre additive – the controlled additive specifically for this round of the championship, Wilck said he will have to solve the issue through a set-up change but what that change would be he was not yet sure.

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‘Not perfect but driveable’ was how Rheinard summed up his MuchMore powered TRF418 after Q3. The German, who has not been on the podium since the season opener, said ‘for sure the car was better than Q2 but still not the same as yesterday’. Having shown hints that he might challenge Volker for his first win of the season last night in Q1, today he said the car rolls too much causing it to be slow to change direction. For the final qualifier, the 11 time ETS race winner will try running harder shock springs.

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Setting the fifth fastest time, Marc Fischer said his Serpent was ‘way better’ now. Running a heavier diff in his Viper powered S411 ERYX 3.0 the German was despite 2 or 3 mistakes of his own happy with his performance but less so by that of Nicola Marrone. Stuck behind the Italian Yokomo driver for a number of laps he eventually was let past only for Marrone to run full throttle into the back of him down the straight. The impact costed Fischer around 1-second but left Marrone with a completely destroyed BD7 as on contact it went airborne crashing into the wooden bridge for the timing loop. Fischer said his car is much better than 5th fastest and he will run it as is for the final qualifier.

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While Volker laid down his mark on the Ride Modified class, in the Xray Pro-Stock class Schumacher’s Martin Hofer became the third different driver to post a TQ run. The former champion topped the round from Q2 pace setter Marek Cerny and the Czech driver’s Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky who was fastest in the opening qualifier. Ratheisky moved a step closer to successfully defending his Formula title as he took Q3 ahead of Roman Pichler to secure the overall TQ spot for tomorrow’s finals.

Ride Modified Round 3 Qualifying – Top 10
1. Ronald Volker – Team Yokomo – 24/5:11.811
2. Viktor Wilck – Tamiya Racing Factory – 23/5:00.315
3. Marc Rheinard – Tamiya Racing Factory – 23/5:01.961
4. Alexander Hagberg – Team Xray – 23/5:02.015
5. Marc Fischer – Team Serpent – 23/5:02.781
6. Dominik Fleischmann – Team Yokomo – 23/5:03.715
7. Freddy Sudhoff – Awesomatix – 23/5:05.415
8. Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 23/5:7.104
9. Magnus Vassmar – Team Xray – 23/5:08.536
10.Juho Levanen – Team Associated – 23/5:09.414

View the complete event results here.

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