Volker tops final practice in Czech
Defending Yokomo Euro Touring Series Champion Ronald Volker has topped practice at the season opener in the Czech Republic laying down a new fastest 3-consecutive laps in the second timed practice to top the combined times sheets from early pace setter Marc Rheinard. Chasing a fourth win at the Hrotovice venue, Volker knocked almost 3/10th of his early pace to go ahead of Rheinard, who failed to improve, while an improvement from Yannic Prumper allowed him maintain his Top 3 ahead of Alexander Hagberg.
Making ‘minor changes’ to his LRP powered Yokomo for the final practice, Volker said his improve pace came from having more steering. The German added that while his BD7 was ‘not super easy to drive anymore’, the end result of ‘increasing pace’ was a good step forward. Planning just one further ‘minor tweak’ to the set-up for the first of the four scheduled qualifiers, he said his main focus would be on his driving and putting in a strong first 5-minute run.
Again trying two cars, Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard said while the times for the second practice where below expectations he is confident he knows the reason for this and armed with that knowledge he should be ok for the first one. With the carbon chassis TRF419 proving the fastest of the two Much More powered cars this time round, he said despite this he would run the alu chassis in Q1 adding that with a good set of tyres on it it has the pace to challenge Volker for a TQ run.
Changing the rear toe in on his Yokomo, Prumper said his BD7 had more steering but at the cost of it being more aggressive to drive with it particularly senstive to the track’s corner dots. Despite this the German plans to leave it as is for tonight’s opening qualifier and just keep it away from the dots.
Improving his Xray through a ‘more aggressive steering set-up’, Alexander Hagberg improved by over a 1/10th of a second adding he believes his ORCA powered T4 is now fast enough. Predicting very close times in qualifying, the Swede said having made too many small mistake in his three practice runs his focus for now is just to drive better with him opting to leave the car as is for Q1.
Ending the practice fifth fastest thanks to his opening time, Serpent’s Marc Fischer said despite two significant changes, body and shock springs, his S411 suffered the ‘same shit’ as it did earlier adding that it just ‘pushed like hell’. Planning a major change of direction with his set-up for qualifying he will go for a harder rear diff along with reducing the car’s ackerman.
Building on his impressive pace of the first practice when he was 9th fastest, ETS Pro Stock Champion Marek Cerny improved to end up 6th fastest. Having changed to ‘super soft’ shock oil so as to work the alu chassis on his Xray T4 more and switch from a spool to a front diff, the Czech driver said this gave him the steering he was lacking earlier. Now with too much the 20-year-old is set to go back a little with certain elements of his set-up change adding that overall he is feeling pretty good with his car going into qualifying on this his first serious attempt at racing Modified.
Xray team-mate Marco Kaufmann would enjoy a marked improvement as he bettered his 3-consecutive lap pace by half a second. Making the rear of his T4 narrower, the 21-year-old said this made the car push less and with more steering the change was a good step forward. Having ended up in the B-Main the last four times he got seeded in the top heat, the German said he is less nervous about running in that group this weekend and while his car just needs some minor tuning for Q1 the plan is to leave it as is and ‘just drive’. Behind Kaufmann the Top 10 was completed by Viktor Wilck, Freddy Sudhoff and ETS debutant Bruno Coehlo.
In the Xray Pro stock class, ARC Racing’s Lars Hoppe would top the times ahead of Mike Gosvig and Julian Borowski with early pace setter Martin Hofer failing to improve and dropping to fourth. Changing from a Lightweight to a Superlightweight version of the Blitz GSF body, Hoppe said this made his R10 easier to drive. Also making a change from a 5800mah to 7400mah Xcite RC battery, the German said this gave improvement to the car’s power over the duration of the run and the star of last season’s Luxembourg encounter, where he had a great battle for the win with champion Cerny, is feeling pretty confident for tonight when Pro Stock will run two of their qualifiers. Although he improved his time Cerny would remain 5th fastest. In the well supported Formula class, former Champion Herbert Weber topped the times with his CRC from the new Xray of defending back to back Champion Jan Ratheisky with Roman Pichler completing the Top 3.
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