Summarize of 2010

In the beginning of this year we and other wounder if David could keep the same level of success in 2010 as 2009, but with victories Swedish Nats., Nordic Championships, Euro-B and so on it felt really tough to live up to this.

The year started well as David started the year by becoming the TQ and winner of the Nitromania, which was run in Belgium with strong drivers as Adam Drake and Mike Thrue as participants.

One of them most enjoyable race of the year was obviously Neo10 that always has a very big list of top drivers.
David was struggling in the qualifications but managed to qualify for the 1/4 finals and bumped up to the semis where he stopped. An okay performance i think, even if David himself was disappointed.

In Swedish Cup, he managed to not win all the races as he did in 2009, but there is nothing that David is responsible as it was more from my side. However he won three of the races and the cup for the second year.

Swedish Nast. Was prove to be an interesting and different race if you think about track surface and tire wear. The race was Kyosho dominated with Linus Thern as TQ and winner and David as 2nd in both qualifying and the final result.

The Nordic Championships in Finland was also an exciting event when all the Friday practice rained out and all “non-Finnish” drivers were thrown straight into a race with minimal practice.
This also showed in the qualifying results when the Swedish drivers were unusually far down.
Anyway, in the finals everything changed and again it turned out that David is a phenomenal final driver as he managed to get back in the semifinal, and after 18 minutes in the main final he showed that he was the only one who survived nine minutes refueling and he won the race with big distance for the second consecutive year.

In July it was time for the European Championships in Guarda, Portugal and with track images from the Euro-Warmup it was not super-optimistic, but the organizers had done a great job on the track and everything around it was perfect. The goal was to qualify better than ninth place as he had in Austria, and of course getting to the final.
Even if David had not been on the track and run before, so he quickly came into the track layout and became 11 after practice and qualified 8th after being 2nd and 3rd in two rounds.
After a 3rd place in the semi it was time for his first European Cup final where he finished 6th and at the same time became the best junior.




In November, it was the World Championships in Pattaya, and a race where we really did not have any goal for as we had not been there practicing as many other drivers had been.
Once there it became a natural target to be top 48 to avoid driving a lower final on Saturday.
At the 4 qualifiers that were counted he ended between 18 and 27 which led to a 33rd place in the qualifiers which was good, although a 32-spot and 1/4 would have been better.
In the 1/8 final he had two flameouts as the ideling was little to low.
But it was interesting to see his speed as he was almost two seconds faster than the others in the 1/8-finale, and his fasters laptime was the fastest on the whole final day.
It would be fun to see how far he could go, but we were pleased with the results with no practice earlier, and to be at the Worlds and see the team take TQ and win the race was fantastic.

In addition to the “big” race, it has been runing some smaller races that have been both good and less good as Quackenbrueck where he was hit in the finals so that the car broke, broken clutch at Montpellier (sorry) and out-of-fuel at Kyosho Masters ( sorry again).

As the World in 1/10 electric buggy goes in Finland in 2011 David wanted to try to qualify for it, and with only one 1/10 race in the back (Swedish Nats 2009) it was at least worth a try.
The first competition of the year was in the Nordic Championships in Bergen, Norway and David ended 4tth in 2WD and become Nordic Champion in 4WD.

The other big race in the 1/10 class of the year was the Swedish Championships and again David was 4th in 2WD and again he won the 4WD and become Swedish Champion.

With a tight race calendar we could not run the entire Sweden Cup races in 1/10 but it was the last two. David have been better in 2WD in the year and was better in those races, but in 4WD he have been totally domination and won the two cup race he drove and the cup overall in the class.

At the end of the year, there has been a lot of practice in 1/10 Touring on a nearby track as outdoor racing is impossible with more than 70cm snow and tempatures down to -25.

To sum up i feel that 2010 was an equally good year as 2009, and now it's time to look at the 2011th with CHI Cup in 1/10 as the first race already next week.

With this, we give thanks for 2010 and would like to wish all a Happy New Year, and special thanks to our sponsors Kyosho, Orion, AKA, KO Propo, Upgrade-RC, Neobuggy, Dailedinc, DCD……

The Worlds in Pattaya - Qualification and Finals

It was no blogging yesterday as i was so tired after a long hard day on the track that ended with the open cermony before we left to the hotel.

To Summerize the practice, it was really bad as David broke both practice round after krasching the car.

The mission at the first qualification was to make a good drive with few mistakes and don't break the car At the warmup his looked really god and he drive two laps and then we refueled so he could drive some more laps before the start as he didn't want to pit just before the start when the pitline is full of cars.
After that he made a really good driving with only a few mistakes that depended on wrong timing on the jumps.
He finished with 13 laps 10:29 and ended on 27 place in the first round wich we was very pleased with.

In the second round we had made some changes to the car to make it better to drive and the warmup was really good.
The jump was really god now, and the reason was that he moved a few meters on the driver stand to get another angel to se the track.
The clock started and he drove some good laps without any truble, but then he went to close in the turn after the straigth and broke the front lower arm of the car.

One good round, one bad ... 4 more to go and the most important is to get more tracktime to get some good driving for the finals.

For the swedish readers, i also write on race.kyosho.se




Qualifying round 3

The 3rd round was on Thursday and this round was his best so far (and for the all week) with a 18th place after a really good driving. It was still some mistakes too much, but he learning the track really good now.


Qualifying round 4

In the 4th round it seemes good also, but suddenly the engine started to go rich and stopped. We tuned it but it didn't help so something was wrong. We checked It after the race and it was dirt in the carburator so that was the problem.

After two days he now had 2 good and 2 bad round, so the friday must be a good day.



Qualifying round 5

Qualifying day two was very importen as David now was forced to have two god rounds to get his top-48 goal and get the free day for resting at saturday.

The day started god again and he made a good driving and he was 24 in the round, one more to go.

Qualifying round 6

In the last qualification round David chased the spot 32 or better to qualify directly to 1/4 final, But even with really good driving he didn't manage to get it all way as he after the last qualified 33 after team mate Tylor Vik who got the last 1/4 spot.

But after all, the top 48 place was fullfilled, and with his counted heats i think he was 18, 24, 26, 26.


1/8 Final

Sunday morning was a really hot tempature already 9 am.

David was driving his 1/8 as the second final of the day. With start number 1 he got a good start and maintained the lead for a couple of laps before Martin Bayer passed him.

A few laps after David lost his second position when his engine stopped. After we started the engine again he started to drive really fast and secure and started to pass the cars again.

Then the engine stopped for the second time and as it was on a very slow part of the track and the engine stopped because of too low ideling.

After that he pusched really hard and played around on the jumps until he made a mistake and broke the steering and the race was over.


The last happening on the race was the main final and that was a really good race. At the begining everything was about Tebo, Hara, Cody and Maifield, but Maifield broke the car after about 20-30 minutes.

Cody King was driving really good with Hara pusching behind. Tebo was battling with Maifield alot which was eating Tebos soft tires.

Tebo flamed one time when he landed after the 3 jump ... i saw it and i guess he landed on a something. This incident didn't change any position at Tebo was third before and after.

With a few minutes left Hara pressed Cody alot but he had a incredible driving and Hara was the guy doing mistakes.

After 60 minutes of thrilling final drivings Cody King passed the finish line first and become 2010 World Champion with his Kyosho / Orion / AKA package...

This was also Kyosho:s 8th WC title in 1/8 OffRoad.



To summarize the race it was a great event really well done by the organizer, and even if the track was difficult David liked it alot.

We should been at the track earlier for practice to be better prepered.. but after all i think the whole thing about practice before the event is wrong.


We thank Phil@Neobuggy to let us borrow some of his nice pictures from the race.

The Worlds in Pattaya - Practice Day 1

Then we are on a new race, and it's of couse the Worlds in 1/8 OffRoad in Pattaya, Thailand.
After some days resting and preperation for the race, it's time to see what David can do at his first IFMAR Worlds. Because of the school we have not been here for practice and that makes it a bit difficult as alot of drivers will be fast from day 1

Today it was time for two rounds of organized practice on 15 minutes and David got into heat one with fast drivers as Savoya, Hara, Thrue, Yannick Aigion and more.

He started his practice in the first heat of the day and went out on a little bit wet and slippery track.
The most important thing was NOT to break the car on the hard track and just be smooth and finding the lines around. Lap time was not important at all.
The setup of teh car was identical to Tebos, just to have something to start with.
It was no big changed exept for the battery that we moved from the battery tray to the front beside the steering servo.
In the kit Kyosho gave all drivers, it was a really nice battery holder with it.

The first practice was okay as we saw it, and after the practice Adrien came with som tip about some smal modifications (as ususal) to get the setup more to fits Davids driving style.

With the new changes we drove a second round that was much better than the first one and we checked som mileage but he went out of fuel in the fueling lap and the car after hit him in the rear shock and the shaft was bent, but as it was only a few minutes left of the practice it was okay.

After the second practice we made some small changings at the kar to make it ready for tomorrow when the time practice/reeseding starts.

So to summrize the first day, the car looks good, important with smooth driving, the track is really hard to the cars, the track migth be much bumpier.

On this video i found one lap of his driving in the 2nd practice round ... 3:30 in to the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_ag4xbG6fs


Welcome to Pattaya Raceway


Some resting on the track


Swedish pit area


Our food partner@the track :-)

Swedish Cup Final in 1/10 electric buggy - 4WD

Today sunday it was time for David and his Kyosho friends to chase the victory in 1/10 Electric Buggy Swedish Cup Final and the 4WD class.

It started with two practice rounds and tried different motors so find the best one for this slippery track. We changed from 6.5 to 7.5 motor and the laptime was better with smoother power. As regulated tyres it was ProLine Caliber that was not the best tires for this track, but with AKA foam insid it was perfect for him.

Quailfication 1
In the first round David made an perfect round with almost no mistakes and won it with a 14 laps result

Qualification 2
Second round and a really bad driving with a lot of mistakes and ended 3:rd in the round.

Qualification 3
In this round David drove good and was leading when suddenly something happened with the car, and it was a pin in the front driveshaft that was gone. Niklas Månson also took this round.

Qualification 4
In for the last round David hade to win over Nicklas Månsson to get the same points but win with better time. David made a really good run and even if he made one big mistake and lost a few seconds he took the win and was TQ for the second day in row … this time we hoped for better final driving.

A-Final 1
This final was the best driving of the day and it was more or less perfect. He got 14 laps with really good time and the second car was many seconds behind - a good start of the finals.

A-Final 2
Again he got away really nice, but the car behind was 1-2 second after him half of the final but then made some mistake and David increased the gap every lap until finish and he passed the finish line not just winning the race as he also won the 4WD class of the Swedish Cup, and he have still never lost a 1/10 4WD race since he started one year ago.

With this victory we one more time show that Kyosho have an dominating position in 1/10 and 1/8 offroad in Sweden and the winning for 2010 are:

Davids victories

* Nordic Championship 1/10 4WD
* Swedish Championship 1/10 4WD
* Swedish Cup 1/10 4WD
* Swedish Cup 1/8 Buggy
* Nordic Championship 1/8 Buggy
* European Junior Champion 1/8 Buggy

Other Kyosho victories
* Swedish Nationals 1/8 (Linus Thern)
* European Junior Champion 2WD (Mikael Johansson)
* European Junior Champion 4WD (Mikael Johansson)
* Nordic Championship 1/10 2WD (PerErik Nordman)
* Swedish Championship 1/10 2WD (Mikael Johansson)
* Swedish Cup 1/10 2WD (PerErik Nordman)

Swedish Cup Final in 1/10 electric buggy - 2WD

It has been a long time since i blogged last and the reason is "time", but i often got questions about it and some people looks like they enjoy articles, so i will try to start with the racing blogging again, starting at this race and then our journey to the Worlds in Pattaya next week.

This weekend it's time for the final in Swedish Cup in 1/10 Electric Buggy 2WD and 4WD, starting with 2WD today saturday.

The race is held in Swedens first permanent indoor clay track in south of Sweden in a village called Onslunda, Tomelilla. The clay looks a bit as the Neo surface at Harper Adams.

Yesterday it was practice all day, and David who had been here a couple of weeks ago had his setup almost ready, and he drove really fast laps with both 2WD and 4WD.

Qualification 1
David started as car 4, and drove really good and passing the cars in front. A few laps from finish he mas two mistakes and lost 8-10 seconds, but still maintained his leading position. His best laptimes was 0,9 better than the second car.

Qualification 2
In the second round he started first and keept his lead the whole round even with super smooth driving he was the first driver in 13 laps.

Qualification 3
In the 3rd round he made alot of mistakes for some reason and drop down to 8th, but drove up to and finished as 4.

Qualification 4
In the last qualification round David made a mistake in the beginning and lost 2 seconds, but after that he drove really fast and made a new track record at 23:4 and finished with a ned 13 lap round.

So with 3 of 4 winning qualifications he got TQ in the class.

A-Main 1
In the first final David had a good start and keept the leading for half of the finale, then he did a mistake and got upside down so the second car could pass him.
Then on the last lap the leader made a mistake and this time David passed him and won.

A-Main 2
In the second final David made som mistakes when battling with the car behind and they both got up-side-down and the car after could take the lead. David managed to go up to second place in this final.

A-Main 3
3 Drivers was possible winners infor the 3rd final, and again David made some mistakes when battling his way up to the first after some incident on the first lap.
He ended 3rd after this final, and we had 3 drivers on same points and Davids teammate Mikael Johansson took the victory with better time, David ended as 3rd.

In the total of the Swedish Cup we had Kyosho winners at 1st (PerErik Nordman), 2nd (Mikael Johansson) and 4th (David), so Kyosho have a good domination in Swedish 1/10 driving.

For David he still need more experience to drive 2WD .. it's going better for each race (as he was TQ), men must be more stable in the final.

Tomorrow it's 4WD and that's the thing he really likes.

Review of 2009

And so, 2009 is behind us and its time to summarize last years season before we start the new one in 2010.

Quackenbrück
There was a barely a year since we drove the first race in 2009, and it was in the annual indoor race in Quackenbrück, Germany and for that race David would test an Orion motor for the first time.
It is always a fun atmosphere at the races in Germany although Quackenbrück race is in the middle of winter so it is a race that must be run.
Cannot remember the results exactly, but David missed the final with a place.

Bischofsheim Warmup
The second race this year was the Warmup race in Frankfurt on the nice track of Bischofsheim. This was the first time that we were using the new Alpha engine, which was exciting.
The race went better than expected and David qualified for semi and final. Once in the finals so it went well until a loose flywheel nut stopped the race after 40 minutes which was unfortunate even though it was nice to see that he was hanging on the fast drivers in speed.

Euro A, Warmup
After Frankfurt it was time to go to Austria for the EC-A warmup. The weather was really nice and the track was good.
We worked together with Adrien all weekend to find a good setup, and in the end we found a good base setup that David have been using almost all races after that.
The result on the race was not so good as he broke the car in the 1 / 8 final after a bad landing.

Swedish Cup
Then it was time for the first Swedish race which was the Swedish Cup and the first race of Skövde. It was here that we saw this would be an exciting year as he showed a total dominance by taking TQ, fastest lap, win semi-finals to finally win the whole competition.

Kyosho Masters
Kyosho Masters in Frankfurt also ran on the track in Bischofsheim and this time it was both buggy and Truggy. In the Truggy David won and in the buggy he was 7th.

Swedish Cup
The second race in the Swedish Cup was held in Eskilstuna, and even here David showed a total dominance by once again becoming TQ, run the fastest lap and finally win the finals after running up from last place in a thrilling final.

European Championship B
In June it was time to go to the Gland in Switzerland to run the Euro-B for the third consecutive year. In 2008 David ended 8th place and the goal this year was to get on the podium, but there were many talented drivers in place and we knew it would be tough.

At Friday's practice it went bad, but we tested different settings, and felt that we had enough good speed to challenge. Adrien Bertin was again at the race to give support to David and his other Team Orion drivers.
After Ales Bayer took the first 2 rounds of quali David got 3rd and 2nd place in those, he won the 2 ending rounds of qualifying rounds and became TQ after having increased the tempo when the track became bumpier.
In the semi-finals, he was 17 seconds infront of the second fastest driver, which gave us hopes of a good final where David took the lead directly and held it all the way to the finished. He won the race with just over a lap.

So this race gave several titles:
• Winner of the EM-B
• TQ
• Best Junior
• Sweden as the best nation

Kyosho Masters
The weekend after the European Championship B, it was time running Kyosho Masters in Paris. This is a race you just have to run as a Kyosho driver and it was fun to go there with the victory of EC-B the week before.
This was a Buggy and Truggy race and in Truggy David ended up 3rd place.
The Buggy it was a Swedish - American fight where Cody King won, followed by David and Tyler Vik at the 3rd place.

European Championship
After 2 weeks of resting it was time to once again go to Austria for the EC-A. This was the first ever European Championship for David and it was exciting to see how he would perform.
After two days with very good qualifying he finished at a 9th place after being 3rd in the 5th round, which gave a place in the semi-finals. He could not keep up in the Semi-final after some mistakes and didn´t reach the final.
His driving raised more than one eyebrow at this race and there were many congratulations.

Swedish Cup
At the 3rd round of the Swedish Cup in Skarpnäck David had the chance to take overall victory in the cup, but we knew it would be incredibly hard when there were many fast drivers on that track.
After some electronic problems and rainy weather he was starting as number one in the final which he led from start to finish.
He was now the winner of the Swedish Cup for 2009.

Swedish Championship 2009
This year's Swedish prestigious competition would undoubtedly be the Swedish championship, which only runs every 3rd year ( between those it´s runs a national championship). We were completely convinced that it would be tough competition for there were many who really wanted to win this race, especially with some fast local drivers.
Practice went well and he was slightly ahead of Andreas Edvinsson which would provide the toughest opposition.
With good driving David won round 1, 2 and 5, which resulted in the TQ, and the times spoke for themselves as he was 7 seconds faster than anyone else and lap time as he was about 1 second faster than anyone else.
The final was over 60 minutes and for the first 15 minutes it was some fighting but after that David increased his lead more and more. After 51 minutes the cooling head of the engine broke and he slowed down leading with almost 2 laps. After 60 minutes he finished 1,5 lap ahead of the second car and he became the youngest winner of the Swedish Championships only 13-years old.




Swedish Nationals 1/10 electric buggy
David wanted to run the national championships in the 1 / 10 electric buggy as a fun thing to see how he could perform. In the 2WD class, he finished 4th after a great run but with a few too many mistakes.
In the 4WD class he dominated totally, and won the training, all the qualifying heats and three finals – this with a borrowed car that we did not change one thing on.

Swedish Cup
The last Swedish cup we was not really forced to run as the victory already was secured, but of course we did it anyway. The race was this year's big rain race which caused some hassles in qualification with broken power and other things that happened. In the finals, it was partly fight with Robert Gustafsson but David was once again the tough opposition for the rest of the field and he won the contest with 4 victories in 4 races of the cup.

Nordic Championship
The Nordic Championships were run in the Greve, Denmark and became a race with very varied weather when the 120 drivers from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland would make up the NC title.
Training was a bit unstable, but when the qualifications began he once again showed his stable and fast driving and he become TQ.
After some fighting in the semi-finals it was time for a 60-minute exciting final in which David after 30 minutes of fighting took leadership for not releasing it again. After 60 minutes he became Nordic Champion in 2009.

Pierrefeu
In November we went to Pierrefeu in France to run a GP. The reason for this race really was that we wanted to extend the season when the Swedish weather made it impossible to drive at home.
After the Nordic Championship David did not run the 1 / 8 buggy for 7 weeks and we had no great hopes on a prominent place, but once the race started David won the first qualifying round and finished in 2nd after the qualifications.
The weather was erratic this weekend but the final day was really good and after some changer on the car before the finals it went really well on this course that was a bit special to drive.
After a bad start in the final, but with a impressive driving David ended as second place between Yannick Aigion and Martin Bayer.
This was a very nice race and it's always nice to get to know new people on the races. We will also thank Yannick who took the role of the Swedish team manager and gave us all the information in a language we understand 

Kyosho Masters
The week after France we went to Tokyo to attend the Japanese Kyosho Master conducted on Kanais home track in Tokyo. After a Friday with a lot of driving the Saturday's qualifying was canceled because of rain and the race was moved to Sunday.
After 2 qualifying rounds that gave David TQ before the 15 min-long finale (due to the race on Saturday the timetable was rebuilt ).
The start went well but he was hit on the first lap so after a few laps he was on the last place. We gamble a bit with the fuel times, which didn´t went well as he got out-of-fuel on the last lap.
This was a very nice race and a interesting experience to drive this race and also visit Kyosho Japan.


Finally 2009 has been a fantastic year where David has increased his driving skills and smoothness on the track. We've also gotten to know many new people which was been very nice.

David and me want this to thank everyone who helped us to make this season possible, and especially very grateful to Adrien Bertin, whose assistance has largely contributed to the success