WORLDS: Bayer sets fastest time, rain wins round four

0 Sept. 24, 2014, 8:07 a.m.

9/24/2014
By Aaron Waldron

LiveRC.com

"IFMAR rule 3.6.c: In the event of rain, racing will proceed irrespective of the weather, within reason. All races, including sub-finals and final, will take place at the appointed time, wet or dry. If heavy electrical storms occur, racing will be suspended. The Race Director, together with the Referees, will make the decision."

That rule was necessary today.

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The heat shuffle for today called for heats 6-15, and then the fastest group from seeding practice in heats 1-5 to finish up the round. Thunder and lightning started lighting up the proceedings of the final heats on Wednesday, but it wasn't until the final two minutes of Heat One (the eleventh to be run according to the schedule) that water started falling from the sky.

And it made an absolute mess of not only the track, but the round results as well.

“I was just lucky, that’s all” said a smiling Martin Bayer after earning maximum points in the fourth round. “It was slippery in the end, but the run was really good all the way until the last three laps,” said Bayer.

Ryan Cavalieri said he had a good run, but added, “we made a small change, by adding one degree of anti-squat, and it wasn’t as good.” About finishing second for the round, Ryan said The last three laps kinda killed it, I had some traffic and needed a turn marshal. But I’ll take a ‘2’ any day, and I don’t care how I got it!”

“I kinda needed those points for my self-confidence,” said David Ronnefalk. “I had three rough rounds so finishing that high was kind of nice.” The young Swede admitted that it was the luck of the draw, but said, “it’s not the way I want to do it, but that’s how it goes I guess!”

Ronnefalk’s Kyosho teammate agreed. When asked about his best finish of the week, Cody said, “I just got lucky, I guess! It happens to everybody every once in a while. It would’ve been a faster time but I was on X1’s for the dry track and they were not good when it was wet. I needed those points, though, and I got lucky.”

After struggling for the first three runs Dakotah Phend changed his shock package to make his car more like Adam Drake’s and Ryan Cavalieri’s, and he said, “that made it a lot better and I was a lot more comfortable with it.” Also lucky enough to run before the rain really got going, Dakotah said, “It was really slippery when it started raining, especially on the bricks, and I couldn’t stop or turn or anything. Our heat all went out on hard tires so it was really bad in the rain, but it wasn’t raining the whole time like the other heats.” Like the others, Phend happened to be in the right place at the right time and it may have helped turn around his week after a sluggish start. Dakotah said, “I definitely needed some good points to make the semi. Hopefully it doesn’t rain tomorrow like it’s supposed to - I only have one good run now!”