Martin and Matsukura won rather uneventful Worlds Warm-Up finals

ADVERTISEMENT | ADVERTISE WITH US

By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

Racing on a temporary track at Yatabe Arena created by laying astroturf over the existing carpet course and then accented by a few small wooden jumps, the IFMAR Worlds Warm-Up race held this past weekend saw very little head-to-head action once the 2WD and 4WD finals rolled around on Sunday. The top three qualifiers in each class completed the podium in the triple-A main events with only one position change among them.

In 2WD, newly-crowned Euro Offroad Series champion was unable to utilize the advantage of his TQ position to win A1 - a big crash knocked him out of contention, leaving the door open for second qualifier Kody Numedahl to beat his Team Associated teammate Neil Cragg by roughly 2.3 seconds with another 1.8 back to Martin in third. In A2, the top three stayed in perfect qualifying formation with less than a second separating each one, setting up a showdown between Martin and Numedahl for the win. Less than a minute into A3, Numedahl crashed out of the race and did not finish, leaving Martin out front to win over Cragg by 1.5 seconds. 

Martin’s two wins earned the overall title, with Numedahl holding off Cragg by one point.

The first A-Main in the 4WD went swimmingly for TQ Naoto Matsukura, who finished four seconds up on young teammate Yusuke Sugiura. Behind them, however, disaster struck Kyosho teammate Jared Tebo - after recovering from an early bobble that briefly allowed Martin Bayer into third, Tebo plummeted to the bottom of the running order with a disastrous crash halfway into the race and only recovered for ninth. In his place, Lee Martin finished third. In A2, Sugiura crashed on the first lap and fell to the pack of the pack, and Matsukura crashed four laps later - leaving the door wide open for Tebo to win by 2.5 seconds despite a hard charge by his Japanese teammate. Again, Martin - who qualified fifth, navigated his way to a third-place finish. The title-deciding A3 was an easy wire-to-wire victory for Matsukura, who clinched his second-straight Japanese national championship in the class. Meanwhile, a first-lap crash from Tebo left him playing catch-up all race long, and the American only made it back to fifth, while Sugiura slipped to third after the one-minute mark and then to fourth with just a minute to go, as young Japanese on-road race Masatsugu Ido stormed toward the front from seventh on the grid and Martin Bayer followed, finishing second and third.

Matsukura’s A1 and A3 wins won the overall, but behind him was a mess. Three drivers finished with six points and were sorted by single-best finish - giving Tebo second overall and Suguira third. 

For those left feeling anything less than thrilled with the layout for the warm-up, LiveTime scorekeeper Cory Kroll confirmed that the track will change radically for the Worlds - the JMRCA had requested a more conservative course for the event, which doubled as the sanctioning body’s national championship, and that Yatabe Arena has already prepared several additional obstacles to be placed on the track for the World Championships later this year. You’ll be able to watch the IFMAR Electric Off-Road World Championships from October 3-10 from anywhere in the world on LiveRC!

Thanks to Joe Pillars for the podium photos.