Practice underway at Worlds, Coelho sets early pace
After of months of preparations & testing by manufacturer & drivers, the IFMAR 1:10 Electric Touring Car World Championships are finally underway in California with defending champion Bruno Coelho setting the early pace at Finishline RC Raceway. With 5 rounds of practice on today’s schedule the biggest take after the opening two rounds of practice was grip, or more specifically the lack of it, the track completely different to what drivers had expected after previous visits to the track. With the first practice round very much a systems check for drivers, issues with noise on the timing loop caused by a 7000 volt electric fence resulted in over an hour of a delay before drivers resumed with the second practice run. With Coelho’s Xray fastest in both rounds, his 3-consecutive laps of the second practice a 33.146, it was Worlds Warm-up Race winner Akio Sobue who was closest on pace running a best time of 33.379 with Axon team-mate Hayato Ishioka completing the Top 3. One of the favourites coming into this World Championship Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski set the fourth fastest pace ahead of Mugen’s Ronald Volker, Xray’s Alexander Hagberg and the Awesomatix of Marc Rheinard.