Balestri to defend World title as Top Qualifier

Dario Balestri will defend his 1:8 Onroad World Championship title as the Top Qualifier for tomorrow’s final at Steel City RC Speedway in California.  The Infinity driver secured his fourth consecutive World Championship TQ when he topped the sixth & final round of qualifying ahead of Simon Kurzbuch and Dominic Greiner.  With the first five qualifiers seeing 4 different drivers post TQ run, the final qualifying was a four way shoot out. Running in the second fastest heat Greiner did all he could to set the provisional TQ time while the other three contenders, Balestri, Naoto Matsukura and Kurzbuch set off in reverse order in the top heat.  The first to post a second TQ run when he topped the morning’s Q5, Matsukura would unfortunately crash out at two and half minutes, leaving the battle between Balestri and Kurzbuch, their predicted pace up on the time set by Greiner.  In the end Balestri had it under control finishing with 4/10ths on Kurzbuch. Overall Matsukura qualified 2nd followed by Kurzbuch, Greiner and Jesse Davis.

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