The Michal Orlowski Column – Edition No.2
You all loved his first column so we are delighted that Michal Orlowski has somehow found time in his busy schedule to give us another great column as an insight into his world as Schumacher’s star factory driver. Once again we’ll let Michal take it away and tell you in his own style what has been going on over the last two months….. ‘It has been a while since my last update here. We have been hard at work with the team to finish off the winter season on a high. We attended numerous events between February and April, which I will tell you all about, emphasising the struggles and how we could overcome them together. After attending the Mibosport Cup in early February, it was time to switch back to buggy mode. For the last few years, the MK GP event has been one of the mostly anticipated off-road races of the winter season with hundreds of drivers participating, but more importantly thousands of people coming to watch us race RC cars. The event is held in the MK shopping centre in Milton Keynes, UK, home to the Redbull F1 team. The event is organised by the Silverstone Club, who hosts weekly club races and a winter series at a smaller venue. This gave us the chance to test on the unique carpet the MK GP crew decided to use since 2023.
It has a unique characteristic, which is hard to explain, but it creates a ton of traction, which poses a huge challenge for all the racers to stay on all four wheels during the 5-minute runs. We were able to try a lot of ideas at the MK GP Warm Up race and a club race a few days after held at the Silverstone Club. We felt very well prepared and happy with the performance of both my Schumacher LD3 2WD buggy and L1R 4WD buggy, ready to defend both my MK GP titles from 2023. Taking advantage of this trip, I was able to visit the Schumacher HQ and see everyone working behind the scenes and see my championship winning cars from the whole 2023 year.
Being less than 24 hours at home was already enough and I jumped back on the plane, this time to Bologna, Italy for the 2024 Charity Race at the legendary RC Landia track. I was picked up by my friend and mechanic Mattia. The next day I rebuilt my Schumacher Mi9 prototype chassis at his house together with preparing the newly released LensBodies Ghibli 2.0 body shell. The Charity Race is always an enjoyable experience seeing all the Italian Schumacher team drivers, with whom I have become great friends over the last few years, fantastic food anywhere we go and RC car racing at a beautiful facility. The plan for this weekend was to test and double check a few ideas we have been working on in preparations for the final round of ETS in Austria, where we will be battling it out for the overall season championship. Despite the Charity Race being run on a different carpet, HotRace tyres and open additive, we still had an extremely productive time learning about the car, at the same time we had a fantastic time racing with the fast local Italian drivers. Development is a huge part of my job. Not only testing new parts, but we also spend countless hours at different tracks mastering the setup of our cars for each condition. This takes a lot of time and effort, but at the end of the day the hard work always pays off. To finish off the Charity Race, we had a huge raffle sponsored by multiple brands within our industry. Everyone coming together for a great cause, raising money for the children’s’ hospital.
The moment I arrived back home from Italy, I started rebuilding my Schumacher buggies for the actual MK GP taking place on the weekend. Since we race two classes in off-road, it doubles the time needed to prepare for an event. However, every hour spent working on the cars matters, as the cars need to be immaculate for a big event like that, at least in my book. I had a great journey over to the UK with Bartek Zalewski, a young and extremely talented racer from Poland. Once we landed, I met up with my friend and teammate Daniel Kobbevik and waited to be picked up from the airport by the legendary Lee Martin. We arrived on Thursday before the event, this is usually when we arrive for events to have a few hours to prepare the cars and tyres after the flight, have a good sleep and be ready to kick off practice first thing on Friday morning. Remember to always rebuild your shocks after the flight!
Being perfectly honest, I was taken by surprise with how much we struggled at the beginning of the event. The track conditions were significantly different from the Silverstone Club events and we had to adjust in a very short time. The 2WD qualifying were extremely close, I don’t remember the last time four different drivers TQ’ed a round of qualifying, but when it mattered most, I was able to put in a clean run with my Schumacher LD3 buggy feeling better each run and start on pole for the triple A-mains. The finals posed a tough challenge defending from the young and fast Marcus Kaerup behind me. At the end, a few small bobbles here and there cost me the overall win, but looking back at the event, I am extremely proud how hard we worked for this fantastic result, especially with everything being so far from perfect.
4WD was a slightly different story. With a completely new setup on my Schumacher L1R buggy developed with the team, since the EOS in Daun in February, I was very happy with the feeling of my car. The whole race was an absolute dog fight between me and Bruno Coelho, who doesn’t need any introduction. However, he always seemed to have a little edge over me throughout qualifying and finals. Despite finishing 2nd overall, I was so proud of our work and Daniel finishing 3rd making it two cars on the podium. This was a confidence booster for all of us and appreciation of the work we put in developing the car setup of our 4WD buggy.
The whole weekend I was battling through an illness making it a little more difficult for me, but this is a part of what we do. We can’t take a sick day, we always have to perform our best on the given day, which I was able to do with the help of Tris and my teammates.
The whole weekend was topped off with a fun dinner with Elliott Harper, whom I haven’t seen in ages. We were teammates at Tamiya, Team Durango and now at Schumacher. It is so good to see him back racing and I am trying my best to get him to come to one of the international races.
After the race is before the next race! 6 days after coming back from the UK, it was time to travel to Austria for the last round of the ETS 2023/ 2024 season. A quick flight to Vienna from Warsaw, where I met with Pekko Iivonen, as we had planned three testing days in Salzburg, Austria at a permanent ETS carpet track. We were blessed with the presence of Marc Rheinard, who joined us in Salzburg, as he was preparing to fight for the overall season championship with me and Lucas Urbain. These 3 days at the track proved to be extremely crucial, as our plan was to refine our starting setup for the ETS race. Both me and Pekko were extremely happy with our Mi9 prototypes, and we kept finding improvements on the car over our setup from the previous ETS in Daun. This posed a few questions in my head, as the car was extremely fast before and the setup was massively different. On the final day of testing, I decided to put the time in and go back to the exact Daun setup to be sure and confident with my starting setup at the upcoming ETS. This turned out to be the perfect decision, as my lap times were faster with the old setup. Caught by surprise, but also glad that we have found out, we started testing in huge rush, as Marc already wanted to drive to Wiener Neustadt, where the ETS was taking place. We ended up on something in between, which we were satisfied with in terms of feeling and lap times. This was a very good confidence boost before starting practice at ETS on Thursday and an important lesson for the future to always double check.
From the very first practice, everything was working together perfectly. The Mi9 prototype, electronics, teamwork. Just brilliant. I was able to take the TQ&WIN and the overall season championship for the first time in my career. I grew up racing ETS, traveling to all races by car with my dad driving and me sleeping across the back seats. To win the biggest title in ETS was a dream come true and to do that with so many people watching trackside, my dad in the pits and Mr. Niko, who was my first huge supporter in my career after my dad, brought a lot of emotions. It wouldn’t be possible without the hard work from the whole team, especially Andy and Mattia, who received a cool birthday present on that weekend.
I was exhausted after the trip to Austria. I felt like a robot working round the clock for the last few weeks. I haven’t seen my friends and family in weeks. It was time to relax a little, recharge the batteries, take care of my close ones, and appreciate what was just accomplished.
During the off time I played a lot of tennis with my best friends, helped my dad a bit with my shop’s orders, visited a car dealership a few times to order my dream car, which I am excited about, run some errands like a normal person, reunited with my school friends and enjoyed life with beautiful weather in Warsaw, Poland.
The time has gone by fast, and the first EFRA European Championships of 2024 were approaching fast. Unfortunately, we were not able to prepare for this event as much as we wanted, but I spent good few days building a fresh Schumacher Eclipse5 kit for the event. I always like to spend extra time on the wiring, to make everything look neat, which you could have seen from my social media posts. I probably spend more time wiring my cars than building them!
Joined by the 1/12 Schumacher team in Sicily, it was time to kick off the event. Practice started frankly horrible. It was extremely difficult for us to find a good 8-minute pace. The car was pretty good at the beginning of the run, but after 5 minutes I felt like I need to stop not to break the car. Luckily, I had Andy Murray working on my Eclipse5 for the whole weekend. His knowledge and experience in this category once again proved to be one of the best out there. Together with the teamwork with Ollie Payne and the rest of the Schumacher Family, we could find a good car and tyre setup for the challenging conditions at the Paradise Arena in Venetico, Sicily. Just in time for Q1, Andy made very risky changes, which paid off, as I was able to snatch the TQ from Alex Hagberg in the last few laps. From this point on, we were on the right track until the end of the event. Everything was coming together for us, and I had such a beast of a car on finals day, which enabled me to take back the 1/12 EFRA European Championship title. This being my 5th EFRA Modified title. This event once again proved to me the importance of people behind you, teamwork, and mental strength, as I had to keep my head high after the difficult start to the event. It was fantastic to be able to bring home such a result to finish off the indoor season. A special mention for the Hobbywing support team at the event, Salton and Milan, helping all customers and the team drivers.
I think I have seen this podium somewhere before! The exact same podium order, as the IFMAR 1/12 World Championships in Florida just a few months ago!
Time to go outdoors and enjoy the racing and beautiful weather, well hopefully!’
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author.
