Race:	from 23.12.2013 [10:00] to 31.12.2013 [10:00]
Class:	1:8 Nitro buggy
Track:	Padova IBR
Direction:	Official
Series:	not selected
Rankings:	1:8 nitro buggies, OVERALL OFFROAD COMBINED
Points:	Level 5 ABC (1 - 300)

You are all invited for the 2013 VRC Worlds for 1:8 nitro buggies. Although this class is just a few days old in VRC Pro, we have decided to go for a VRC Worlds in this class nevertheless as the response has been so overwhelming.

As a special gesture, we will, just for the period of this event, give you the track and the car for free, so everyone can participate in this Worlds. It will be a compact VRC Worlds as we are running out of time for this year.

As we have a lot of new buggy racers we have decided not to split up the event into 3 racer classes Club, Sport and Pro yet, so it is going to be a 1 class race.

LiveRC is sponsoring this first major event. Not only will they provide profession commentary with the A-Main final, they will also offer subscription packages to a number of racers to watch LiveRC events in 2014!


LIVE BROADCASTED MULTI-PLAYER SUPER FINAL
This will not take place at the end of this event, we need more time to set this up and do a professional job. We may contact the finalists at a later stage.

16.01.2014

Report by Donald Stark (VRC race reporter)


2013 VRC WORLDS 1:8 NITRO BUGGY
December 18th 2013 marked the beginning of the 1/8th scale nitro buggy in VRC. The long awaited release caused an influx of members into the Virtual RC Racing community which was reflected in the number of entries at the inaugural Virtual RC World Championship. Over 1000 drivers registered for the event and 896 actually contested for the championship.



Throughout the week much attention was placed on set ups, since this is a brand new class there are certain things that were making life difficult for drivers. The first issue that had to be considers was fuel consumption and tuning. During the ten minute qualifier some drivers found they had to pit 6 minutes into the race. With a little tuning and carful use of the throttle it was possible to make 10 – 11 minutes before pitting. Then there was the issue of traction, VRC just like in the Real RC has a sweet spot on the track with Padova it is necessary to stay in the sweet spot and be smooth on the throttle in order to keep from breaking loose. There were many setups pre-set for the release of the buggy’s, I ended up using David Ronnefalk’s. His set up was a great starting point for my driving style, I had to adjust the clutch setting and tune the fuel mixture and I was comfortable at Padova.

Qualifying
Round one of Qualifying began 12/23/2013 and ended 12/26/2013. The race time for this session was 10 minutes, there would be twenty chances to improve you time. After two days of round one the early leader was David Ronnefalk with 18 laps in 10 minutes and 31 seconds after only 7 tries.
1 David Ronnefalk SE 20 (7) 18 10:31.160
2 Marcin Maliński PL 20 (8) 18 10:32.226 +1.066s >
3 Nicolas Loriot FR 20 (3) 18 10:35.366 +4.206s >
4 Ryan Lutz US 20 (10) 17 10:01.892 +1 laps >
5 David Joor US 19 (14) 17 10:03.026 +1 laps >

SEMI Finals
Round two, Semi Finals began 12/26/2013 and ended 12/28/2013, this was a 20 minute race and each driver was allotted three tries. In this round there was a little movement up and down the charts the top five were as follows.
1 2 → 1 Marcin Maliński PL 3 (3) 35 20:24.697
2 1 → 2 David Ronnefalk SE 3 (2) 35 20:27.169 +2.472s >
3 5 → 3 David Joor US 3 (3) 35 20:31.332 +6.635s >
4 7 → 4 Eben Coetzee ZA 2 (1) 35 20:36.452 +11.755s >
5 3 → 5 Nicolas Loriot FR 3 (2) 34 20:02.983 +1 laps >

Main Event, A- Final
The main event was set to run from 12/28/2013 to 12/31/2013. The race is 45 minutes long and the drivers only get one shot at it. Here is the qualifying order for the A-Main Event
1 Marcin Malin'ski PL
2 David Ronnefalk SE
3 David Joor US
4 Eben Coetzee ZA
5 Nicolas Loriot FR
6 Ryan Lutz US
7 Martin Wollanka AT
8 Quentin Le Gall FR
9 David Barcena ES
10 Magnus Björndal SE


RONNEFALK-JOOR-LORIOT

When the race started Marcin Malin'ski, David Joor, and Nicolas Loriot got off to an early lead followed by David Ronnefalk, Martin Wollanka, Eben Coetzee, Ryan Lutz, David Barcena, Quentin Le Gall and Magnus Björndal. Half way through lap 2 Martin was settling in to his race pace while he passed everyone except for Joor. By lap three Martin took the lead and looked to be pulling away. Half way though lap 8 Martin was trying to scrub some speed off the double before the right hand turn leading into the massive kicker jump. He turned too early and flew sideways, when he landed he barrel rolled his car, this incident required a turn marshal. By the time his car was flipped and back under its own power David Joor, Marcin Malin’ski and Nicolas Lariot had passed him.


WOLLANKA-MALINKSI

As I mentioned earlier Martin had found some tricks to make his car handle better at this particular track and it was obvious by the way he caught and passed the very fast very competent competitors of Joor, Malin’ski and Lariot. Martin did share his set up after the race and I found it to be easy to drive and provided a perfect mix of fuel mileage and power output.

Martin pitted around lap 13 for the first time and the rest of the field held out until lap 16. When Martin pitted the other tried to run away with the race, this lasted until their pit stops on lap 17 for Joor, 16 for Loriot and 14 for Malinski. After they pitted Martin went by and never looked back. The rest of the field would be racing for second place. 

Starting from 6th position on the grid, Austrian Team Xray racer Martin Wollanka left the other 9 in the dust at the fantastic indoor off-road facility in Italy at IBR Padova to be crowned the very first VRC World Champion 1:8 scale nitro buggy. It was a tough race though and Martin drove a strong tactical race, making sure not getting himself in trouble too much in this 45 minutes long A-Main final. Early leader David Ronnefalk missed focus for this race and as he later admitted, he should have raced the A-Main a lot earlier and not wait for the last moment.


JOOR-LORIOT-RONNEFALK-LUTZ

Fuel-stop strategy turned out to be very important. Ryan Lutz, not raced VRC Pro all that much yet was the most conservative of the front runners refueling every 12 laps thus needing 6 pit stops. Wollanka and Malinski opted for 13 laps for 5 pit stops total, but Joor and Loriot had squeezed their engines to the limit to do just 4 pit stops with 14 lap intervals. At his first pit stop, while leading the race, David Joor got stuck on the pit entrance piping and couldn’t free himself quick enough so he had to drive yet another lap before he could refuel, 15 laps on one fuel load! It dropped him back to 4th behind Loriot. The young Frenchman was fast, as we had already seen during the Short Course Trucks World final, but also too many driving errors which dropped him back 1 or 2 positions time after time. Mid race he had to race Ryan Lutz and only because Nicolas had 2 pit stops in hand he managed to finish in front of the fast Team Durango works driver.


NICOLAS LORIOT (F)

Wollanka was never far away from his pursuers Malinski and Joor, at 2/3rds of the race Malinski was just 1.5 seconds behind the fast Austrian but didn’t have the pace to overtake and him. The race for second lasted until the end, Joor last fuel stop was in lap 66 which dropped him 3.6 seconds back on Malinski, but when Malinski had to come in for his 5th and last fuel stop Joor was able to get back to second with a 1 second lead which he managed to defend until the end and to finish 1.8 seconds ahead of the fast Polish racer. Martin Wollanka had almost 14 seconds on David Joor and was able to get a solo last lap in to celebrate his victory.

A-Main final
1 Martin Wollanka AT 78 45:21.909
2 David Joor US 77 45:01.257
3 Marcin Maliński PL 77 45:03.251
4 Eben Coetzee * ZA 77 45:30.345
5 Nicolas Loriot FR 76 45:04.757
6 Ryan Lutz US 76 45:11.089
7 Magnus Björndal SE 75 45:01.080
8 David Barcena ES 75 45:01.354
9 David Ronnefalk SE 75 45:05.172
10 Quentin Le Gall FR 74 45:01.243


MARTIN WOLLANKA - MARCIN MALINSKI IN FLIGHT

*Eben Coetzee from South Africa finished 4th in this event, but as his race replay was not uploaded to the VRC server his car could not be included in the A-Main video compilation.

In total 896 racers participated in the first race ever for 1:8 nitro buggies. The Nations ranking was won by USA, with France in second and Sweden in third. Big thanks to Mike Garrison of LiveRC.com for doing a great job on the video commentary once more!

Final Thoughts

Cutting the Pit Lane
This race was the biggest race I have ever been a part of real or virtual, 896 entries. There were some situations that have made VRC consider a protest procedure for the future. One challenge was to get drivers to understand that if you needed to pit you have to slow down and drive into the pit lane at the beginning of the straight away. Some drivers discovered that you could pull up to the drivers stand and hit the fuel key “L” and the pit man would fuel your car, this was quite an advantage compared to having to slow down and come through the narrow lane. I would not even have realized that this was possible since I play the game for the fun of it and the simulation of real RC racing. I am not looking for exploits so I would not have found this on my own.

VRC Membership Exploded
During the free buggy week I saw a massive increase in multiplayer racing. As with anything there is going to be those who came in and found VRC to be a great tool to improve their real racing or just take the place of the racing they used to do. There will be some who play from the follow camera like a video game and some who always look for ways to cut the track or exploit a glitch. Whatever the case may be it will not affect me I do what I do and when it comes down to it I am a mid-pack guy with a wife and a day job and VRC is for fun.

I had a blast racing against people from all over the world I finished in 4th place in the “U” main and I know I did my best.
Until next time
Have fun

Don

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