First round of qualifying went really well for me, I qualified 3rd out of 200 racers! I was pretty comfortable with the car, having plenty of experience here. Rob Gillespie showed the pace needed to be on top though. His line through the hip jump after the front straight seems to be the key. I tried it but haven't yet mastered it to gain much time. My semi-final is off to a good start, out-running 6th and 7th qualifiers easily. I'm confident I can spend the next couple of days refining and getting consistency + speed optimized before the main.

Rob Gillespie again showed the way with the only 18 lap run and a victory lap over the field. Broc Champlin and Tom Rinderknecht were within a second but caught at the line getting a lap less, but still very fast 17 lap runs. Gary Crowell (me) headed the “best of the rest” group that was 10 seconds back and all within 8 seconds of each other. This is a great result to be expected when the Worlds comes around, even on a tough track like this that really destroys consistency.

Rob Gillespie completed his dominanace of the field with a 19 lap in 10m10s run, over 2 seconds clear of TLR driver Tom Rinderknecht. Rob was the leader of Team Associated in the main with Broc Champlin and Alex Vanderbeek coming in 3rd and 4th. JQ racer Gary Crowell brought The E-Car Black Edtion home in 5th.

This Lausanne track is a great test of consistency and frustration. The road-dome barriers are terrible. A small touch of one inevitably sends your car into another one or the wall, losing a quarter to half a lap with one small error. I still set a good pace to be just a few seconds back from the top qualifier, qualifying 4th. Doing really well despite concentrating on 1:8 buggy racing all year.

Nicola Marrone brought his TQ pace to the semis and easily (relatively) held on to the top spot in the semis. Gary Crowell (it me) jumped up to 2nd in the semis with a consistent but at times feeling slow run, but just ending up 0.666 sec back. We might see a 49 lap run from one of us, the pace was there but for the RoadRail track system punishing a car millimeters off course with meters of tumbling. Dana Bailes, Graham Raistrick, and Kevin Rasquin round out the top five and are drivers to watch in 1:12 mains for sure.

Nicola Marrone put the fininshing touch on his Worlds by winning the A-main, and came very close to turning a 49 lap run. Dana Bailes improved on his semi, moving up to finish 2nd, just two seconds back. Gary Crowell bought the JQ 1:12 Black Edition home in 3rd, three seconds behind Nicola. The top three finishers could have finished in any order, with all the drivers being punished by the track relatively equally. Nicola demonstrated his skill with speed and consistency with the least amount of penalty from the car launching track barriers.

This is the fun class I entered just to experience the car. I tried these when they came out and driving them was just a hoot. At this track though, I'm struggling to find balance, I'm fighting the front end at almost every corner. The consistency + speed I want is not there, however it has been good enough to be 5th qualifier in the A-main group.

Kévin Rasquin was the TQ and backed that up with the win in the semis a full lap over 2nd Mirko Salemi. A lap back from Mirko was Daniele Bulla, Kevin Bacon, Gary Crowell in the top five.

Kévin Rasquin was the TQ and was unstoppable in the main. Kevin Bacon was close in speed and consistency, but over the 45 minute final and short laps, that added up to being 2 laps down. Daniele Bulla came in 3rd, another 2 laps back.