The 2010 1/8 buggy World Championships are to be held in Thailand at the Pattaya PRC track. The track is a simply awesome, superb facility. I have not been to many 1/8 off-road races around the world, but I think it would be difficult to make a much higher level R/C track. Of note were the exceptionally nice pits (LCD screens to follow the race), you could order all kinds of food from your pit table, and there was transportation between the hotel and track every day. If you missed something, the track crew could be counted on to get it sorted out for you.
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The track was very challenging and almost each corner is angled to make it very difficult, as you needed to arrive at each corner with perfect speed otherwise you pushed out BAD and lost a lot of momentum. There were also a good mount of jumps and all kinds of wierd hills on the track with a long uphill straight. The surface was also very different from what I have seen before; they used oil on the track to keep the dust down... but that also made it pretty slippery in some areas.
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JQ and I arrived at the track on Monday morning. Practice was three days – from Monday to Wednesday – and we got many runs. There were marshalls on the track and a race organiser so no-one had to do that for the whole week. Juraj arrived a day later on Tuesday morning as he was busy with the Toy Fair in Germany. We tested many set-ups during practice and also performed engine tests since the track is pretty on engines because of the high temperature (around 35°C). Also, the track had a long uphill straight and rest of the track was very tight with many hairpin corners.
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On Thursday we had three rounds of qualifying and Ty Tessmann was on top after the first day. Among the XRAY cars I was hanging onto 4th, JQ was in 7th, and Suricarn was in 9th.
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The plan for Saturday was to run the lower mains, but the race organiser moved all the mains to Sunday and we got five 15min practice runs on that day. Many drivers ran only a few times during the day and mainly built their cars to be ready for the finals.
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Sunday we had the first semi practice for 15min where many people tested different tires for the mains. In my semi I got bumped up into the main with Suricarn and Champ. In other semi JQ had some wierd issues with his radio and receiver battery, and he couldn‘t run at all in the main. XRAY placed three cars in the main. From the start Tessmann lead the field up to 25-30min mark and then he had some problems. I took the lead for the next 20min until I had problems (but I was able to come back in 3rd). Atsushi Hara went on to lead but only for a few laps and then he had problems, too. Meen Vejraj took over the lead and kept it until the end of the final. XRAY cars finished 2nd, 3rd (Suricarn) and 4th (Champ) in the end. It was one crazy final as many people had problems during the main. It will be an interesting WC in November for sure.
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Final results:
1. Meen Vejrak 2. Teemu Leino XRAY XB808
3. Surikarn Chaidajsuryia XRAY XB808
4. Champ Khunthin XRAY XB808
5. Jordan Go
