It seems like the word ‘poise’ is appropriate tonight, for two reasons.

First, as practice and seeding draw to a close, it feels like we are poised for what could be a very special day of qualifying tomorrow. The times are close, as would naturally be expected at a World Championship race. More importantly, there are new faces and teams that look to be very much in the battle compared to 2WD earlier in the week.

Where 2WD eventually turned into a straight Schumacher vs Team Associated fight, on today’s evidence, those two teams are now joined by XRAY and quite possibly Mugen Seiki Racing in a genuine battle for qualifying supremacy. Team Associated’s Marcus Kaerup once again snared the top seed position, but the margin to Daniel Kobbevik (Schumacher R/C Racing) is just over a tenth of a second across 3 laps, and only a little more to the XRAY trio of Phend, Ronnefalk, and Schimmel. We’re probably yet to see the best of other heavy hitters too, like Orlowski, Ongaro, Rivkin, and Batta. There remains plenty of work to do, and plenty of improvements required for just about the whole field.

For the XRAY camp, the sense of relief is almost palpable, and the whole team seemed to be walking a little taller this afternoon, with their cars in a good window for today’s conditions.  

The second reason I’m thinking of the word poise, is that it seems clear that’s what’s going to be required tomorrow. Yesterday, the Hills Off Road RC team reversed the direction of the track, refacing jumps and preparing for the 4WD event to tackle the raceway in the anti-clockwise direction.

The change has transformed the track, as one driver put it to me today, from one in which rhythm and flow and corner speed reigned supreme, to one in which the track’s features – most notably the double-double-table section, the step-up, and the left-side double have suddenly become the most critical, with corners simply linking those features together.

To string together a mistake-free 3 laps this afternoon in seeding proved difficult. And to put together flawless 5-minute qualifiers tomorrow will be a challenge of the highest order. It might just be that qualifying goes to the driver with the most poise, the most discipline, the most self-control, rather than the out-and-out fastest.

Case in point, UK’s Ben Smith drove beautifully today, strong pace allied with consistency, and he was never far away. For the Englishman to seed 9th is a big statement from a driver with almost no dirt-track experience.

Drivers will, tomorrow, face what feels like a World Championship-level challenge. This is no easy track, and nor should it be. The double-triple that opens the lap demands discipline and control. Getting up the step-up mid-lap and successfully stopping and rotating the car at the apex is still proving problematic for many. 
And the left-side double? That innocuous-looking double-jump from the 2WD race has turned into a beast with the potential to ruin a qualifying run with the tiniest of line-choice errors.

Mistakes, it seems to me, will be common. Mistake-free runs will probably not. The difference between the two might just be the capacity to drive with poise.

And we’re getting ahead of ourselves, but Monday’s finals might amplify that demand even more. Poise in the midst of chaos may yet become the factor that decides this race.

Join us live at RC Race Media from 8am AEST for one final round of controlled practice, and four highly-anticipated qualifiers.

Remember that daylight saving starts in Sydney tomorrow, and we’ll be an hour out of synch with time zones relative to the rest of the week.

📷Red RC