The 2WD part of the 1:10th Offroad Euros held indoors in Trelleborg, Sourthern Sweden witnessed a cat and mouse game between the two masters of European 2WD; title pretender Lee Martin & defending Champion Jörn Neumann.
From the get go Jörn Neumann had his Team Durango car dialed in as he stamped his authority on day 2 of the event, TQ’ing three qualifying rounds, securing him either first or second in the A-Final, however role reversal as this morning the tides shifted with Lee Martin TQ’ing Q4 & Q5 with a faster time and snatching away the prize from his rival.
Fast forward to the A-Finals and a thrilling A1 – The best final of the lot with Lee and Jörn racing and fighting hard, swapping positions multiple times through the final. Jörn would end up 4th overall after a late tangle after the triple jump which saw Hupo Honigl penalised, Neil Cragg taking 2nd and Karri Salmela 3rd.
A2: The 2nd A final leg was decided when Lee Martin suffered a bad landing and allowed Jörn Neumann past, he would try in vain to chase down the German, great racing from Martin as he snuck up the inside of Neumann with the pair touching wheels side by side – this is what we want to see. In the end Neumann took a deserved A2 win and kept Lee’s Yokomo at bay.
A3, The Grand Finale decider, the final that promised so much, a palpable buzz in the air as Lee led away followed by Jörn quickly followed by Neil Cragg moving into 3rd, it was shaping up to offer some good racing until lap 2 when disaster struck for poor poleman Lee Martin, crashing into a marshal’s leg whilst he retrieved Ronnefalk’s stricken car spelled doomsday for Martin, the marshal hesitated and sadly made a mistake when handling Lee’s car which caused a chain reaction of calamitous catastrophes – Robert Batlle landing on Lee, a further bad landing caused him to tangle with Hupo and then spun out – he would retire with hopes dashed as Neil Cragg tried in vain to catch Neumann who comfortably led the rest of the race to successfully defend his 2WD Championship.
