After four years of waiting….the 10th IFMAR Worlds is back
Report from
IFMAR WC 1/10 ELECTRIC OFF ROAD 2023
After four years of waiting….the 10th IFMAR Worlds is back. We’ve been super excited for this race ever since the venue was announced as Hobby Action Raceway – the first time the Worlds has run indoors in the US on a clay-based racing surface. We know Facebook isn’t the place for long, written articles…but it’s what we do. Here’s our 2023 IFMAR Worlds preview…with complete acknowledgement that much as we’d love to be there, we’re writing from the Action RC couch on the other side of the planet. 😉
THE VENUE:
Quite frankly, from every photo, video and Facebook live stream we’ve seen so far, Hobby Action looks amazing in its IFMAR World Champs guise. It looks everything a World Champs should be, and everything we hoped an indoor US Worlds would be. Kudos to the team for the track, the presentation, the bannering, the recognition of the history and heritage of the event, the whole shebang. And we’re quite likely to see the best media coverage of any RC event ever, period. Multi-cameras, great commentary, again everything we could ask or want. We hope, and expect it will be of the best Worlds events ever. Hobby Action and MOD Live Media certainly look to have prepared brilliantly. The track, at least as we’ve seen it presented for the 4wd category, looks like a challenging, but fair and race-worthy track. We’re sure there’s going to be some interesting things that are hard to see from pre-event photos, particularly in terms of jumps and combinations. And we’re busting to see how it gets reconfigured for the 2wd event.
THE DRIVERS:
Anybody who’s thinking about this race is putting Spencer Rivkin (AE) and Dakotah Phend (TLR) in the front line. Rivkin is not only two-time (and defending) World Champ, but it’s his home track AND he’s been in ominously good form in 2023 – no matter the track and scale. Wherever in the world this race was, Rivkin would be a front-runner. Phend has been dominant in the US over the last couple of years – and while Rivkin has arguably had the stronger 2023, Phend split the US Nationals with Rivkin (taking 2wd and Stadium Truck while Rivkin took 4wd) just a few weeks back.
Behind those two, the US drivers most likely to feature are Schumacher’s Broc Champlin, and AE’s Aydin Horne – but there are host of others too. Chase Lemieux has been amazing this year (XRAY), Tom Rindernecht, Matty Gonzales, Dustin Evans, Tater Sontag, Ty Tessman, Davey Batta and on and on and on. Oh, and there’s a couple of young guys by the name of Ryan Cavalieri and Ryan Maifield– they’ve won a few of these things in the past between them! Truth be told, US/Canadian drivers could easily make up well more than half the A final field and nobody would be the least bit surprised. We don’t think it will be a shutout, but stranger things have happened.
On the European side, it’s the normal names we would expect to be front runners. Michal Orlowski, Bruno Coelho, Marcus Kaerup, Tommy Hall, Jorn Neumann (amazingly fast at the Euros recently), Lee Martin, Daniel Kobbevik, Clement Boda could all appear in the A – again to nobody’s surprise. Oh, and did we mention Davide Ongaro? Two-time 8th Offroad World Champ, 2nd in 2wd in 2019…and a definite dark horse.
Elsewhere, keep an eye on Japan’s Kato Kouki – a tone of preparation and practice at the venue, plus the well-prepared Australian team. We’re naturally cheering for the boys from down under – Chris Sturdy, Lachlan Donnelly, Lachlan Munday and Jarod Ment should lead the team.
THE MANUFACTURERS
When it comes to IFMAR World Champs racing, particularly in 10th Offroad, you can make a pretty good case that nobody does it like AE. Team Associated have won so many world championships that it’s borderline ridiculous. There’s something about the way the team go racing at this level that means they are always, always a threat, finding ways to make their cars work even if they’re not the most fancied. Their 2wd chassis is as good as anything, and the 4wd has come on in leaps and bounds over the last 12-24 months. It’s a far cry from 2019 when AE were a non-threat in 4wd. With a big, talented team, on home turf, and a track record of working well together at IFMAR events, AE have to start favourites.
TLR don’t have a big team, but they have Dakotah Phend. Their 2wd is a front-running car in Phend’s hands, with perhaps the 4wd ever so slightly less competitive in recent times. Phend could win either class – but we think he’s likely to be a smidge more competitive in 4wd.
XRAY come as defending Champ, and again, a huge, talent-packed team. Coelho headlines the squad, backed by US talent Lemieux and pasted 8th World Champ Ty Tessman. Their cars didn’t look perfectly dialled in a the 1-Up Buggy Challenge/Worlds Warmup earlier in the year, but XRAY will have left no stone unturned in preparing for this one. The days of one-off World Championship prototypes are probably past, but to our mind XRAY are the team most likely to show up with a heavily developed car. The slight negative for XRAY is that Coehlo is stronger in 4wd – and that’s the class that runs first, before he gets the chance to dial in to this (for him) unusual surface.
Schumacher are stronger than they have ever been. That’s true in every class they race. And they’ll come to this World Championship event with lofty hopes of adding a second IFMAR Off-road World Championship win. Both 2wd and 4wd are super competitive, and in the hands of Champlin and Cav they’ve worked well to develop the cars in US conditions. With the engineering brains of Tris Neal, this is another team we wouldn’t be surprised to see show up with some new parts. A definitely Championship chance.
SWorkz are arguably the fastest developing competition team in the world right now – with last week’s European 8th offroad championship the latest for a team that is on the up-and-up. They may suffer slightly without a truly front-running US driver to develop their indoor clay setups, but there’s no doubting the manufacturing and development chops of the team – nor of their driving roster with the likes of Neumman and Boda, for example.
Yokomo have a long and proud IFMAR Worlds history dating right back to their 1985 win in the hands of Gil Losi Jr, and a string of other championships (ever heard of Masami Hirosaka) including the Ryan Maifield double in China in 2017. That said, their 2023 outright chances don’t appear high. We’ll be interested to see what 8th star Burak Kilic can do with the cars, and a 4wd final appearance wouldn’t be out of the question – except with that same reservation we mentioned for Coelho – Kilic would be better served in 4wd was the second class.
Kyosho are another previous IFMAR World Champs winning team who wouldn’t appear at face value to be a threat here. We’d love to see Kyosho go all-in for 10th off-road racing again, but it doesn’t seem on the agenda for the moment.
MONEY WHERE OUR MOUTH IS?
It’s always impossible to predict these things, but if pushed, I’ll say I think we’re going to see five drivers on the podium across the two classes of racing. I’m thinking Rivkin will be in the top three in both classes, joined by Phend, Champlin, Orlowski and Coelho. Rivkin will take 2wd, and Phend will be a first-time World Champs winner in 4wd. That’s my best guess If I was to take a smokey for a podium, I’ll pick Chase Lemieux in 4wd and Marcus Kaerup in 2wd.
That’s our best guesses and thoughts on what we’ll see unfold. Don’t read too much into the early rounds of 4wd practice as some cars/teams/drivers will come on strong as the track develops and grip builds. By Sunday night, however, as controlled practice concludes, we’ll get a much clearer idea of the 4wd pecking order.
It’s on, and we can’t wait for things to get started in just a few hours. IFMAR is back!
THE VENUE:
Quite frankly, from every photo, video and Facebook live stream we’ve seen so far, Hobby Action looks amazing in its IFMAR World Champs guise. It looks everything a World Champs should be, and everything we hoped an indoor US Worlds would be. Kudos to the team for the track, the presentation, the bannering, the recognition of the history and heritage of the event, the whole shebang. And we’re quite likely to see the best media coverage of any RC event ever, period. Multi-cameras, great commentary, again everything we could ask or want. We hope, and expect it will be of the best Worlds events ever. Hobby Action and MOD Live Media certainly look to have prepared brilliantly. The track, at least as we’ve seen it presented for the 4wd category, looks like a challenging, but fair and race-worthy track. We’re sure there’s going to be some interesting things that are hard to see from pre-event photos, particularly in terms of jumps and combinations. And we’re busting to see how it gets reconfigured for the 2wd event.
THE DRIVERS:
Anybody who’s thinking about this race is putting Spencer Rivkin (AE) and Dakotah Phend (TLR) in the front line. Rivkin is not only two-time (and defending) World Champ, but it’s his home track AND he’s been in ominously good form in 2023 – no matter the track and scale. Wherever in the world this race was, Rivkin would be a front-runner. Phend has been dominant in the US over the last couple of years – and while Rivkin has arguably had the stronger 2023, Phend split the US Nationals with Rivkin (taking 2wd and Stadium Truck while Rivkin took 4wd) just a few weeks back.
Behind those two, the US drivers most likely to feature are Schumacher’s Broc Champlin, and AE’s Aydin Horne – but there are host of others too. Chase Lemieux has been amazing this year (XRAY), Tom Rindernecht, Matty Gonzales, Dustin Evans, Tater Sontag, Ty Tessman, Davey Batta and on and on and on. Oh, and there’s a couple of young guys by the name of Ryan Cavalieri and Ryan Maifield– they’ve won a few of these things in the past between them! Truth be told, US/Canadian drivers could easily make up well more than half the A final field and nobody would be the least bit surprised. We don’t think it will be a shutout, but stranger things have happened.
On the European side, it’s the normal names we would expect to be front runners. Michal Orlowski, Bruno Coelho, Marcus Kaerup, Tommy Hall, Jorn Neumann (amazingly fast at the Euros recently), Lee Martin, Daniel Kobbevik, Clement Boda could all appear in the A – again to nobody’s surprise. Oh, and did we mention Davide Ongaro? Two-time 8th Offroad World Champ, 2nd in 2wd in 2019…and a definite dark horse.
Elsewhere, keep an eye on Japan’s Kato Kouki – a tone of preparation and practice at the venue, plus the well-prepared Australian team. We’re naturally cheering for the boys from down under – Chris Sturdy, Lachlan Donnelly, Lachlan Munday and Jarod Ment should lead the team.
THE MANUFACTURERS
When it comes to IFMAR World Champs racing, particularly in 10th Offroad, you can make a pretty good case that nobody does it like AE. Team Associated have won so many world championships that it’s borderline ridiculous. There’s something about the way the team go racing at this level that means they are always, always a threat, finding ways to make their cars work even if they’re not the most fancied. Their 2wd chassis is as good as anything, and the 4wd has come on in leaps and bounds over the last 12-24 months. It’s a far cry from 2019 when AE were a non-threat in 4wd. With a big, talented team, on home turf, and a track record of working well together at IFMAR events, AE have to start favourites.
TLR don’t have a big team, but they have Dakotah Phend. Their 2wd is a front-running car in Phend’s hands, with perhaps the 4wd ever so slightly less competitive in recent times. Phend could win either class – but we think he’s likely to be a smidge more competitive in 4wd.
XRAY come as defending Champ, and again, a huge, talent-packed team. Coelho headlines the squad, backed by US talent Lemieux and pasted 8th World Champ Ty Tessman. Their cars didn’t look perfectly dialled in a the 1-Up Buggy Challenge/Worlds Warmup earlier in the year, but XRAY will have left no stone unturned in preparing for this one. The days of one-off World Championship prototypes are probably past, but to our mind XRAY are the team most likely to show up with a heavily developed car. The slight negative for XRAY is that Coehlo is stronger in 4wd – and that’s the class that runs first, before he gets the chance to dial in to this (for him) unusual surface.
Schumacher are stronger than they have ever been. That’s true in every class they race. And they’ll come to this World Championship event with lofty hopes of adding a second IFMAR Off-road World Championship win. Both 2wd and 4wd are super competitive, and in the hands of Champlin and Cav they’ve worked well to develop the cars in US conditions. With the engineering brains of Tris Neal, this is another team we wouldn’t be surprised to see show up with some new parts. A definitely Championship chance.
SWorkz are arguably the fastest developing competition team in the world right now – with last week’s European 8th offroad championship the latest for a team that is on the up-and-up. They may suffer slightly without a truly front-running US driver to develop their indoor clay setups, but there’s no doubting the manufacturing and development chops of the team – nor of their driving roster with the likes of Neumman and Boda, for example.
Yokomo have a long and proud IFMAR Worlds history dating right back to their 1985 win in the hands of Gil Losi Jr, and a string of other championships (ever heard of Masami Hirosaka) including the Ryan Maifield double in China in 2017. That said, their 2023 outright chances don’t appear high. We’ll be interested to see what 8th star Burak Kilic can do with the cars, and a 4wd final appearance wouldn’t be out of the question – except with that same reservation we mentioned for Coelho – Kilic would be better served in 4wd was the second class.
Kyosho are another previous IFMAR World Champs winning team who wouldn’t appear at face value to be a threat here. We’d love to see Kyosho go all-in for 10th off-road racing again, but it doesn’t seem on the agenda for the moment.
MONEY WHERE OUR MOUTH IS?
It’s always impossible to predict these things, but if pushed, I’ll say I think we’re going to see five drivers on the podium across the two classes of racing. I’m thinking Rivkin will be in the top three in both classes, joined by Phend, Champlin, Orlowski and Coelho. Rivkin will take 2wd, and Phend will be a first-time World Champs winner in 4wd. That’s my best guess If I was to take a smokey for a podium, I’ll pick Chase Lemieux in 4wd and Marcus Kaerup in 2wd.
That’s our best guesses and thoughts on what we’ll see unfold. Don’t read too much into the early rounds of 4wd practice as some cars/teams/drivers will come on strong as the track develops and grip builds. By Sunday night, however, as controlled practice concludes, we’ll get a much clearer idea of the 4wd pecking order.
It’s on, and we can’t wait for things to get started in just a few hours. IFMAR is back!
Who and what are your tips? What are you most looking forward to about this World Champs race? Who's the dark horse for a big result? Can anybody beat Rivkin and/or Phend?
Class Offroad
Scale/Size 1/10
Power Electric