IFMAR 4WD EP Worlds: XRAY’s Bruno Coelho Takes First A-Main in Controversial Battle

The first A-main of three is over at the 2015 IFMAR 4WD EP Worlds and it was tense and exciting in the first couple of minutes of the 5-minute race. Getting away clean, the front runners ran nose to tail. But, it wasn’t without incident and after a few laps Coelho had accidentally jumped over a pipe on the “dining room table” jump ending up on the lane going the other way. Some felt the jumping of the track should have been penalized and a spot relinquished, but no action was taken. However, a quick pause and Coelho moved on with the bunch even tighter behind him. Then Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski crashed and left the door open for Kyosho’s Naoto Matsukura to move up to Coelho. Unshaken Coelho stuck to his game and drove flawless and slowly pulled away when Matsukura made small mistakes. With blistering laps put down by Coelho, the clock ticked away and the gap grew all the way to the end where Coelho would finish, taking the win with Matsukura second and HB/HPI’s David Ronnefalk in third (photo, video and result sheet provided by RedRC.net).

A relieved Coelho comes off the driver’s stand after taking A1.