Back on top of the World after a decade, Ronnefalk gets 2nd World title
A decade after winning his first IFMAR 1:8 Nitro Buggy World title, Xray’s David Ronnefalk is back on the top of the world after taking the win at 20th running of the championship today in Hutto, Texas. After making his Semi Final look like just a formality on his way to securing pole position for the 1-hour final ahead of Top Qualifier Mason Fuller, the Swede looked to be carrying that form in the week’s deciding race. Out front and looking in control, with 2-minutes on the clock however a mistake in the whoops section and a subsequent error that caused chaos for a number of drivers, put him down to sixth with team-mate Chase Lemieux taking up the lead. A driver to really impress at these championship, given his limited nitro racing experience, unfortunately a pit lane exit infringement would earn Lemieux a drive through penalty, dropping him down the order but an engine cut at the 20-minute mark put amends to an impressive 1:8 Worlds debut and he eventually finished P8. With defending Champion Ongaro becoming the third different leader of the race it looked like the Italian was going to once again reign the world for another two years but even the best can make mistakes. With 25-minutes to run and a comfortable lead over Fuller, the Italian would hit the post on the back of the track, the impact immediately ending his 8 years reign as Champion. With Fuller now in the lead, holding it for 26 laps, a number of mistakes allowed a recovering Ronnefalk to close and with a faster pit stop go to the front. As Ronnefalk came in for his final stop, a hard charging Fuller had two mistakes and needed to be marshalled meaning Ronnefalk kept is lead. Fuller didn’t give up however and pushed his rival right to the finish, the separation 1.439 seconds after an hour of racing. Having found himself back in 12th early in the race after that chaos caused by Ronnefalk’s mistake 3-minutes into the race, Juan Carlos Canas managed to get himself back up to third to claim the final step on the podium 2-laps down on his Sworkz team-mate. As the reigning eBuggy World Champion, Marcus Kaerup would be the best Team Associated finisher as he claimed fourth ahead of team-mate Brandon Rose. While Kyosho’s Phi-Long Nguyen would suffer a run away during his Worlds Final debut, caused by a power switch failure, the teenager’s first refuelling at 12:30 couldn’t go by without an honourable mention.
