Does DVD-R drive need to be made region free too??

[Eigoho]

I have a Pioneer DVD-116 DVD ROM drive (region free) and a Pioneer DVR-104 RPC-2. I am ripping with Smartripper which is supposed to and seems to be removing the region protection. However, after I burn the DVD-Rs & play them in the 116 they all seem to be region 2! I was told that the burner RPC did not matter, but where is this region protection coming from if not my DVR drive? Do I need to flash it too to make region free burns?

BTW, IFO Edit finds no rpc on the ripped IFO files--I ran it to check.