EFRA Newsletter regarding copied bodies

EFRA were in contact regarding an incident that occured during the 1/8th scale European ‘B’ Championships which were held 2 weekends ago in Kirchberg Austria. The incident in question revolved around the discovery of a number of copies of the very popular Central Lola body shell that were being used by some competitors at the race who had unwittingly bought them at the trackside shop. This shells were pretty close to an exact copy and even carried the same EFRA homologation number as the original Cental shell. EFRA has ruled that these copies are illegal and are currently looking into taking further action agains the manufacturer.

Click more to read the full letter…

Dear Sportfriend,

Last week during the EC-B in Kirchberg/Austria we have discovered that the EFRA homologated body 31490 from Central has been copied and was sold for lower prices at some Austrian shops. At the moment we have no firm proof of the manufacturer that has made the copy, however we have serious suspicion against a company in Italy.

Since manufacturers pay a fee for the homologation of a body it is not fair if another company takes advantage of this and simply copies the body and try to make money. The copy can be recognized because the details are not as nice as from the original body and the homologation number is very difficult to read. The copy is also about 3 to 4mm shorter than the original.

In the next EFRA races we will have a close look to bodies and check if there are no more other bodies copied in this way. The use of this body in EFRA homologated races is forbidden and drivers who use this body will warned to use a real homologated body.

Since the name of EFRA is protected we will look for legal advice and try to find out who has made this body. If necessary we will take legal action against this manufacturer.

Furthermore we have also discovered that some tanks of 125cc during a race are getting much bigger. This is due to the plastic used, however if this heating is making the tank much bigger (about 2-3cc) EFRA cannot accept this, because this means that drivers can have advantage of the tolerance mentioned in the rule book. If during checks at technical inspection it is discovered that tanks are much too big the tanks will not be measured or a 3rd or 4th attempt after the 20 minutes mark from the first test. This would not be fair. Keep this in mind and make sure you not run on the limit.

Regards,
Sander de Graaf
EFRA 1:8 Track Section Chairman.

Click here to download the original letter (PDF)

Source: EFRA [efra.ws]