Huge RC in Thailand new hosts of Nitro Touring Worlds
Following the cancellation of the 1:10 Nitro Touring Worlds in Costa Rica due to noise issues earlier this week, IFMAR has announced that event will now take place in Thailand at the Huge RC Circuit in Bangkok. With the FAMAR Blok informing the World Governing Body that it was unable to host the 10th running of the Worlds for the category, previous hosts FEMCA, as per IFMAR’s own General rules, was contacted about staging it. As a previous host of the championship, former Electric Touring Car World Champion and Huge RC track owner Surikarn Chaidajsuriya quick off the mark in offering to take on the event which is less than 5-months out, the original dates remaining unchanged. The decision to award the championship to Huge RC is a safe option for IFMAR who have had a challenging 2024 season in terms of World Championship events. Earlier in the year Brazil failed to get permits to run the 1:8 Offroad Worlds resulting in its cancellation before the Redovan track in Spain, hosts of the previous Worlds, was awarded the race – a first in the history of the sport of a track hosting back to back Worlds for the same category. Last week IFMAR also had to deal with the complete cancellation of the Large Scale Worlds. This will be the fourth time Thailand and the city of Bangkok has hosted the 1:10 Nitro Touring Worlds. RC Addict hosted the 2012 & 2022 editions and now Huge RC, where in 2014 Alexander Hagberg took the title , will run the race for the sport’s greatest prize for a second time.
After receiving the message from FAMAR that the track in Costa Rica was unable to organize the event due to noise issues IFMAR has contacted FEMCA to see if there was an organizer available. This is according to the General rules, point 1.5.2. Having faced some troubles this year with changing venues people should realize that this is not common. So the rule is there and should be used. Perhaps we can modify the rule for the future, but that will take some investigation and discussions with the blocs. We know there were more parties interested, both in the USA as in Europe. Femca has contacted its members to see who wanted to have the event and at the end the decision was to give the event to the Huge RC facility in Bangkok. Some of you will say Bangkok again, but we often see that tracks come back, either for Nationals, Bloc championships or IFMAR events. However the last IFMAR event at Huge RC was also 10 years ago. One of the biggest advantages to visit Bangkok is, low hotel and food prices. For transport taxi’s are very convenient and also cheap, so no need to order a rental car. For the moment we have a date and a location and we hope all blocs will support the event.
Source: IFMAR [Facebook]
