Red RC » Events

November 1, 2019

Greiner hits the top at World Championships

We might have had to wait an extra day for the qualifying action to start at the 1:8 World Championship but the first three rounds have certainly delivered variety with Dominic Greiner the latest driver to put in a TQ run. Having not even featured in Q1 with the 22nd fastest time, in Q2 the Serpent driver made a huge leap forward with a P2 thanks to the set-up of team-mate Jeff Hamon and now the former 1:10 World Champion has become the third different driver to TQ. While he topped the fastest group, top seed Dario Balestri again had to settle for second with team-mate Jesse Davis completing the Top 3. JJ Wang improved on a strong showing in the morning to set the fourth fastest time, his best so far, followed by Hamon and Dutch driver Rick Vrielijnck. Having TQ’d the previous qualifier, Simon Kurzbuch return to form was short lived as he would suffer a stripped belt after just two laps. Impressing in seeding putting himself in the fastest heat, young Italian Jonathan Gandin looked set for a Top 3 run as he swapped times with Balestri until he ran out of fuel on his final lap.

Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.

October 31, 2019

Kurzbuch finds his groove to take Q2 at Steel City

Simon Kurzbuch appears to have finally found his groove after taking the second round of qualifying at 1:8 World Championships in California. Only 5th in the opening round, the Shepherd driver would pass Q1 winner Naoto Matsukura on track to top the times by 8/10th over his long time Worlds rival Dario Balestri who again had issues with engine tuning. The second of today’s 4 round of qualifying would also see a marked improvement from Dominic Greiner who from the second fastest heat set the third quickest time ahead of Matsukura. Backing up their impressive Q1 performances Jeff Hamon and Jesse Davis ran the 5th and 6th fastest times respectively.

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October 31, 2019

Matsukura from Balestri in opening Qualifier

Naoto Matsukura has taken the opening round of qualifying at the 1:8 Onroad World Championships at Steel City RC Speedway. After high winds forced the cancellation of the start of qualifying yesterday, the first of the now reduced to 4-minutes qualifiers saw an Infinity duel for top spot. Shadowing his Infinity team-mate & top seed Dario Balestri throughout the run, Balestri having about half a second advantage, Matsukura was handed the TQ run when the reigning Champion started to run out of fuel on the final lap. Running the second fastest heat, Jesse Davis would make it an Infinity Top 3 followed by fellow Australian Jeff Hamon who also ran in Group 11 of 12. While crossing the line third fastest in the top heat, Simon Kurzbuch had to contend with a P5 for the first of his 6 qualifying attempts with Mugen’s JJ Wang completing the Top 6.

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October 31, 2019

2019 Arrowmax Cup Rd3 – Report

The third round of the 2019 Arrowmax Cup was held at the ACO track in Hong Kong recently. In the Touring Modified class the battle for the overall would continue in A3, as three of the drivers still had the chance to take the overall victory. With TQ Topman yet to score a win, it was an important race. Due to the time of the day, the third A-main would have the most grip since “Happy hour” is just right on the dot. TQ Topman took advantage and would hold his line while Kendrik did what he could to pass Simon. With one small mistake of the latter, Kendrik made a move in the S turn while Simon would quickly recover and was within striking distance, but in the end, Simon wasn’t able to regain the position so it was Topman with the overall win from Kendrik 2nd and Simon 3rd.

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October 31, 2019

Daniel Bubel wins at Fear Farm 2.0 race

The Fear Farm 2.0 race was held at the Nuno Arena in Denmark last weekend, attracting local drivers as well as guest from Germany and Norway. Considered to be the biggest race 1/8th off-road race on Danish soil for the 2019 season, the event was held in Nitro and Electric classes and in E-Buggy it was Xray’s Daniel Bubel with a clean sweep in the qualifiers to take the pole position for the A-mains. The opening two A-final legs then saw Daniel taking the wins for the overall in front of JQRacing’s Mikkel Vesterled and Xray’s Vincent Ruger.

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]

October 30, 2019

High winds force cancellation of qualifying at Worlds

The opening day of qualifying at the IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championships has been cancelled due to high winds in California. The gusting winds forced officials to make the call on the grounds of safety with concerns over the integrity of the huge tent in which everyone is pitting at Steel City RC Speedway. Despite being held in position with large concrete weights such was the power of the wind it exerting huge forces on the tent frame making it too dangerous to pit under. With the winds that are causing huge issues for fire fighters dealing with wild fire in the California area not expected to pass until this evening, IFMAR president Jeff Parker confirmed that due to safety concerns caused by the conditions today’s qualifying would be cancelled. He added that the track would open as normal tomorrow morning at 07:00 with one hour of practice from 08:00 to 09:00 to ‘groove the track’ which would be followed by the opening round of qualifying. Parker was quick to make it clear that ‘at this point we are not going into Sunday’, Sunday being a reserve day but only for should there be issues with the Saturday Main Finals programme. So far no details have been released as to whether it will be possible to run all 6 rounds of qualifying as originally schedule but it is expected that today’s cancellation will see that number reduced.

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October 30, 2019

Kohta Akimoto wins at Stock’s Combat

The 2019 Stock’s Combat was held at the RC Champ Stadium indoor dirt track in Yokohama, Japan last weekend. In the 2WD Stock Buggy class it was Kyosho’s Kohta Akimoto with the overall win after coming out on top in A2 and A3, leaving behind Yokomo’s Yusuke Sugiura, who took the TQ honours, in 2nd place overall. Yokomo’s Nana Kaiho came in 3rd to round out the podium.

Source: Kyosho [kyosho.com]

October 30, 2019

JConcepts NCTS Rd4 Midwest Carpet Nats – Report

The final round of the inaugural JConcepts NCTS was held at Thunder Road RC Raceway in Waite Park, Minnesota over the weekend. The popularity of carpet and turf racing is definitely on the rise and without any doubts whatsoever, racing on artificial surfaces is clean, consistent, and drivers always have a good amount of grip. As the NCTS season 1 comes to an end, the organisers are convinced that the carpet wave will carry strong into 2020 and beyond. For the season finale, the hype was high as many of the team drivers have been raving about the facility and they are completely right. The layout was actually very cool. It was a reflection of itself if you were to split it down the middle. With the jumps and features laid out in a manner that challenged drivers, it wasn’t an easy track to get around going 100 precent. However, cruise around at 80 percent, it was very easy. The double vertical chicanes haven’t been done in a while, but definitely, required precision and commitment to get the hot laps. The jumps were quite easy, which promoted close racing and many laps of battling on the track that ultimately made for a wonderful race experience. Overall, it was a fun layout that favoured cars with balanced setups that inspired confidence and control.

Continue reading the report here