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May 7, 2024

Giaimo wins Italian GT Championship Round 2

Schepis Model driver Rosario Giaimo took the win at the second round of the AMSCI Italian 1:8 GT Nationals held at the 2024 EFRA 1:8 GT European Championships host Naxos World track in Sicily over the weekend. Having won the season opener in March at Mini Autodromo Stradivari, Capricorn’s Alessio Mazzeo carried that form in qualifying securing the TQ for the 45-minute final ahead of Serpent’s Gabriele Paloschi. After the Semi finals the Raptor of Loris Luise would line up third with Giaimo lining up P6 just behind Genius Racing’s defending Champion Alex D’angelo. In the final Mazzeo would encounter problems at the start allowing Paloschi to lead until he suffered a flame out. It was then the turn of D’Angelo to lead until the 27-minute mark when a mistake ended his race. At the end it was Giaimo who lead home the field with a 2-lap advantage over the recovering Mazzeo and Paloschi. In the Electric GT it was Serpent’s Natanaele Senesi who took the win from Filippo Beretta and Round 1 winner Mazzeo.

Image: Rosario Giaimo [Facebook]

May 7, 2024

Thurston claims first EP British Nationals win

Alex Thurston got his 2024 season off to the best possible start by securing his first ever BRCA Electric Touring Car National win at opening round held at Halifax over the weekend. In qualifying it was the Schumacher of former National Champion Elliott Harper who took the TQ ahead of Thurston’s YMC Racing Mugen MTC2-R with another former Champion Olly Jefferies in third. Successfully defend his title in 2023, defending Champion Kyle Branson would line up P4 with his Xray. With double mains to decide the first of the 5 round National Championship, A1 would see Harper take the win as Thurston and Jefferies had a good battle for second with the later unable to find a way through. A2 and Thurston was able to capitalise on an issue for Harper however Jefferies wasn’t able to get through cleanly giving Thurston a comfortable lead to the finish over multiple BRCA Champion Chris Grainger for a first EP National win to go with his 1:8 Onroad season opening win at Cotswolds last month. Branson would fill the second step on the podium which was completed by Harper. In 13.5 Touring Car, Ollie Payne took the TQ and win ahead of Zak Finlay and James Hart.

Image: Alex Thurston [Facebook]

May 6, 2024

Canas wins Silver State Indoor Championships

Sworkz Juan Carlos Canas took the big win at the 2024 Silver State Indoor Championships, the Spanish driver winning Pro Nitro Buggy ahead of the Tekno of Truggy Champion Ryan Maifield and TLR’s Dakotah Phend. Once again attracting a massive 1100+ entries, qualifying for the Las Vegas event would see Maifield secure the TQ honours after the completion of the 3 rounds ahead of Team Associated’s Spencer Rivkin with Canas third and Phend P4. In the 45-minute final, Rivkin enjoyed a few laps a the front early on before Maifield took charge but 10-minutes in costly mistakes dropped him back. With Canas taking the lead, pit stops giving Phend the lead for a few laps before everything settled down, once in front the European Champion edged out a lead eventually finishing with over 12-seconds on Maifield. Phend would complete the podium a further 5-seconds back. Having won the event a year earlier, Marco Barufollo would finish 5th at South Point Casino and Hotel behind Seth VanDalen. In Truggy, Maifield made the class his own taking the TQ and win from Mason Fuller and Phend, the Top 3 finishing in the same order as they started. In eBuggy, Top Qualifier Fuller won followed home by Maifield and Canas.

Image: TheDirt Racing [Facebook]

May 6, 2024

Orlowski wins 1up Racing West Coast Invitational

The inaugural 1up Racing West Coast Invitational took place at 2024 IFMAR World Championship host track Finishline RC Raceway where Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski took the win. A nod to the famed Reedy Race Race of Champions, which last ran in 2019, the Mike Reedy Memorial Invitational Touring Car class attracted some strong international entries to the Bakersfield, California, track for 12 rounds of heads up racing. With a field of 16 invitational drivers, Orlowski and Xray’s Bruno Coelho would go right to the wire for the title. Sharing a total of 6 wins each and both ending up on 16 points, and all tie break avenues exhausted, 2nd places, 3rd place etc. the fastest 3 run times combined would give the on form Pole the title over the current World Campion. With most of the major manufacturers using the event to get track time ahead of the ISTC World Championships, that take place in early November, it would the Axon of Japanes driver Akio Sobue who completed the podium. Also with four win Awesomatix’ Lucas Urbain finished 4th ahead of team-mate and best of the host nation representative Sam Isaacs. Yokomo’s Nicholas Lee rounded out the Top 6. Making it a double celebration for Schumacher, Italian Mattia Collina took the traditional race format Open Touring Car win from David Mayhew and Byrce Butterfield while Xray’s Jan Ratheisky won 17.5.

Image: 1up Racing [1upracing.com]

May 1, 2024

The Michal Orlowski Column – Edition No.2

You all loved his first column so we are delighted that Michal Orlowski has somehow found time in his busy schedule to give us another great column as an insight into his world as Schumacher’s star factory driver. Once again we’ll let Michal take it away and tell you in his own style what has been going on over the last two months….. ‘It has been a while since my last update here. We have been hard at work with the team to finish off the winter season on a high. We attended numerous events between February and April, which I will tell you all about, emphasising the struggles and how we could overcome them together. After attending the Mibosport Cup in early February, it was time to switch back to buggy mode. For the last few years, the MK GP event has been one of the mostly anticipated off-road races of the winter season with hundreds of drivers participating, but more importantly thousands of people coming to watch us race RC cars. The event is held in the MK shopping centre in Milton Keynes, UK, home to the Redbull F1 team. The event is organised by the Silverstone Club, who hosts weekly club races and a winter series at a smaller venue. This gave us the chance to test on the unique carpet the MK GP crew decided to use since 2023.

Continue reading here

April 30, 2024

Hobbywing Cup – Mächler, Sawada & Lee announced

The organisers of the Hobbywing Cup have announced a number of well known international drivers will make the trip to the Shanghai International Model Auto Racing Arena (SIMARA) in China for the May 30 – June 2 electric touring car event. 1:12 Spec World Champion Max Mächler will make the trip from Germany with his Awesomatix touring car, while Nicolas Lee travels from Singapore for the factory Yokomo team. Japanese driver Shin Sawada with represent Xray in the Open Brushless class at the 4-day event. The Hobbywing Cup will also see drivers battle it out around the 65m by 35m track in categories for Stock, Sports Class and Tamiya TT02.

Source: Hobbywing [hobbywing.com]

April 26, 2024

2024 Philippine Masters Chassis Focus Index

Last weekend Red RC made our third trip to Manila for the world class offroad event that is the Philippine Masters. Famed as being Asia’s biggest annual 1:8 Offroad race, the Circulo Verde track is renowned for its difficulty and 3D style build with this year’s 12 edition of the race using a new method to seal the surface. This resulted in minimal tyre wear even over the 1-hour Main final in which Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro recovered from an early flame out to take his fourth win in the capital city. The first time Sparko was officially represented at the race, a great driver by Ryan Pavidis netted the American runner-up spot. Great to see the legendary Atsushi Hara back racing at the the front end. It was great to once again do a chassis focus with him, Sworkz hooking him up for the event, and it great to see the former World Champion enjoying his racing so much once again. Attracting 205 entries from 16-nations, we got the chance to photograph buggies from 9 drivers representing 7 different manufacturers as well as the TQ & winning Sworks truggy of Bulgaria visitor Plamen Petrov we will have compiled into our latest Chassis Focus Index.

View Chassis Focus Index here

April 25, 2024

Connolly wins Irish 1:8 GT National opener

The opening round of the Irish National GT Championship took place in the beautiful St Anne’s Track located in the centre of Dublin last weekend where Genius Racing’s Clive Connolly took the win. Hosted by ORCA Ireland, in qualifying it was Connolly taking TQ honours followed by Graeme Lougheed, the top 2 automatically into the Main Final leaving the rest to battle in the Semi Finals for the remaining final positions. The 30min Main was a close affair with battles throughout the field. Jason Noonan and Graeme Lougheed both driving Genius cars would fight for 18 minutes until finally Graeme would retire with a technical failure allowing Bruno Barbosa driving a strong race with his OS powered Xray to move up a position. Out in front it was multiple Irish Champion Connolly driving his Mantis Tuned powered GTC8.23 on SP Rubber that would take the victory with a trouble free run from start to finish.

Image: ORCA Ireland [Facebook]