The final round of the Winter Indoor Cup was held in Falun, Sweden. The one day event made for a packed schedule for the 2WD and 4WD classes with Elias Johansson taking the TQ and win in the 2WD Buggy class from Wilhelm Skjöldebrand 2nd and Lars Hägerman in 3rd.
The Jokerteam Bolzano hosted round 2 of the 2019 Italian GT12 Series and for the occasion the town hall was setup with a 30×15 metres ETS carpet track. The track offered a very good grip from the get go and the unique positioning of the rostrum (installed within a huge spectators’ stand) allowed outstanding visibility of the whole track to all drivers. As controlled practice and qualification rounds unfolded during the morning, it was Alessio Tolomelli (Schumacher) that emerged as the man to beat, setting the pace with massive consistency and speed which was ultimately worth the TQ spot for the afternoon’s finals. Locking the first row for the A-mains, Mattia Dall’Oca (Schumacher), after having struggled with the setup of his car during the early stages of the qualification rounds, regained competitiveness just in time to secure P2, ahead of Rd 1 winner Alessio Mota (Schumacher). A-mains in the afternoon saw another dominant performance by Alessio Tolomelli, who was able to bring home the win home after imposing his pace in all three finals. The race for the lower steps of the podium saw a fierce, but fair battle with several position changes among Mattia and Alessio Mota, with Mattia coming out on top and securing second place.
Akio Sobue has won the final round of the OneTen series from his team mate, and overall PYC Hong Kong modified class event winner, Marc Rheinard. It was very close between the Infinity drivers during qualifying but in the final, after an untidy first lap, Sobue was able to take a clear win ahead of his German team mate. Nicholas Lee found pace just in time for the final and took 3rd with Gary Huang and Naoki Akiyama completing the top half of the field. Akio summed up his race by saying ‘now good, perfect’ referring to the traction returning in time for the 8-minute final and his car being very good again. Explaining his race he said, ‘the first lap the car was strange, then good after’ and once in a clear lead he drove safely to conserve both his tires and batteries. Having had a difficult day yesterday, only finishing in 5th, combined with today’s victory he ended up 3rd in the combined event standings.
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The Ospy Team track in Gussago, Italy played host to the opening round of the Four Race Trophy this past weekend. The event attracted some of the region’s fastest 1/8th off-road racers and it was UK’s Elliott Boots who swept the race using his new SWorkz ride, taking the TQ and win from his SWorkz teammate, Leonardo Valente on the runner-up spot. TLR’s Felix Koegler would round out the top 3 podium result after the 30-minute main final.
Image: Elliott Boots
The Hudy Racing Arena, host of the 2019 IFMAR 1/10th Electric Off-road World Championships will hold a warm-up race on the weekend of the 26th of May. Hold in 2WD and 4WD Buggy classes the race will allow a first taste of the conditions at the indoor dirt track and sign-up is already available here.
The MACH One Helmond club in Helmond, The Netherlands will hold their fifth annual Kickoff race on the weekend of the 21st of April. The event will be held on the club’s redesigned track that now features a stair down and double trouble section and it will be held in 1/8th nitro and electric buggy classes. The race will see direct qualifying for the TQ holders as well as a Super Pole event for the next four fastest drivers and full information and sign-up can be found here.
The fourth and final round of the popular Belgian Lovan Challenge was held over the past weekend at the large indoor track in the western part of the country. Being the last race meant that the championship would also be decided with the best three of four rounds to count. Due to the warm spring weather the turnout was a bit low. There were still over 30 starters in the popular Stock class, but the Modified class only saw two entries. The main class would thus be the Open Stock class with over 30 entries. The popularity of this class is mainly thanks to the liberal rules, with free motor, speedo and tyres. The first of four qualifiers was run on Saturday. As everyone expected, Florian Joos’ Xray took the overnight TQ by quite some margin over his usual competitors. Young French driver Jean Hannecart and winner of the previous Lovan Fun race, held on the same layout finished within two seconds of Florian. This was a great performance as Jean came back to RC racing after a long break and was driving a two years old Schumacher car. 3rd went to Belgian top nitro driver Yves Zoma. Yves was followed by his fellow Awesomatix driver Mathieu Da Rocha, who started from the slowest qualifying group. Jeremy Deram’s Xray topped of the top 5.
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The 2019 edition of the EFRA 1/12 scale European Championships was held at the world famous Hudy Arena, in Trencin, Slovakia this past weekend. The race saw a strong field of more than 100 drivers from 15 different countries. Championship crowns were up for grabs in two classes – 6.5T Modified, and 13.5T Blinky Stock. The race was held over three days and practice started on Friday, and the track soon started to come in, with decent traction levels already. Alexander Hagberg was setting the early pace in Modified, and Michal Orlowski as well as Ollie Payne seemed to be the two strong forces in the Stock class in practice. As qualifying started, Alexander didn’t have a big advantage in pace anymore, as the first three rounds of qualifying were won by Jorn Neumann. Michal Orlowski also showed a strong early pace. After some setup changes and tuning of tire preparation and size, Hagberg was back on pace to take qualifier 4 and 5. The last round was a real thriller as it came down to just a few thousand of a second on the tie breaker, which eventually played in Alexander’s favor, to award him the TQ spot.
