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November 8, 2022

Greiner is Top Seed in Thailand

Dominic Greiner is the top seed for qualifying at the 1:10 Nitro World Championship in Thailand. The Capricorn posting the fastest time of the day in the fourth & final round of seeding practice. Ending yesterday’s controlled practice at the top of the time sheets, the German found himself only P9 as the seeding got underway this morning at the challenging RC Addict track. Improving to fourth in the second round, he would make his mark on the second half of the day topping the remaining two rounds with his fastest 3-consecutive laps of the day in Round 2 giving him the tie-breaker over Tadahiko Sahashi. Fastest in the opening two rounds, Sahashi lost his edge as the track traction came up, his best 3-laps on his final attempt being 6/10th off that of Greiner. The most consistent driver of the day, Jilles Groskamp completed the day with the 3rd fastest time and that is where he is seeded for qualifying thanks to his second fastest times in the earlier three runs. Posting P4 runs in the final two rounds, Mugen’s Shoki Takahata will carry the No.4 in the top heat while a strong final round for Dario Balestri lifted him from 11th to 5th in the final ranking. An impressive performance from Milan Holthuis sees the young Dutch driver in the top heat as the 6th seed just ahead of reigning champion Naoto Matsukura.

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November 8, 2022

Greiner fastest in 3rd round of seeding

Dominic Greiner finally hit the top of the times sheets in seeding practice ending Tadahiko Sahashi’s run of fastest times in the first half of the day at the 1:10 Nitro World Championship. Only P9 in the day’s opening round, the Capricorn driver improved to P4 in Round 2 before going fastest in Round 3. Mister consistent in practice Jilles Groskamp was P2 for a third time with Sahashi, whose Round 1 time is still the fastest of the day, completing the Top 3. Another of the leading contenders to struggle in the opening round, Shoki Takahata improved his Mugen to post the fourth fastest time. For reigning World Champion Naoto Matsukura, the penultimate round was his best so far as he set the sixth fastest time behind team-mate Carmine Riola. Top qualifier at the previous 1:10 and 1:8 World Championship, Dario Balestri has had a challenging day with the Italian having a best run of P8 in Round 2 leaving him currently sitting 11th which would see him seeded in the second fastest heat for qualifying.

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November 8, 2022

Sahashi tops first round of seeding practice

Tadahiko Sahashi has topped the first round of seeding practice at the IFMAR 1:10 Nitro World Championships in Bangkok. The first of the day’s four seeding rounds threw up a number of surprises as the sun appeared for the final heat of the round leaving a number of the pre race favourites well down the order. 2013 1:8 World Champion Sahashi recorded the fastest 3-consecutive laps with a time of 46.351 seconds followed by his Infinity team-mates Jilles Groskamp and Milan Holthuis. Shinnosuke Yokoyama added some variety to the top of the times using his Mugen to post fourth fastest ahead of Andy Moore. For reigning Champion Naoto Matsukura a mistake cost him track time and he was only able to post the 14th fastest time just ahead of team-mate Dario Balestri. Having been fastest at the end of controlled practice Dominic Greiner found himself only 9th quickest.

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November 7, 2022

Greiner on top as free practice concludes at Nitro Worlds

Having waited four years for it to come around, it is go time at the 1:10 Nitro Touring Car World Championship in Thailand with Dominic Greiner at the top of the time sheets as controlled practice concludes at RC Addict. After the 14-rounds of practice over the past 2 days, the Capricorn driver set the fastest 3-consecutive laps followed Infinity’s Jilles Groskamp. Reigning Champion Naoto Matsukura completed the Top 3 just ahead of team-mate Jesse Davis while behind it was a trio of 1:8 World Champions. 2017 winner Dario Balestri posted the fourth fastest time from 2013 Champion Tadahiko Sahashi with reigning 1:8 Champion Shoki Takahata completing the Top 6 before the go into four rounds of seeding practice tomorrow (Tuesday).

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November 7, 2022

Orlowksi & Pålsson win at Euro Buggy Masters

Continuing his successful Swedish tour, Michal Orlowski took the 4WD win at Euro Buggy Masters indoor offroad event in Furulund. Having won at the Indoor Touring Car Swedish National Championship at David Ronnefalk’s DR Racing Arena the previous weekend, the factory Schumacher driver travelled to the home club of another leading Swedish racer Jessica Pålsson. Taking the TQ from Alexander Landén and Joona Haatanen, in the finals he would take the win ahead of Team Associated’s Haatanen with Pålsson completing the podium. In 2WD, it was Pålsson who led proceedings securing the TQ from Orlowski and Landén on the fresh EOS carpet track. In the final she took her Schumacher to victory in all three finals ahead of Orlowski and Landén which is how they lined up on the final podium at the Furulund RCK hosted event.

Image: Michal Orlowski [Facebook]

November 7, 2022

Simon Nicolson crowned Australian Champion

Simon Nicolson is the 2022 Australian Electric Touring Car National Champion. The Yokomo driver took the Mod win of the KWR Engineering sponsored event at the ACT Model Car Racing Club track in Canberra over the weekend. Having won the Queensland State Championships back in August, Nicolson would secure the TQ after taking three of the five rounds of qualifying. Behind, having topped Q5, team-mate Antoni Caretti lined up second with the ARC of Jeffrey Mackie, fastest in Q3, P3 ahead of Serpent’s Jeff Hamon. In the Finals, Nicolson took A1 but with slight rain at the start of A2 he would crash out allowing Mackie to take the win from Hamon. In A3, the Top 3 would remain static allowing Nicolson to secure the title ahead with Mackie second and Hamon completing the podium. Unfortunately it was to be a tough run of finals for Caretti as he got hit each outing leaving him 5th overall. It was also victory for Yokomo in 13.5 Touring Car, Alex Ilievski taking the win from Cristian Silva and Nathan Tanti.

Image: Castle Hill RC Onroad [Facebook]

November 7, 2022

Outgoing EFRA President Javier Garcia announces complete departure from sport.

Outgoing EFRA President Javier Garcia has announced on social media that he is to completely exit the sport having served with the European governing body since 2015. The likely Spaniard made the announcement following the EFRA AGM which took place in Belgium over the weekend where long serving EFRA board member Jacqueline Aebi took over as the new President, a role that was filled by Garcia for the last 5-years. In his message on Facebook, the very amenable figure outlined a lack of progress and interest in change within the organisation and RC Community had led him to loose his passion and motivation. He also goes on to highlight that major changes are required within EFRA for it to be able to progress – a view that has been widely held for a number of years now. RedRC first met Javier at the 2016 1:10 Nitro Touring Car World Championships when the late EFRA/IFMAR President Dallas Mathiesen personally told us that he had found someone who could be a huge asset to the sport. Having tried to work on a number of projects ourselves with EFRA prior to Javier’s arrival within the organisation, we can fully empathise with the frustrations he outlines in his message. Our sport’s loss is Javier’s family’s gain. Thank you Javier for your efforts.

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November 6, 2022

“I never give up wanting to win”, Balestri says 1:10 World Title “the missing piece”

The first ever event Red RC covered was the 2007 1:10 Nitro Touring Car European Championship in Madrid, Spain. The class was still the new kid on the block and there was plenty of hype about the category. The race would be Xray’s first venture into nitro with them bringing in star names Teemu Leino and Jilles Groskamp from electric touring car in their quest to win with their new NT1. Dario Balestri was the defending Champion and the real star of nitro onroad. He was Italian, he exclusively raced nitro, and he was one of chosen ones for iconic Italian engine manufacturer Novarossi. This was a time when your engine sponsor was the most important element of your race package – without the right power you weren’t going to win and the makers of these little engines were very selective about who got one of the ‘special’ ones! The market also had a newcomer in the engine department in Team Orion, headed up by a certain Adrien Bertin, who to this day is still the only driver to have achieved the double of being World Champion of both 1:8 and 1:10. This was a golden era of 1:10 nitro onroad.

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