The popular Nitro-West-Masters nitro on-road racing series is celebrating its tenth anniversary season this year. It all started in 2009 with the first race held at the Dueren track near Aachen. This forthcoming weekend the 2018 season will be launched with round one of six in Bad Breisig, located between Bonn and Koblenz at the river Rhine. Beside Dueren and Oberhausen, Bad Breisig has been part of the race calendar since the initial season 2009.
The first round of the Czech Open Series took place this past Saturday at the Kolin club in 1/8th Nitro and Electric Buggy classes. Through the whole day it was a fight between Jirka Mara and Max Gotzl for the nitro win. Jirka tested some setups in qualifying and because of that, he ended on P3 behind Jiri Benes and Max. In the semi-final run Jirka secured the 1st place on the grid for the main final. There he showed amazing performance and won the final one lap lead in front of Max.
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Last weekend’s Ielasi Tuned Trophy, organised by former World Champion Daniele Ielasi, saw not only the running of an 1/8th IC Track class but also 1/10th 200mm racing. In the Touring class was WRC Racing’s Toni Gruber who came out on top. Toni would loose a bit of time in the opening stages of the 45-minute main final as he opted for a no-tyre-change strategy with the bigger rubber causing some issues, but once the tyres came in he was able to take over the lead and bring home the win some two laps in front of Mugen’s Dirk Wischnewski as Matteo Passetti (Serpent) completed the top 3 podium result.
Image: Toni Gruber
The Ielasi Tuned Trophy was held this past weekend at the Melzo track in Italy with 60 racers in attendance. The 1/8th IC track class saw Infinity’s Francesco Tironi taking the overall TQ and he would also lead most of the A-main, however with ten minutes to got a small mistake took meant he would loose the lead, allowing WRC’s Mirko Salemi to take the win from Francesco in 2nd as Massimo Aliprandi (Serpent) came in 3rd to complete the podium result.
Source: Creation Model [creationmodel.net]
The opening round of the Swiss 1/8th Nitro Buggy Nationals was held this past weekend and in the Expert class it was HB Racing’s Jeremy Pittet with the TQ from Patrick Hofer (Team Associated) and Christoph Affolter. In the 45-minute A-main it was again the pairing of Jeremy and Patrick who made up the top 2 with the better end for Patrick who, despite an undercut from Jeremy, would bring home the win some five seconds in front of Pittet as HB Racing’s Kevin Zwahlen rounded out the top 3 results.
Image: Patrick Hofer
The opening round of the Italian CRNS was held at the Fiorano track. In the 1/8th track class it was ARC driver Cristiano Sartor with the win from Capricorn’s Alessandro Merloni 2nd and Xray driver Alessandro Bracci 3rd. Sandro Sammarini and Fabrizio Iori would round out the top 5 results.
The first round of the BRCA 1/8th circuit championships was held at the Cotswolds track. Saturday’s practice started at around 10am when a couple of racers started braving out the track, clearing puddles. Lap times were not great because of the conditions but people were actually happy to be able to be on the track and everyone veered into the afternoon without much drama. The track was now dry and cars looked faster and faster. The big unknown was how cars would react with additive on the tyres and there were mixed opinions, with some deciding not to use any. Did it make a difference? Some say it did, some say there is no point. The usual culprits seemed to be leading the way, Mark Green, Andy Hastings, Neal King, Tim Wood to name but a few. David Spashett, last year’s runner up, was absent but Alex Thurston was back in nitro after two very successful years in 8th electric. It would be rather interesting to see on the Sunday how people would actually get on with their new cars in race conditions. After the sound of blistering lap times – for the conditions – the day was over and it was time to try and warm up for most racers. The afternoon had been dry but the wind chill created quite a cold feeling.
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The Big Barn Shootout was held in Chilliwack, BC this past weekend and it was Xray’s Ty Tessmann who dominated the 1/8th Nitro Buggy and 1/8th E-Buggy classes. Ty would secure the overall TQ in both categories and he also came out on top in the 30-minute Nitro Buggy main and the opening two E-Buggy A-mains legs to take a double win with Team Associated’s Peter Tozser and HB Racing’s Carson Phipps completing the Nitro Buggy podium as the Team Associated duo of Nick Wautlet and Mike Dana coming in 2nd and 3rd in the E-Buggy class.
