The fifth round of this season’s Top Notch Tour was held at Channel Islands RC track in several nitro off-road classes. In Expert Nitro Buggy it was JQRacing’s own Joseph Quagrain with the win in the A-main from Mugen racer, Anthony Westergaard 2nd and JQRacing’s Greg Degani 3rd.
Continue reading the report here
Wallace Motorsports have announced the signing of multi-time ROAR US National finalist and top California racer Chris Verano to their nitro on-road team for 2018. Chris will begin his racing season campaigning the WRC GTX 1.3, Ielasi Tuned engines and Hot Race tyres through out California and abroad. He brings years of industry and racing experience to the table and will be an asset for supporting and helping grow the Wallace brand out west. Chris had this to say about the new venture:
I would like to thank Diatta Collymore and Ben Wallace for the opportunity to be part of Wallace Motorsports. I am looking forward to racing and working with the growing Wallace Motorsports team in 2018.
Source: Wallace Motorsports [wallacemotorsports.net]
Capital City Raceway played host to the 5th Annual Big Bend Shootout recently. Challenging racing conditions with a rough yet high grip track and cold weather made things interesting for the racers and in Pro Nitro Buggy it was Xray’s Landen Lewis who made the best out of the conditions, taking home the win in front of Tekno’s Kenny Morris Jr. and Serpent’s Will McGiver.
Continue reading the report here
Thornhill Raceway of Hutto, Texas held their Toys for Tots race last weekend, raising $3000 and lots of toys for the good cause. Jason Woolridge (Xray) was top qualifier in Nitro and would also bring home the win from Xray teammate, Nick Vanderpool while Elliott Martinez rounded out the top 3 results. Over in E-Buggy it was again Jason Woolridge (Xray) with the win as Daniel Grobe (Xray) and Sean Gallagher (Mugen) completed the podium.
Sun City Raceway of El Paso, Texas played host to the US Open race recently. Joey from The Dirt put in a great layout for the event and it was a lot of fun to drive on as it flowed really well and still worked when the track started to build some character. Tanner Stees (Xray) would put in TQ runs in Q1 of both Nitro Buggy and E-Buggy and he scores P2 runs in Q2 and with these results he was overall TQ in both classes. After winning his semi-final on Sunday, Tanner would start from pole position into the 60-minute A-main, however, he ran into some issues and had a couple of flameouts during the 60-minute period which pretty much put him out of contention to win. Ultimately he was able to bring home a P3 from Casey Peck (Mugen) 2nd and eventual winner, Billy Fischer (Tekno) 1st.
The first ever 200mm Nitro GFR Le Grande Finale Race took place this past weekend in Athens, Greece with guest drivers Thilo Tödtmann and Sures Velauthapillai attending the event. This event was the first race on controlled tyres, supplied by Matrix, in Greece and with an ENS style format it was greatly appreciated by all 28 drivers. Germany’s Thilo Tödtmann (Shepherd) took the TQ but in the finals Tödtmann was given a hard time by Greek National Champion Bill Likaris (Shepherd) with the two staying within a couple of metres during the whole race and only swapping positions during the pit stops. Originally Tödtmann had planned a right hand side tyre stop but he did discard the plans during the final was he wasn’t able to pull away. This cause him problems later on as he had to nurse the car over the finish line with hardly any rubber left on the wheels and being only 0.2s in front of Likaris. In 3rd, Lambros Tsiklitiras (BMT) rounded out the podium some four laps down.
Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com] & NTech RC [ntechrc.com]
The UCP Fun Race was held last weekend at the Urban Community Park in Cisauk, West Java, Indonesia. This new track is located about 60km from the Jakarta city centre and the event a was trial race before the track owners will hold the grand opening race. A total of 45 drivers from Jakarta, Bandung, Gresik, Solo and Pontianak attended and the event kicked off in good weather in the morning, however by midday there was rain after qualifying and caused a delay for the finals. After qualifying, Jason Nugroho (Xray/Novarossi) took the TQ honours and he also secured the 1st position after the 45-minute main final, follow by Chopin Yusuf (TLR/O.S.) and Edianto Ong (Kyosho/O.S.) in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
WRC Racing have announced the signing of Italian frontrunner Mirko Salemi to their factory team. Mirko will campaign the company’s 1/8th and 1/10th nitro on-road kits in his upcoming campaign that will see appearances at national and international level events.
Source: WRC Racing [wrc-racing.com]
