The NSW State Championships here held recently and in the Nitro Truggy class it was Xray’s Ari Bakla with the win. Ari qualified 2nd but in the 45-minute main final he battled it out with Jarred King (Agama) over the full race distance to finally bring home the silverware with the closest of margins from Jarred in 2nd. Shane O’Conner (HB Racing) would round out the podium results in 3rd.
Round 4 of the Turkish On-road National Championship was held at the Bumod track in Bursa. This time the track was run anti-clockwise which made for about four to five seconds lower lap times in the 200mm Nitro Touring class compared to running clockwise. Alain Sarafyan made a clean sweep in the Nitro Touring class, taking the TQ and his first pole position in this category. In the main final Alain kept his cool and with swift laps and a flawless run he was able to open a gap on the field and control the other drivers to give him the win from Kagan Aydin 2nd and Halit Körpe 3rd.
Round 6 of the Castilla y León regional championship was held at the ATV Racing track in Valladoild, Spain this past weekend. David Barcena took the pole position in the Nitro Buggy class and ended the day on the 2 spot which was enough to take the overall championship title. Up front Daniel Vega came out on top at round 6 with Ruben Vela taking the 3rd and final podium spot.
Thanks to Dani Vega for the report.
The Great Lakes Challenge was held recently with this year was the most competition for a few years, providing very tight racing in all classes. In the 1/8th class the fight for the TQ was very close. DJ Apolaro TQ’d three of the five rounds beating out Joaquin Desoto Jr by only 4 tenths. He also set the new track record with 18 laps in 5:05.561 and the top 5 after qualifying would be DJ Apolaro, Joaquin Desoto Jr., Paolo Morganti, Paul Lemieux and Ralph Burch.
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ARC Nitro Italy have announced the signing of Italy’s Tony Esposito to their team. Tony will use the remainder of the season to adapt to the new car in preparation for the 2018 European Championship that will be held on his home track in Cassino. Tony says:
I am very happy to be part of the ARC team and the commission, also I will use this end of season to prepare the best in 2018 where I will have the European championship at home, in Cassino.
Source: ARC [arc-rc.com.tw]
The 2017 British Open GP took place at the Cotswolds track situated within Kemble airfield. The forecast for the whole weekend was looking very good with temperatures in excess of 23 degrees Celsius. As well as being the Open GP, the event would also double up and use its results as Rd6 of the national series. After four rounds of qualifying it was the Joe Kerry who took the TQ with 2014 World Champion Alexander Hagberg 2nd, and Alex Thurston 3rd. The final got under way with Joe pulling away very quickly at the front in the first few laps. Alex was fighting with Alexander for 2nd place which only helped Joe pull further away. When the first fuel stops had played out, Joe was able to start saving tyres whilst still increasing the gap. After 30 minutes of racing Joe Kerry (Capricorn) took the win two laps ahead of John Zottl (Serpent) who just came through to take 2nd with Alexander Hagberg (Xray) completing the podium in 3rd.
Source: Capricorn [capricornrc.com]
The annual Herts GP was held last weekend at the Herts Nitro Model Club. Jamie Clancy would sweep the Nitro Buggy qualifying and he also came out on top in the 45-minute A-main after some nice battles with Jonni Skidmore and Jack Embling. All three matched very closely in lap times but Jamie would have an advantage over the distance while Jonni and Jack battled for the overall runner-up spot. In the end one extra pit stop and some mistakes cost Jack a 2nd place finish and he eventually brought home a 3rd place.
Image: Jack Embling [facebook.com]
The 2017 TCS Finals concluded at Tamiya America’s racing facility in Aliso Viejo, California after 13 regional races that ran across the country. The 2017 TCS season kicked off in January in Fresno, California and ended in August in Jackson, New Jersey. Other regional state race locations included, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Connecticut, and Washington. The final national event spanned two days from August 26th to 27th at Tamiya America’s R&D race track in Aliso Viejo, California. This year’s final celebrates 23 years of on-road Tamiya R/C car racing. There are eight new class champions, three of which will be representing the USA at the Tamiya World Championships in November; an event during the Tamiya Fair held in Shizuoka-City, Japan. Duy Khuong took the winning honours in GT-1, securing himself a ticket to Japan with Mat Allen and Solomon Figues Jr. coming in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
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