The 2017 Ride Futaba Cup was held at the Infinity Addict RC Circuit in Bangkok, Thailand, over the weekend. The event attracted both local racers but also international experienced drivers and three of them, Infinity’s Jilles Groskamp, Yokomo’s Nicholas Lee and Atsushi Hara, campaigning a Tamiya at this event, would make up the top 3 result in the competitive Touring Modified class.
Tekno RC have announced the signing of Portugal’s Ricardo Monteiro to their factory team. Ricardo’s experience and talent will be a great asset to their expanding European team as well as Tekno RC racers in the EU region. His first race for his new sponsor will be the Oleiros Trophy race in February and he had the following to say:
When the opportunity came to work with Tekno, I knew I had to take it into consideration. The quality of the cars plus the people that I would work with made for an easier decision. I would like to thank Ilias Arkoudaris, Daniel Lewis and all the guys involved, I believe we will have an awesome partnership together. I am already working hard getting to know the products and will be at the tracks soon with the new cars, they are awesome!
Source: Tekno RC [teknorc.com]
Xtreme Aerodynamics welcome reigning Italian Champion, Daniele Ielasi to their team for the 2017 season. Having often used Xtreme’s products in the past, Daniele has now officially joined the team, running alongside the likes of World Champion Kurzbuch, Robert Pietsch, Francesco Tironi, and Adrien Bertin.
Source: Xtreme Aerodynamics [xtremeaerodynamics.com]
The recent Pine Hills race saw Mugen’s Aaron Stringer walking away with a double win in the Nitro Buggy and Nitro Truggy classes. Aaron would grab the top qualifying honours in Buggy while Mitch McCallum (Kyosho) went fastest after the qualifiers in Truck. The Buggy final then saw Aaron bringing home the win from Mitch McCallum and Alex Bernadzik (Team Associated) in second and third respectively. In Truggy it was again Aaron who walked away with the hardware while Caleb Noble (Mugen) and Mitch McCallum (Mugen) had to settle for second and third.
The 2017 Southern Indoor Championships were held in Alabama. The weekend started off a bit crazy with a tornado hitting the area on Saturday which caused a 4-hour delay but with running the electric program with available sunlight and after the power was restored qualifying was finished up around 1am Sunday morning. The layout for this year’s SIC offered some big air and some fast air sections and the surface was a little on the looser side. In Nitro Buggy Tekno RC’s Ryan Lutz would take the TQ after a battle with Tekno teammate Joe Bornhorst who would start second into the main. Nitro Truggy also saw the Lutz-Bornhorst duo up front while E-Buggy was TQ’d by Mugen’s Adam Drake from Lutz and Bornhorst.
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Xtreme Aerodynamics have announced the addition of Francesco Tironi to their factory team. Francesco will equip his XRD-powered Infinity vehicles with the Italian manufacturer’s bodyshells in both the 1/8th and 200mm classes for 2017. A former Worlds podium finisher, Tironi will face a busy 2017 season taking part at the Italian nationals, the EFRA GP series, Worlds, Euros and select ENS races.
Source: Xtreme Aerodynamics [xtremeaerodynamics.com]
This past weekend not only the annual Reedy International Offroad Race of Champions was held but it also saw the running of the iconic Race of Champions, an annual event that draws many of the biggest names from across the world of racing. Formula 1, NASCAR, World Rally Cross, MotoGP – they all come to one spot where they go head-to-head on the same track in identical cars. The 2017 edition, held at Marlins Park in Miami, Florida, saw Colombian motorsport great, Horizon Hobby sponsored Juan Pablo Montoya taking on a field of the world’s best drivers in front of 15,000 fans to win the title of Champion of Champions. In addition to Montoya, this year’s roster of competitors included other notables such as Tom “Mr. Le Mans” Kristensen, four-time Formula 1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel (and last year’s ROC Champion of Champions), Felipe Massa, David Coulthard, Kyle Busch, Travis Pastrana – and the list goes on. This year’s event also featured a brand new figure-of-eight track that challenged drivers even more. The best-of-three Grand Final boiled down to a battle between Montoya and Kristensen in which Montoya took two straight heats to become the undisputed Champion of Champions.
Source: Horizon Hobby [horizonhobby.com]
XRD have announced the signing of Italian frontrunner Mattia Collavo. The ENS A-main finalist and 2015 Italian national champion will power his ARC R8.0 and BMT 701 cars with the high-end F.T. Line version of the Italian engines throughout his 2017 campaign that will hold races such as the Italian Nationals, select ENS events and the Italian Manufacturer’s championship as well as other major national and international level meetings.
Source: F.T. Line [ftlineteam.com]
