The organisers of the 2016 Dragon Stone Asian Nitro Buggy Championship in Liaoyang City, China, have announced the confirmation of Australia’s Ben Sterling to be part of the international drivers line-up. Ben is a multi-State Champion and is ready to join some of the World’s best in China from September 1st to 4th. Full event details are available here.
The first of two final rounds for the German 1/8th Nitro Buggy Nationals were held this past weekend at the MSC Sand/Main e. V. club, host of the 2014 Buggy A Euros. The event started out wet but both the weather and track conditions got better over the weekend. Jörn Neumann would take the overall TQ after getting into the groove and winning the third, fourth and fifth qualifier. Behind him, Carsten Keller and Alexander Schmitt, who won Q2, made up the top 3 while the winner of the opening qualifier, Aaron Müller, had to settle for fourth overall. The semifinal B then went to veteran racer, Daniel Reckward from Sebastian Winterstein and Burak Kilic while the semi A was won by Jörn Neumann from Micha Widmaier and Philipp Guschl. The 40-minute main final then saw a bad start of Jörn while Micha made maximum use of the situation until Jörn slowly but steadily recovered. An additional fuel stop of Micha in the closing stages of the final along with a small error of the leader than allowed Jörn to made up some ground and to eventually taking the lead to win the opening round of the German Nationals. 2.5 seconds behind, Micha Widmaier ended the race on the runner-up spot while Alexander Schmidt completed the podium result.
All the action from the 60 minute Main Final at the 2016 IFMAR 1/10th 200mm World Championships in Gubbio, Italy. With full race commentary from the legendary Oli Meggitt.
Dominic Greiner is the new Nitro Touring Car World Champion. Widely regarding one of the world’s fastest 200mm drivers the German finally took the sport’s biggest prize heading a Serpent 1-2 in Gubbio, Italy. Starting 3rd on the grid, he quickly made the race his own with a faultless drive eventually crossing the line one lap up on his rivals for a much deserved win. With Top Qualifier Dario Balestri’s race lasting just 9 laps due to diff failure, Super Pole winner Alessio Mazzeo would briefly take over the lead when the problem sent his fellow countryman’s Capricorn on the grass with only 2-minutes on the clock. Staying out front for 2-laps, Alessio couldn’t match the pace of his team-mate and once Greiner went to the front the attention of the race was on who would fill the podium. With less than 10-minutes to go, that would be decided in an epic three way battle between crowd favourite Mazzeo, Simon Kurzbuch and Bruno Coelho. On the last lap it looked like Mazzeo would throw away 2nd but while Kurzbuch would get him into the corner the Italian had better traction to the line snatching the runner-up spot by 6/100ths of a second and sending the large attendance into a frenzy. Covering a race distance of 209 laps of the fast Miniautodromo Internazionale M.Rosati track, a bad last lap would result in Coelho missing the podium by 1.7-seconds. The best non-European finisher Takaaki Shimo would complete the Top 5 with only one car failing to finish the race.
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The opening round of the Cordobes Championship was held in Rio Cuarto on a bumpy low-grip track. In the Buggy Masters category is was Nicolas Bregante who walked away with the win while in Buggy Open is was Matias Caraballido who took the winning honours. Buggy Junior saw the win of Sebastian Krampotic while the Truggy Junior class was taken by Nico Marco.
The Swedish On-road Nationals were recently hosted by the Wäxjö MS club and held in several electric and nitro on-road classes. In 1/10th Electric Touring it was Viktor Wilck who topped three out of four qualifying rounds to take the TQ position in front of Markus Hellqvist and Fabian Vernersson. In the finals Wilck could easily win the first two A-main legs to take the overall victory. Hellqvist would finish second with upcoming driver Fabian completing the podium.
The 10 drivers that will battle it out for the honours of becoming the Nitro Touring Car World Champion is decided with the line-up including one former champion in Meen Vejrak, the 2012 Champion coming through the second of the two 30-minute Semi finals. The seventh running of the World Championship, where for the first time two drivers directly qualified for the final, joining Top Qualifier Dario Balestri and Super Pole winner Alessio Mazzeo are only two 2014 Finalists in Vejrak and Dominic Greiner. The 2014 Top Qualifier, Greiner would book his place in the 1-hour final with a win over Bruno Coelho and Carmine Riola in the first encounter. In the second, Simon Kurzbuch controlled the race throughout to book the 1:8 World Champions first 1:10 Final start. The Shepherd driver would take a comfortable win over 2010 Top Qualifier Robert Pietsch with Vejrak seeing off a last lap charge from Takaaki Shimo to complete the Top 3. Shimo would still make the final, together with Semi B fourth place finisher Kyle Branson, the British driver surviving a last lap spin to claim the last spot with the second fastest time of the non Top 3 finishers. Dramas for those that didn’t progress include a flame-out during his tyre stop for Team Infinity’s Jilles Groskamp. The 2012 Electric Touring Car World Champion said afterwards, ‘unbelievable, the bad luck continues. I felt I was driving a controlled race’. Team-mate and 2012 Top Qualifier Teemu Leino would crash out of his Semi while battling for second spot.
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The 7th running of the Nitro Touring Car World Championship is down to the final 22 with most significant driver to bump up from the 1/4 finals being 2014 runner up Yuya Sashashi. The Serpent driver bumps up on to the back of the Semi B final grid after finishing third 3-seconds behind Capricorn driver & pole sitter Kyle Branson who in turn was 3-seconds back on the 1/4 B Final winning Team Infinity of Carmine Raiola. Unfortunately for 2014 Finalists JJ Wang his attempt at the third bump up felt short as he finished 4th, half a lap back on Sashashi. In the 1/4 A Final Toni Gruber would book his place in the Semis going one better than in 2014 as he took the win ahead of 2010 Worlds runner up Takehiro Terauchi. There was dramatic finish to the second of the encounters as 1/8 final winner David Loppini ran out of fuel on the last lap while holding third, gifting Dirk Wischnewski the final spot in the Semis.
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