F.T. Line have announced the signing of Dutch racer Rick Vrielijnck for the 2016 season. Finalist at the 2009 World Championship in Lostallo, Switzerland, Rick came back to racing in 2014 after quite a long hiatus and proved strong in his 2014 and 2015 ENS outing. In 2016 Rick will use the “F.T. Line” version of the XRD engines to power his Shepherd Velox V8 throughout the racing season.
Source: XRD [facebook.com]
Serpent have announced the signing of Japanese frontrunner Shin Adachi to their 1/8th nitro offroad team. Shin, who is under contract with Yokomo for the 1/10th scale classes, will join Serpent as a driver, campaigning the company’s forthcoming brand-new nitro buggy, but he will also work closely with Serpent’s offroad designer Billy Easton on future 1/8th offroad projects. Shin has the following to say:
I’m very excited join Serpent 1/8 buggy team. I’m confident and cannot wait to 2016 season. I would like to provide everything that I have learned and experienced from my long R/C racing experience to the team. Thanks to Serpent team to allow me this chance.
Source: Serpent [serpent.com]
The opening round of the Speed Hunters race was held at the Zorri RC track in Athens. The race format was a little bit different for the nitro class with two 20 minute qualifiers of which the best three consecutive laps counted toward the overall standings. The finals were then run in an electric format of triple 15 minute mains of which the best two counted. Xray driver Dimitris Dimitriou would set the early pace in the 200mm Nitro class and he took the overall TQ in front of Mugen racer Zacharopoulos and fellow Xray driver Papachristos. Dimitriou then would managed to take three easy tone-to-tone wins in the A-mains to grab the overall victory from Likaris (Xray) and Sogias (Serpent).
The final round of the 2015 Huge RC Club Series has held this past week Sunday at the Huge RC indoor circuit in Bangkok, Thailand. The 1/8th nitro on-road class had Wittaya taking a maiden win in the main final but the overall championship title went to Serpent teammate Pornpol Julatiwong. Elsewhere in the 1/10th 200mm class Pichakorn Klinfung (Serpent) would take the TQ and win and with it the overall title for 2015.
The final round of the Metropolitan Tournament Argentino was held this past weekend. Pre-event favourite Lucas Lemes only managed to grab third place in the 1/10th 200mm class A-main behind winner Sebastian Recio and runner-up Enzo Branciforte but the final podium spot was enough to win Lucas the overall title.
View the podium of the final round here
Revelation Raceway hosted their annual Christmas Gifts for Kids Race this past Saturday. This year’s event was very successful with 12 heats and it was a great day of racing for a great cause. Mugen’s Adam would set the pace and was the overall TQ in Nitro Buggy and Nitro Truck. Drake led both finals from start to finish to sweep the event with JQRacing’s own Joseph Quagraine finishing in second in the Buggy class and Barry Pettit (Mugen) rounding out the podium. In the 40+ Nitro Buggy class Tim Long took the TQ but it was Miguel Perez who came out fastest in the main final.
View the Truggy & 40+ podium here
The AZRCR Championship Series recently concluded with the fourth and final round. The 4-race series was held throughout the fall months with all raced being hosted by Fear Farm R/C Raceway in Avondale, Arizona. The first 3 rounds were held on the previous track layout while the finals were run on the US Open Fuel Championships layout. In the final round of the series, Billy Fischer took home the TQ and win in Nitro Truggy, as well as a 3rd place finish in Pro Nitro Buggy and when the points were tallied up, Billy was able to take the overall win in both classes.
The Run for the Riches 3 race was recently held in Knoxville, Tennessee at the ROCCK club, drawing more than 150 entries. The Pro Nitro Buggy A-main saw some very intense battles between Shay Brand, Barry Pettit, and Eddie Cordoba and at the end Shay was able to slowly create some distance between himself and the others, and come away with the overall win. In the Pro E-Buggy category, TQ holder Shay Brand made a few small mistakes by himself and a couple of issues with lapped traffic caused some further problems, allowing Barry Pettit to take the win from Shay who managed to grab the runner-up spot at the end.
