Red RC » Gas

August 21, 2013

Hara tops opening FEMCA Qualifier

Atsushi Hara, who only last Friday made the shock announcement that he was leaving HB, has taken the opening round of qualifying at the FEMCA 1:8 Offroad Championships in China. Racing a Mugen, which the former World Champion went out and bought himself in a hobby shop in Thailand, the Japanese ace set the pace in the first of six 10-minute runs by just over 5-seconds from Korea’s Dani Choi and with Japanese Kyosho driver Dani Hiroki completing the Top 3 at Beijing Model Sports Association’s freshly built FT Offroad track. With a difficult Visa procedure keeping defending Champion Kyle McBride away from contesting this year’s FEMCA Championship, the Far East’s equivalent of the EFRA European Championships, and thereby denying the Australian the opportunity to go for a third consecutive title, Hara’s TQ run endorses his status as pre-event favourite to take back the title he previously held.

View our complete event coverage here.

August 20, 2013

Takaaki Shimo wins at New Taipei City race

Mugen’s Takaaki Shimo took the TQ and win at the New Taipei City 1/8 Nitro On-Road Invitational Race. This inaugural government sponsored event saw more than 60 drivers competing with Takaaki Shimo and fellow Protoform team driver JJ Wang as the top invited foreign drivers. Shimo took the win with and JJ was in hot pursuit but dropped off his close chase due to mechanical problems and ended up 4th. Finishing 2nd and 3rd were local Taiwan drivers Jones Chu and Wang Sheng Tsong. This event was the first major international on-road nitro event in Taiwan’s RC scene, which not only saw local media coverage as well as large numbers of spectators at the race.

Source: Protoform [racepf.com]

August 19, 2013

Martin Hansen wins at Danish buggy nationals

The Danish 1/8th buggy nationals took place at the RC Center track in Greeve. After a strong showing at the recent EFRA GP Martin Hansen (Kyosho/Team Orion/AKA) once again excelled as took the win in the nitro buggy and also the E-buggy class. The nitro podium was completed by Oliver Fischer (Kyosho/Team Orion/AKA) and Silas Høgholt (Kyosho/OS/AKA).

Source: Kyosho [kyosho.de] | Photo: Oliver Fischer

August 19, 2013

Alex Thurston is 200mm Junior European champion

At last weekend’s 1/10th 200mm ‘A’ Euros in Austria Serpent driver Alex Thurston took the Junior Championship. After taking the 1/8th on-road Euro Junior title just weeks ago in Halifax, UK this is another important victory for the young man this year. Alex is sidelined by Serpent team mate Jörg Tiit who took the third place on the Junior’s podium.

Source: Serpent [serpent.com]

August 19, 2013

Martin Bayer wins German nitro buggy nats Rd1

The first of two races for the German nitro buggy nationals was run at the Oberhausen track in Western Germany. RB’s Daniel Reckward took TQ for the finals with Martin Bayer (Xray) and Carsten Keller (Kyosho) in tow. Marcel Guske (TLR) and Jörn Neumann (Team Durango) completed the top 5. The 40 minute final race was a very close affair for the top 4 drivers who all finished on the same lap. At the end it was Martin Bayer who took the first round of the 2013 German championships 20 seconds in front of Marcel Guske and Daniel Reckward who crossed the finish line some three seconds behind Marcel. Jörn Neumann only was down another six seconds. Hannes Käufler and Tom Wiesner finished one lap down of the top four in fifth and sixth position respectively.

Click here to view the A final result

August 18, 2013

Alessio Mazzeo is 1/10th European Champion

The 1/10th 200mm ‘A’ Euros were held this weekend at the Stohr Ring near Kirchberg in Austria with 89 drivers in attendance. Practice would take place under changeable weather conditions with heavy rain stopping running a number of times but qualifying and the finals were all run under sunny dry conditions. Qualifying would go the way of newly crowned 1/8th European Champion Jilles Groskamp with his Shepherd, narrowly beating out Eric Dankel (Capricorn) with Dominic Greiner (Serpent), Toni Gruber (Serpent), Dario Balestri (KM) and Alessio Mazzeo (Serpent) completing the top 6, separated by only 1 second.

Continue reading the report here

August 16, 2013

Summer Scorcher 2013 – Report

The 2013 Summer Scorcher was hosted by the legendary Phil Hurd Raceway, the race had about 86 entries and as usual the Score crew put on a great event with tremendous hospitality. The race format for the Summer Scorcher would be three rocket rounds of qualifying and 10 minute A-mains which meant a long day in the Georgia sun and a race that would possibly go into the night. Qualifying in SCT 4×4 and 1/8th E-Buggy was dominated by John Bernard and Travis Dupree and so it was no surprise that John lead the short course A final from start to finish with his Tekno SCT410 with fellow JConcepts driver, Jonathan Paulk finishing second. Travis and John also battled it out in the E-Buggy final and when the leg started Travis checked out and never looked back taking the win from John. In 1/10th Stadium Truck Tim Smith TQ’d and won while Travis Dupree TQ’d and won the 1/8 Pro Nitro Buggy class with Kevin Bullock in 2nd.

Click here to view the other podiums

August 16, 2013

Atsushi Hara leaves HPI/HB Racing

Atsushi Hara leaves HB/HPI Racing

Two-time World Champion Atsushi Hara has announced that he has left long time main sponsor HPI/HB Racing following 13 years with the team. Widely regarded by many as the best all round driver in the history of the sport, the 2 world titles in both touring car (2000) and 1/8th offroad (2008) are just the highlights of a very successful career which has included countless podiums in all the major classes both onroad & offroad at World, International and National level. The decision to part company with HPI was mutual and for now the Japanese ace has yet to make any decision on a replacement chassis sponsor. We chatted with Atsushi some weeks back, when he flew to Slovakia for the ETS Finale, and he hinted back then that something was about to change.

Read Hara’s full statement here (in English & Japanese)