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June 17, 2013

Drake & Tessmann crowned 2013 National Champions

The ROAR 1/8th scale Nationals were held last weekend at Gulf Coast Raceway in Porter, Texas with the race seeing battles for the coveted buggy & truggy titles, won last year by Ty Tessmann. Qualifying in the buggy class was dominated by TLR’s young gun Dakotah Phend ahead of Tessmann, Truhe and Drake, while in Truggy it was all HB’s Ty Tessmann ahead of Phend with TLR team mates Drake and Truhe once again completing the Top 4. Cruel luck in the Semis as Phend lost a throttle servo and was out along with Tebo and Cavalieri and so having dominated his semi Tessmann would line up on pole position for the 45 minute long final. The final started well for the Canadian, who would lead for the majority of the race but in the end a mechanical issue would mean retirement and allow Adam Drake to take over the lead which he would never relinquish, taking his third National title in front of team mate Truhe in 2nd with Kyosho’s Cody King in 3rd. In the earlier Truggy final, Tessmann would dominate, retaining his Truggy title winning by over a lap from Durango’s Ryan Lutz, with Mike Truhe taking, what would be the first of two podium spots, in 3rd.

Click here to view the truggy winner

June 17, 2013

Daniele Ielasi joins Capricorn

Capricorn have announced the signing of 2008 1/10th World Champion Daniele Ielasi. The deal is effective immediately and the former Shepherd driver will compete in the 1/8th and 1/10th European Championships as a Capricorn driver. The Italian had this to say about the deal:

I would like to thank the complete Shepherd family for our excellent cooperation and for the good job they made in the past years. We always had and will have a good relation and it was really a pleasure to be part of this great team. I know that this kind of change in the middle of the season is not easy to manage but after a long and careful consideration I have to take this hard decision. From now on I will be part of the Capricorn team as a driver for the 1/10 and the 1/8 car. I’m sure that my experience will give a new improvement and I’m very happy to be part of the best Italian drivers in the same Capricorn team with an Italian car and Italian engine.

Source: Capricorn [capricornrc.com]

June 14, 2013

Peter Jovanovic doubles at Canberra State Titles

Peter Jovanovic doubles at Canbarra State Titles

The recent KM Racing sponsored Canberra State Titles for 1/8th and 1/10th nitro on-road saw Capricorn driver Peter Jovanovic taking TQ in both classes followed by Steven Jovanovic and Michael Stone in 1/10th scale and Kane Alderton and Tim Westwood in 1/8th. The small and technical track was very aggressive on the tyres but the sedans made their final without a tyre change and it was TQ setter Peter Jovanovic who came in first some two laps ahead of Steven Jovanovic and Nick Morris. Chris Hamilton rounded out the top 4 positions. The 1/8th class tyre changes were unavoidable and by only changing the left front tyre Peter again was unstoppable bringing home the win two laps in front of Kane Alderton and Michael Turner. The top four was completed by Tim Westwood.

Click here to view the 1/8th podium

June 13, 2013

Mark Green wins BRCA 1/8th at Brooklands Raceway

Round 3 of the 2013 BRCA 1/8th championship was hosted by the Brooklands club. This was the first time the section had visited the circuit for 18 months after circuit ownership issues which have now been fully resolved. The track is a power circuit and very flowing which makes it a favourite amongst the drivers and resembles many circuits with Europe. For this meeting the committee decided to run the bus stop chicane along the back straight to firstly slow the cars down over the bumps preventing potential engine failures and secondly to create a longer lap and more of a drivers challenge. The track was open for free practice on Saturday and the usual suspects of Branson and Green were quickly up to speed with the track changes and soon a driving line was forming and the grip was steadily increasing. With the straight being shorter the drivers experimented with gear ratio’s but the norm used on other tracks seemed to be the answer to aid with driveability. Another attribute to the bus stop chicane layout was the benefit of fuel consumption and with the new regulations of 16 percent nitro should surely make 5 minute run times easy to achieve with the dreaded fuel stop a thing of the past. The conclusion however was not as anticipated and many of the top drivers had to make a fuel stop to be safe.

Click here to continue reading

June 12, 2013

Richard Volta wins French 1/8 Nats Rd4

Last weekend the 4th round of the French 1/8 on-road nationals was held under sunny conditions at La Ferriere aux Etangs in the Normandy. In qualifying it was Romain Picard how took TQ honors only 0.7sec in front of Shepherd driver Richard Volta who had to do an additional pitstop for fuel. In the semi finals Richard was the fastest driver on the track leading from the start to the chequered flag taking the pole position for the main final while Romain dropped out in the second semi final as he crashed his car. From the start of the final Richard controlled the race. With fast fuel stops he was able to control the gap to the rest of the field and after 45 minutes he crossed the finishing line five seconds in front of Christophe Aygon with Christophe Louis completing the podium on 3rd place.

Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]

June 12, 2013

Truhe & Drake win at JBRL Rd3

For the third round of the JBRL Nitro Series Jimmy Babcock and the gang loaded up their equipment and headed to Revelation Raceway in Ontario, California. The Revelation Raceway has always been one of the most well know tracks in the area with the largest club race attendances. The track is home to many of the best nitro drivers in the area and people such as TLR’s and Pro-Line’s Mike True and Adam Drake can be found here club racing almost weekly when they are not traveling the world racing their cars. In the Expert Buggy Class Pro-Line’s Mike Truhe took the win with Pro-Line team mate Sean Gaffney taking the third spot on the box. Second place went to Agama’s Andrew Smolnik. In the Expert E Buggy Class Mike True did it again followed by TLR team mate Adam Drake. Wrapping up the third big class of the day was Adam Drake who took the top spot on the box in Expert Truggy followed by Drew Moller and Andrew Smolnik.

View the other podiums here

June 12, 2013

Otto Ausfelt wins 4WD buggy at Nordic Champs

Otto Ausfelt wins at Nordic Champs

The Nordic championship for 1/10th 2WD and 4WD buggies was held under the best possible weather conditions and saw TLR’s Otto Ausfelt setting the fastest practice times in the 4WD class. In the qualifiers though Xray’s Kennie Ekenstierna was able to win three out of the four rounds and he therefore took TQ after some close battles with Otto. The finals again had some close racing to offer with Kennie winning the first A final some seven seconds clear of Otto Ausfelt. The second A final went to Christoffer Svensson who came in third in A1. He had Kennie and Otto in tow. This meant the final A main would be the decider of the day as Christoffer, Kennie and Otto all had the chance to climb on the highest step on the podium and at the end Otto was able to take home the win ahead of Kennie and Christoffer. With both Otto and Kennie having one win each and second best for both was a second place it came down to looking at who had the quickest win heat – which was Otto handing him the overall in win the 4WD class.

Click here to view the final result

June 9, 2013

Baruffolo is European ‘B’ 1/8th Offroad Champion

Baruffolo is European 'B' 1/8th Offroad Champion

The second of the EFRA European ‘B’ Championships this weekend was held at the Ongaroring in Sicily. Local youngster Davide Ongaro would take the TQ spot for Mugen but it was Marco Baruffolo who would dominate in the semi finals to take the pole position for the RB car. Rain on Saturday would flood the track but the local crew got the track back into race worthy condition for Sunday but rain again just before the main final saw drivers struggling with their cars in the 45 minute final. Baruffolo would prove unstoppable taking the win by nearly a lap from Spanish Mugen driver Oscar Baldo in 2nd with Austrian Mugen driver Jurgen Trieb in 3rd.

Full coverage over at Neo Buggy.