Paolo Morganti put the new Serpent Viper 977 on top of the podium at the FSS Race in Florida this past weekend. The race was used as a test for the upcoming Winternats that will take place at the Fort Meyers based track this February. The FSS Race also saw the growing group of 1/8 GT racers run their cars, and Desoto was able to win the race with Serpent Cobra GT, followed by his team-mate in 2nd.
Click here to view the GT class podium
Last weekend the annual Montpellier GP, season opener for the 1/8th nitro buggy class, took place and it was Kyosho’s Elliott Boots who took the TQ honours with his Novarossi powered and Pro-Line shoe’d Kyosho. The race saw a close finish between Boots and Xray’s Reno Savoya with Team Associated driver Yannick Aigion completing the podium.
Source: Pro-Line [prolineracing.com]
More driver news from Xray who have announced that multiple European Champion Dirk Wischnewski will continue to race for Xray in 2013. Dirk will focus on the 1/10 nitro racing and the further development of the NT1 in 2013 and will participate at all major nitro touring races. Dirk had this to say:
After 5 successful years with Team Xray I’m happy that we will continue our partnership in the future. In 2013 I will concentrate mainly on 1/10 nitro touring class, here the biggest race will be the European Championship in Austria. But I will also do some electric touring car races especially during winter time. I like to thank Juraj, Martin, Mario and everyone at Xray for the great support over the last years. I’m looking forward to great and successful future.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
Gulf Coast Raceway has been especially popular of late, due in no small part to its successful bid to host the ROAR Fuel Nats this year. Not that drawing entries to this gem of a facility in Porter, Texas has ever been an issue; but with each event held there serving as a warm up for the Nationals, it’s no surprise that this past weekend’s first round of RC Pro’s Texas State Series was stacked with the region’s fastest and those chasing them. Nearly 250 entries vied for hardware and prizes in Open and Intermediate classes of nitro and electric buggy, nitro truggy, and Pro4 short course.
Continue reading the report here
Beta have announced that both Luis Rodrigo and Ignacio Candel will be joining their European Team for 2013. Both of these drivers have continually performed excellently, both in their home markets of Portugal and Spain, and at International races. After testing Beta tyres, they both were convinced that to push them to the next level they had to choose Beta for 2013.
View the Ignacio Candel image here
Cody King took the win at Revelation Raceway’s Winter Nationals held last Saturday. TLR’s Adam Drake TQ’ed both rounds of buggy qualifying running the new 8ight 3.0. Starting on P1 Adam Drake led the first lap but suffered a disastrous lap 2 & 3 as he dropped to 12th position, 13 seconds back from leader Cody King. Drake pushed hard and would climb back to 2nd but Cody ran clean laps and took the win by 8 seconds over Drake and Mike Truhe, who was running a new TOP / Novarossi engine package, finished third. Jeremy Kortz would end up retiring with six and half minutes left on the 30 min clock. Pro-Line locked down the podium with all three drivers running Holeshots. Adam Drake took the win in the truck class at the Winter Nationals. Drake TQ’ed both rounds of qualifying in the track class and lead the 20 minute final from start to finish. Tyler Brown finished third also running a TLR 8ight T 2.0. Adam used Pro-Line M4 Holeshots to take the victory.
Xray have announced that multiple-Czech champion and European championship finalist Martin Bayer will continue to race with Xray in 2013. Martin has been an important member of the R&D team participating in the development and testing of the XB9 & XB4. Martin had this to say:
2012 was my first year with Team Xray. I have expected that after changing a team it will be like to start from beginning and it will be difficult but at the end it was one of my most successful years. Juraj is extremely dedicated and passionate about his work and inspires everyone in the team to work hard and harder and to reach at least 120%. We have been as team working closely together which is very positive for me and we have made big improvements on the car and still many to come. Working with the Xray Factory team is a pleasure and I am happy to re-sign for 2013. I hope our result will be even better and I will do all for it.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
Shepherd have announced that top US racer Michael Palazzola has joined their factory racing team for the upcoming nitro on-road season. The California based driver is going to race 1/10th scale and 1/8th scale and will attend the Florida Winter Nationals along with many other big races all over the season. As Michael reached both A-mains at the US on-road nationals in 2012 the German company are looking forward to a great year of racing and some great results from this young driver. Michael had the following to say:
I am very happy to be joining with Team Shepherd Germany and I would like to thank Patrick, Armin and Team Shepherd USA for this great opportunity to grow with the company. I am looking forward to many great years with this great company and the people who surround it. I would like to thank my previous sponsor for the experience and last 2 years of support.
Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]
