This past weekend was the Georgia Champion Series Race and TLR posted more excellent results with team drivers Ryan Lopez, Shane Ogden and Cole Ogden. Taking the overall series win in the 1/8th Buggy class with his TLR 8ight 2.0 was Ryan Lopez who chose Losi Red Ultra Digits to last the long one hour main event. Rounding out the podium was Shane Ogden in 2nd and Cole Ogden in 3rd.
Source: TLR [tlracing.com]
The 3rd round of the Spanish 1/8 Onroad Nationals, took place in Vigo, Northwest Spain, last weekend. Drivers were not happy on Friday due to the rain and Saturday was also expected to be a rainy day, however before the afternoon the sun finally appeared to dry the track and let the race begin. Motonica/Merlin driver Oscar Cabezas TQ’d the race, making over 10 TQ’s in a row in the Spanish Championship. The final was hotly disputed. In the very first laps, Oscar realizaed that he didn’t have the proper engine tuning, his more running too rich and so he had to decide on a conservative fuel strategy, meaning he had to refuel twice more than his direct rivals. Despite this he was always in contention. The last lap he in 2nd position, and on this lap Nacho López, who was leading, felt a lack of fuel in his Serpent, and had to make a quick fuel stop to secure the second position and so Oscar could take the win with Nacho 2nd and Víctor González in 3rd.
Source: Merlin [merlinfuel.com]
The first round of the Hong Kong & Macau Selection Race for the 2012 KM World Cup took place last weekend at the ACO Racing track. Qualifying had to be halted after two rounds due to a heavy downpour but not before KM Group Development Dept. Manager & H-K1 designer Hung Cheung Hang was leading away and made the best lap of the qualify round with 23.133 sec and the only 26 lap run, where the second car was the Shepherd team driver Michael with 25 laps and 23.453 sec best time. Third position was the famous Hong Kong driver Samuel Chiu, who had enjoyed more than 30 years of RC racing and is still capable of competing with the yound guys, who running an Xray made 25 laps with 23.537 best time. The fourth place driver was track manager Leung Wing Wah, who was driving a H-K1 and managed to also make a very fast lap time of 23.259 sec but had a little crash in the second qualifier with Samuel which lost him the second place in qualifying. Since all KM Cup race is following the IFMAR race system then those four drivers were straight into the A-main and no need to race the semi-finals.
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Last weekend saw the EFRA GP for 1/8 Buggy held in Oberbüren, Switzerland. As the drivers arrived on Friday morning, a very big tent awaited them with space for all the drivers and the restaurant area. It rained the night before and so the track was wet but in good condition. From 10am till 6pm the drivers could run four practice round to get familiar with the track. On Saturday morning the track was wet again but no rain for the last practice round, however just before the start of the first Qualifying round it began to rain. The rain stayed for the whole first round of qualifying and it was Dominique Gross (Serpent/Ninja/JConcepts) from Switzerland who was fasted, second was Roman Kummer (Agama/TechnoPower/VP-Pro) from Switzerland, 5 seconds behind, and third Hannes Käufler (TLR/nVision/Losi) from Germany.
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Last weekend was the 4th round of the Dutch 1/8 onroad nationals, this time on the 2011 1/10 EC-B track, the Baanbrekers in Rucphen. With good weather, a lot of rubber on the track from the EC-B and 45 drivers on the fastest track in Holland it promised to be a very good race and it didn’t disappoint. Steven Cuypers was in very good shape the whole weekend and showed that by taking the top spot after the 1st round of qualifying followed by John Ermen, Robin d’Hondt, Gunther v. Steay. Finally after 3 rounds it was Rick V taking the pole followed by Steven Cuypers just half a second back, with Robin d’Hondt and Ilia v. Gastel completing the top 4. Both Robin and Ilia had an extra handicap by starting in the lowest heat with much slower drivers because their listing in this years ranking, Ilia had a collision in the 1st heat damaging his car a lot but managed a direct main final place with the other 2 sessions.
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The 2nd Annual Novarossi Challenge was held at Controlfreakz track in Chaplin, Connecticut home of the 2011 ROAR Fuel On-road Nationals. With Desoto Racing and Novarossi World providing lots of prizes, turnout was very good with 100 racers taking part in three classes: 1/8th Scale, 1/10 Sedan and 1/8th GT. 1/8th scale had the biggest turnout and was an exciting battle for TQ and the race win. In qualifying Richie Siriano, Joaquin Desoto and Kenny Ives fought for TQ with Kenny Ives Jr taking the top spot in the last Qualifier. The race was wild at first with Siriano the early leader followed closely by Taskila, Desoto and Jackson. At the 15 minute mark, the battle for the win was down to Jackson and Desoto. Jackson was pitting at 4:30 while Desoto pitted every 4 minutes. The battle continued back and fourth until traffic and mistakes separated the two at about the 25 minute mark. With 10 minutes to go Jackson made a mistake that allowed Desoto to build a lead and cruise to victory. Taskila drove a consistent race to take 2nd and pole sitter Ives Jr recovered to take 3rd. In Sedan, It was Diatta Collymore taking the TQ and win, while in GT, John Q took the TQ spot but had problems in the main. The main saw Luis Mercado drive a clean race to take the win.
Following the success of the 2010 Xceed Grand Prix in Shanghai, Xceed stages the 2011 Xceed Grand Prix in Thailand on the same track as the 1/10 IFMAR WC in 2012. The event will be open to 1/10 and 1/8 scale gas powered classes and entry is open to all brands of cars and all nationalities. The event will combine racing, buffet party with great Thai food along with the chance to meet and make new friends. There will be a separate prize for the youngest and oldest driver, the driver who has to travel the furthest in km and the fastest female driver. Xceed driver Michael Salven, as well as Patrick Schaefer and Ronald Volker have already confirmed their entry. Full information can be found here.
Last Saturday was round four on Southern California’s JBRL Nitro Series, sponsored by TLR, held at Palm Desert Raceway. The event turnout was light with around 100 entries due to the Holiday weekend and the extreme temperatures of 118 degrees with a track temp of 166 degrees. In qualifying it was Team Losi Racing / Novarossi driver Adam Drake who set the pace in both of the expert 1/8th classes, the extreme temperatures making chassis and engine tuning difficult for most of the racers. At the start of the truck main Drake began to pull away and at the end of the 25 minute main Drake took the win followed by Brad Wintermantle in 2nd, who was also driving a TLR 8ight T 2.0, with Jessie Robinson in 3rd for Mugen.
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