October 1, 2009

Chris Steele wins Final 200mm round in Ireland

Chris Steele wins Final 200mm round in Ireland

The eighth and final round of the Irish 1:10 200mm National Championships took place at the Ballymoney track in Northern Ireland over the weekend where Chris Steele took his Murnan Modified powered Kyosho to his 6th win of the season. Having already secured the 2009 title Steele continued his domination despite the welcomed return to racing of Mark Gilliland after an abscence of almost a year. Securing pole over Gilliland, Steele converted TQ honours in to victory to finish of the season in perfect style while Gilliland and the only other race winner of the championship, Chris Lawlor, completed the podium.  In the overall championship standings, with a drivers best 5 of the 8 rounds to count, it was Lawlor who took second with Darren Gibb third to make it an all Kyosho Top 3.

Click here to see the series podium


September 30, 2009

Jilles Groskamp confirmed at Team Orion

Jilles Groskamp confirmed at Team Orion

Team Orion have officially announced what we’ve known for a few months, that newly crowned European Champion and double ETS Series title winner Jilles Groskamp has joined the staff at Team Orion Asia. Now based in Thailand, Groskamp will support the research and development team of Team Orion and Team Orion Asia and will immediately begin using the ABI/CRF/Alpha engines from Team Orion in on-road 1/10 GP and 1/8 GP with Shepherd cars, a deal we announced a few weeks ago, and in 1/8 Buggy with Tamiya.

Source: Team Orion [teamorion.com]


September 30, 2009

Trofeo Città di Riccione report

Trofeo Città di Riccione report

Last weekend saw the Trofeo Città di Riccione take place at the Riccione track in Italy and was open to 1/10th scale as well as 1/8th 4wd and Classic chassis’. In the 1/10th scale 200mm class it was Giammaria Antonelli driving an Xray that took the win from Valerio Rossi in 2nd and Maicol Di Felice 3rd. The 1/8th scale 4wd class saw the win go to Massimiliano Bertozzi ahead of Shepherd team mate Massimiliano Mondini, while Dennis Pazzaglini took the final podium spot. The Classic race was won by Motonica driver Massimo Genestreti, in front of DXF driver Roberto Fabbri, while Hermes Campedelli took 3rd.

Click here to see the other podiums


September 30, 2009

Simon Kurzbuch wins final round in Switzerland

Simon Kurzbuch wins final round in Switzerland

The last round of the Swiss Championship took place last weekend in Langenthal in the north of Switzerland. On Friday the track was already very crowded and the organizer prepared the asphalt with 75 liter of CocaCola to improve the grip. Nearly all expert drivers attended this last event, among them also Shepherd driver Marco Müller, who secured himself the Swiss title already in the round before. During qualifying it was young Shepherd driver Simon Kurzbuch who took TQ honors. He already showed his talent during the World championship when he reached the 19th position after qualifying. Marco Müller claimed the 2nd place in the starting grid for the final.

Click here for the rest of the report


September 29, 2009

Oscar Cabezas takes Rd3 in Spain

Oscar Cabezas takes Rd3 in Spain

The 3rd round of the Spanish 1/8 nationals took place last weekend at Gijón in Northern Spain. The qualifying was clearly dominated by Motonica racer Oscar Cabezas, recently finishing 11th at the Worlds in Lostallo, who took the TQ in the 4 heats and set a new track record with a 15:280 lap. Starting just behind him would be Kyosho driver Víctor González in 2nd, Nacho López for Mugen in 3rd and Carlos Peracho driving the Shepherd in 4th. The final was dominated Cabezas who conserved his position until the end, finishing 3 laps ahead the second placed Nacho López and 4 laps ahead of Sergio Montesinos in 3rd. With the 4th round to be held in Alcobendas, Madrid at the end of October the Championship is still to be decided with the title to go done to the wire between Oscar Cabezas and Josué Artiles.

Click here to see the final results


September 28, 2009

Buerge & Hepp on top at NRW Challenge Rd2

Buerge & Hepp on top at NRW Challenge Rd2

Oberhausen, the heart of rc racing in Western Germany, held round two of the new NRW Challenge (NRW = German State North Rhine-Westphalia) under great conditions with blue sky and temperatures around 22 degrees Celsius on both days. Lots of spectators saw hot racing with 46 competitors and exciting fights but also partly over-motivated drivers and lots of flying cars. At the end Tobias Hepp and Sebastian Buerge did it again and – like at round one at Dueren – won the 45 minutes finals of the two nitro classes 1/8 scale and 1/10 scale (200mm).

Continue reading the report


September 27, 2009

Renaud Savoya wins Final round in France

Renaud Savoya wins Final round in France

The 5th and final round of the 2009 French National buggy Championships, which was run in Bezeril in the South of the country, is now in the bag. Current European Champion Renuad Savoya TQ’d the race, ahead of brothers Jerome Aigoin and Yannick Aigoin, but didn’t fair so well in the semi finals, eventually starting the main final in 9th, while Jerome Aigoin would start from pole position. The 1 hour final saw Savoya back on the pace and he brought his Mugen home in first, 5 seconds ahead of Losi racer Yannick Aigoin in 2nd, with Jerome Sartel taking his Xray to 3rd spot.

Image: Automodelisme [automodelisme.com]


September 27, 2009

Takaaki Shimo wins Japanese 1/8th Nationals

Takaaki Shimo wins Japanese 1/8th Nationals

The JMRCA Japanese 1/8th scale on road National Championships were held this weekend at the KeiTune Racing Speedway. Only 44 drivers took part in this race, but the field consisted of World Champions and World Finalists, so the competition in the race would be tough. Qualifying went the way of multiple Champion Takaaki Shimo driving for Kyosho, with Serpent team driver Yuya Sahashi in 2nd, Keisuke Fukuda in 3rd for Mugen and Satoshi Takayasu taking 4th with his Motonica. The final saw a very close battle up front with pole man Shimo holding off some close attention from Fukuda, to win by less than 4 tenths of a second, with Ken Kogawa taking the final podium spot in 3rd, a lap further back.

Source: JMRCA [jmrca.jp]