Last weekend we saw the 4th Round of the Catalunya Regional Championships held at the Alcarrás Track in Lleida. In what is becoming a habit, it was Team Associated driver Robert Batlle who took the win, to claim his 4th from 4, ahead of HongNor/Merlin racer Patxi Peñas in 2nd, and Associated/Merlin driver Alex Calatayud in 3rd, a lap back on the lead pair.
Source: Merlin [merlinfuel.com]
The latest round of the Southern German regionals took place last weekend in Anberg under warm and dry conditions. Qualifying went the way of Robert Pietsch who took TQ ahead of Christoph Pietsch, Mirco Thalheimer and Michael Heinrich. Moving up from the semi final was Serpent IDM driver Sabrina Lechner, who following the immediate start of the race had moved up to 3rd and after another few corners had got up to 2nd spot and was challenging race leader Christoph Pietsch. For the next 15 minutes the two drivers swapped places several times until Sabrina was able to open a small gap. Christoph got hit in the rear twice and had to give up 2nd place to Thomas Günsel, which gave Lechner some air to breath and bring home the win.
Click here to see the winning team
Last weekend at the Riccione track in Italy, there was the Sprint Trophy race, open to 1/8th, 1/10th scale and Classic chassis’. In the 1/8th scale 4wd class it was Vice World Champion Andrea Cristiani, driving the Serpent 966, that took the win from Alberto Tedeschi in 2nd and Alessandro Merloni in 3rd. The 200mm class was won by Michele Romagnoli driving the Xray NT1 ahead of Alex Rinati in 2nd and Giammaria Antonelli in 3rd, while the Classic class saw the win go to Alessio Rinaldi from Roberto Fabbri and Daniele Campanelli.
Source: Road Race Riccione [roadracericcione.it]
The second round of the BRCA 1/8th national took place yesterday at the Halifax track. The weather forcast was for rain showers all weekend so the track became very busy when dry patches formed between the showers. On Saturday, it was Mark Green setting the pace followed by Neil Diver, Pete Hastings and Richard Hicklin, while on Sunday it was bright and the track was almost dry for heat practice. Rain then started to fall but soon stopped and for the final heat, it was 90% dry. Mark Green in this heat set TQ and in doing so, the cars behind him put in good banker times for if the rain came again. In Round 2, it was fully dry and a good time would secure a main final position. All the top drivers improved to into the 20 lap bracket, apart from Tim Wood, who ran out of fuel, but was on for a good 20 lap result. Up front however, Mark Green continued his recent dominance at the Dutch GP by setting TQ and a new lap record of 21 laps in 310 seconds. This result being a clear 3/4 of a lap clear of Richard Hicklin. Round 3, and Mark Green did not improve on his previous time, but heat 4 saw improvements to bump Adam Catchpole, Andy Hastings, and Dan Bancroft into the top 10. Round 4 was a washout, since a big rain shower returned.
Team Orion team driver has a report on the 2nd Annual Tri State Off Road Championship was held last weekend at Hal’s Hobbies in El Paso. ‘There was a practice race on Friday night, the day before qualifying. During practice my car was not great, but I talked with my Dad on the phone, and we got it working nice on the very rough track. The track was super rough and dry and the key to winning was to be consistent. We changed the camber links a little and added negative camber for stability. I won the practice race Friday and felt confident going into Saturday. For qualifying Saturday, I TQ’d the first round by 2 seconds over Billy Fischer. In the second round, the nut on a rear outer hinge pin fell off (same thing that happened at Silver State) and ended the heat for me. In round 3, I TQ’d again, this time by 4 seconds over Casey Peck. This would make me TQ in the buggy class.’
Our friends in Italy sent us the announcement for a race that they are running in June, on the 6th – 7th, in aid of the victims of the recent Abruzzo earthquake. The race takes place in Gubbio and is open to both 1/8th scale and 1/10th scale gas classes and all proceeds from the event will go to the Italian Red Cross. Its for a good cause, so if you wish to test on the host track of this year’s European Championships for 1/10th 200mm and you missed out on last weekend’s GP then you may as well go and support a good cause while you are at it. You can enter the race by going to the track site here, with more info (in Italian) here.
Last weekend saw the Warm up race for the European 1/10th scale 200mm European Championship held at the ‘Mario Rosati’ track in Gubbio, Italy. Qualifying saw the pole position go to Mugen/Sirio driver Francesco Tironi, 4 seconds clear of of Mugen/SM driver Guiseppe D’angelo in 2nd, using a new prototype SM engine, while Robert Pietsch and Dino Giacalone rounded out the top 4. In the final Tironi had problems at the 5 minute mark, dropping him down the order and this allowed D’angelo to take the lead, a position he held until the end of the race. Guiseppe won by over 2 laps from Dino Giacalone in 2nd, who had inherited the place from Pietsch who retired at the 15 minute mark, while Xray driver Niki Duina claimed the final podium placing in 3rd.
Click here to see the final positions
The warm up for this year’s European buggy Championships took place last weekend in Oberwolbing in Austria under hot and dry conditions. The track presented to the drivers, which included some US drivers over for the race, was super fast with 2 straights and a tarmac banking, which constantly challenged the drivers. The A-main was super fast with current European Champion Renaud Savoya, Adam Drake and Yannick Aigoin fighting for the lead. Savoya and Aigoin were a little bit faster and fought for the whole race, but Yannick was able to make one less stop which gave the Losi driver the safety margin he needed to keep in front until the end of the race. Renaud Savoya took 2nd for Mugen ahead of British driver Neil Cragg in 3rd for Associated.
Source: Racing Experience [racing-experience.fr]
