Last weekend in Hyvinkää, Finland, the opening round of the Finnish 1/10th scale National Championships took place. Qualifying had seen Mugen driver Teemu Saarinen take the pole position for the 45 minute final, and he was able to carry that pace through into the finals, winning the race by a lap from Xray driver Pekka Kolvula in 2nd, with Tony Raikas running a Mugen, 3 laps further back in 3rd spot.
Source: Mugen [mid-mugen.eu]
Merlin Fuel have a report from their team driver Alexandar Hagberg, who last weekend took part in his first gas race in Växjö, southern Sweden at the opening round of the Swedish Nationals. Qualifying went well for the Xray driver as in the 3rd round out of 4 he could secure the overall TQ with a 2 second gap over the 2nd placed Kyosho driver Magnus Vässmar. In the finals Alex lead for the first 20 minutes until his engine flamed out, which gave Vässmar the lead ahead of Alexander. With 2 minutes to go Vässmar lost his 2nd gear and was running slowly around the track and this allowed Hagberg to take back the lead and with it the win, about half a lap down to 2nd placed Vässmar and another lap in front of 3rd placed Mugen driver Mikael Fransson.
Click here to see the final results
This past weekend saw the 2nd round of the Swiss 1/8th scale Championship take place in Aigle, in the French part of Switzerland, which is a nice track but very dangerous due to very little run off. On Saturday the weather wasnt so good and they only managed 2 rounds of qualifying before it started to rain. It was Motonica driver Shasa Lackner that claimed the pole position, setting a new lap record, in front of Juerg Nydegger and Luca Martinello both driving Mugen, with the final direct qualifying position going to Marco Mueller with his Shepherd.
This weekend saw the opening race of the 6 round Colorado State Pro Series. Team Losi driver Dustin Evans grabbed TQ in the final round of qualifying in Pro Buggy over team mate Matt Chambers. Dustin took advantage of the clear track ahead of him and went on to lead every lap of the 35 minute main event from Adrian Redding in 2nd, with Lars Johnson claiming 3rd. The Pro Truggy race had Losi Driver and TQ Lars Johnson swapping places with Team Associated driver Adrian Redding several times for the first 20 minutes, before Lars ended up getting the top spot and brought it home in first. Race 2 of the series travels to RAT Raceway in Denver, Colorado on May 30th.
Click here for the final standings
Serpent designer Michael Salven took a late TQ with 25 laps in the fourth heat at round five of the 2008/2009 Western German Championship at Hamm but the lucky end of the day was in the hands of Steven Cuypers. While Salven ran out of fuel with his Mega powered Serpent 966, Cuypers pushed his Sirio powered Mugen to a clean victory. In the 30 minutes final Cuypers did 143 laps, two more than Tobias Hepp and three more than Karl-Heinz Meister, both with a Serpent-Mega combination.
It seems that Moto GP World Champion Valentino Rossi has gotten the RC car bug and was once again spotted at the Riccione track in Italy yesterday, following 2 previous reports last month. Fresh from his win in Jerez at the Spanish Grand Prix, the ‘Doctor’ got his hands on his Max powered Serpent 966, with help from none other than 2 former European Champions Massimo ‘Max’ Fantini and Fabio Domanin as well as Vice World Champion Andrea Cristiani. Stefano Armagni, Denis Pazzaglini and Pasquale, the regular pit man of Fantini, were all on hand to ensure that the car was working well. Perhaps we may see Valentino at some up coming races, if his schedule allows it.
Click here for some more photos
The 3rd round of the French 1/8th scale National Championship took place in Evry at the MRTE track near Paris. Nice weather greeted the 62 drivers in attendance and following qualifying it was winner of the first 2 rounds, Adrien Bertin who tool pole in the Elite class ahead of Stéphane Bouche in 2nd, while in the National class Gérald Colinet was the man to beat in front of Jérémy Becht. In the 45 minute Elite final the front pair took off ahead of the rest of the field, but a mistake in the chicane by Bouche saw him crash shifting the engine and in doing so damaging the gears, he would rejoin but way down the order. Meanwhile Adrien stormed ahead at the front to take his 3rd win in a row, 2 laps ahead of Romain Picard in 2nd and Stéphane Riccobono in 3rd. In the National class Damien Thirion got through to the front and was never challenged, winning by a lap from Serpent team mate Gérald Colinet in 2nd, with Jèrome Berthelot taking 3rd, 2 laps back.
Click here to see the final results
The organisers of the this years Swedish 1/10th scale EFRA GP that takes place in Göteborg, have contacted us to help announce the event. The race will take place on the 3rd to 5th of July this year and will be held on the Väst-8 track, hosts of next years European Championship for the same class. Run of course to EFRA rules, the event is open to a maximum of 120 drivers and you can register, as well as find more information about the race, on the official event site here.
