April 25, 2009

Mark Green TQ’s Dutch EFRA GP

Mark Green TQ's Dutch EFRA GP

This weekend sees the Dutch 1/8th scale EFRA GP take place at the World famous MACH circuit in Heemstede, close to Amsterdam. Following 2 days of practice on the Thursday and Friday of the event, competitors took to the track on Saturday for qualifying to decide the starting grid for Sunday’s finals. With drivers from Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and England taking part it was multiple World Championship finalist Mark Green that took the top qualifying spot leading home a Serpent top 4 block out on their home track. In 2nd place was Serpent 966 designer Michael Salven, 2 seconds behind, with Jordy Blok and Jilles Groskamp, who is on a one race deal with the Dutch company, in 3rd and 4th. First of the non direct qualifiers was Motonica racer Robin D’hondt, just ahead of Mugen front man Rick V, with positions 3 to 6 covered by less than a second after 7 minutes. The finals will be run tomorrow and we will bring a full report from the days activities tomorrow evening.

Image: Serpent [serpent.com]


April 25, 2009

The Drake wins RCX Truggy

The Drake wins RCX Truggy

The Drake was in touch to tell us about his success at last weekend’s RCX show put on by U.S. magazine RCCA. Presented by ‘The Dirt’, a small but challenging track was built to allow some of the best off road racers put on a show for the crowds at the show and in the truggy class it was Adam Drake, driving his Novarossi powered Losi 8ight T 2.0, that took home the win and with it the $500 cash prize.


April 23, 2009

Florida State Series round 5

Florida State Series round 5

The FSORS season has now crossed the halfway mark and rolled into 555 Raceway this past weekend. Even with several other events going on in central Florida, the race nearly 140 entries. This track is known for brutal conditions, and often blows out badly when a larger event comes to town. The track crew did an excellent job of keeping the surface together with only minor issues throughout the weekend. The Florida sun and strong entry count helped to lay down a great groove and soon racers were switching to harder compound tires.

Continue reading the report


April 22, 2009

Marco Müller wins Swiss 1/8th Nats Rd1

Marco Müller wins Swiss 1/8th Nats Rd1

Shepherd are reporting from the first race of the 2009 Swiss Nationals that took place in Schaffhausen last weekend. It was Marco Müller’s debut race as a Team Shepherd driver and he dominated the event with his brand new Velox 09. Breaking the existing track record by a sensational 0.2 sec he secured himself the pole position after qualifying. The final proved the great performance of the car, with Marco leading the race from the beginning to end winning from Jürg Nydegger in 2nd and Christophe Pethoud in 3rd. For young Shepherd talent Simon Kurzbuch it was a succesfull weekend, too. He placed 3rd after qualifying and was therefore qualified directly for the final. Unfortunately, he experienced technical difficulties at the beginning of the final and fell back to the last position managing to work back up to 8th position and claim the first place in the junior ranking.

Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]


April 21, 2009

Dutch 1/10th 200mm Nats Rd1

Dutch 1/10th 200mm Nats Rd1

The opening round of the 1/10th scale 200mm Dutch Nationals was held last weekend at the AMCA track in Apeldoorn. Qualifying for the NK class saw Daan Jacobs take the TQ spot in front of Sander Borghoff in 2nd, Jurgen Geerligs in 3rd and Maarten van Lierop taking the final direct final spot in 4th. In the Nomac class, qualifying went the way of Davy Geraets, who would start ahead of Marc Meijer, while in the 1/8th Promo series Danny Essenstam took a clear pole position in front of Jarno Eikendal. In the NK final, the race had to be canceled just before mid point following an altercation on the driver stand between 2 racers that saw a transmitter ending up being dropped. Daan Jacobs was leading at the time from Van Lierop in 2nd and Geerligs in 3rd. In the Nomac class final (above) Marc Meijer ran out the clear winner by 2 laps ahead of Theun Zoethout in 2nd and Michael Behnert 3rd. The most popular class on the day was the 1/8th Promo series, which attracted 24 drivers, and this was won by pole man Danny Essenstam who ended the race a lap clear of Wesley van Silfhout in 2nd and Matthieu Hesterman in 3rd, a lap further back.

Click here to see the Promo series podium


April 21, 2009

Tobias Hepp wins German West 1/8th Rd4

Tobias Hepp wins German West 1/8th Rd4

Serpent supported youngster Tobis Hepp has won the fourth round of the 2008/2009 Western German Championship in class 1 of 1/8 scale which was held at Bad Breisig in the south of the former capital Bonn. It was a victory in style with a five lap advantage in the 30 minutes finale race over Frank Schewiola, the winner of round three, and Ralf Vahrenkamp. So the podium was completely in the hand of Serpent, Mega engines and Xceed tyres.

Continue reading the report


April 21, 2009

Kyle Branson takes BRCA 200mm Nats Rd2

Kyle Branson takes BRCA 200mm Nats Rd2

Round 2 of the BRCA 1/10th scale 200mm Nationals were held at the weekend in Mendip, and run to EFRA style with bump-ups and a 45 minute final. Saturday was damp in the morning due to rain on Friday night and the track wasn’t really that good until 3pm and still wasn’t too good then. On Sunday the weather was really good and in qualifying it was round 1 winner Kyle Branson that took the TQ spot by continuously improving his time, following a bad run in the first qualifying round, to line up ahead of Serpent team mate Simon Wood. In the final Kyle got off to a good start, staying in first place, and managed to stay there for the rest of the race to take the win ahead of 2nd placed Johnathan Dobney and Kevin Taylor in 3rd.

Click here for a photo of the winning car


April 20, 2009

Ryan Maifield is RCX Buggy Champion

Ryan Maifield is RCX Buggy Champion

Presented by “The Dirt” at Radio Control Car Action’s RCX trade show, Ryan Maifield battled it out with some of the country’s top racers to claim the 2009 RCX Buggy Title. With only a short three minute main event, Ryan had to use a balance of patience and speed to claim the title over Cody King. With crazy huge jumps and limited turn marshals a premium was placed on navigating the course without mistakes and with his Reedy powered RC8 Maifield made good decisions to take the victory. This is the third year in a row that the RC8 has won the RCX Buggy event with Ryan Cavalieri taking the victory in 2007 & 2008 and now Maifield in 2009.

Source: Associated [rc10.com]