The new Reedy VR.21 Pro engine has taken the win in the hands of Craig Drescher at the latest round of the Slough Winter series. The as yet unreleased motor from the US manufacturer, powered Craig’s RC8 to 2nd on the grid following qualifying and after taking an early lead in the race he managed the gap to 2nd and was able to take the win by 6 seconds. Expect more information on this new engine soon.
Source: CML [cmldistribution.co.uk]
X-Factory have been busy around the new year, not only has their X-60 truck conversion now gone on sale but they are finishing up the design of the X-6 squared. We have no information on the updated version of BRCA 2wd National Championship winning chassis other than the teaser picture above, but if its anything like the X-5 squared, it will have received a number of improvements throughout. More details as we get them.
Source: X-Factory [xfactoryrc.com]
Puerto Rico recently hosted their own “big race” style event and the organizers made sure that the attendees added to that feel, with 8 pros being flown in, Jimmy Babcock running the show and nearly 250 attendees in both classes. The very large track had little maintenance performed on it during the course of the weekend and this contributed to the rough, dusty, and dry conditions with the jumps being a huge source of difficulty. Ryan Maifield continued his winning ways from the JConcepts Clash onto international soil where he was able to TQ 1/8th buggy over the likes of Adam Drake and Jesse Robbers. Maifield took control of the main early and cruised to a victory some 30 seconds clear of the Drake in 2nd place. In 1/8th truck Adam TQ’d and had the lead in the main until about 3 minutes to go when he got caught up with a lapped car. This allowed Maifield to take over first and with 1 lap to go Ryan got bit by a lapper. Even though he pushed hard, the Drake had too much of a lead to overcome in 1 lap and held of Maifield by half a second.
Click more to see a video from the event… content
RC Pro and RCSignup have just introduced a nice initiative called the National Championship Club Series (NCCS). There have been a large number of tracks closing because of less club racing, so this series has been designed to bring more interest to local club racing but will also interest those racers who only race locally and who can’t or don’t travel. Any track in the U.S.A. can signup as long as they run the Slash spec class and have electronic scoring. Tracks can schedule 6 club events throughout the year that will score National Points at no cost to the tracks. Any racer can enter and score points at any track in the series and each racers best 4 results will count. The NCCS website is designed so tracks can enter their race results and the site will automatically calculate the points and display the standings for each track plus the national standings. There will be year end awards for the top 20 Nationally.
For more information visit the site here.
Team Durango have officially announced that long-term team driver Jörn Neumann will not be part of the team from January 1st 2009 onward. Having won multiple national titles as well as a European title, together with some of the most important invitational races in both electric and nitro classes, Jörn was an integral part of Team Durango for the last couple of years. Team Durango wishes Jörn all the best and thanks him for the successful years of racing as a team. In a separate statement from Jörn he had the following to say:
I want to say thank you to Team Durango for the last couple of years. And a very big thank you to Gerd Strenge for his support. But sometimes changes happen and I search for new tasks.
As reported earlier, the place in the team will be filled by Martin Achter.
GS Racing have announced that former Hobao driver Borja Hernandez has joined their international team for 2009. Having recently joined RB to use their power plants, the Spanish driver is the first new signing to a stronger GS team and will work closely on development of their products. Borja had the following the say about the deal:
I decided to join GS because the top quality, innovation and fiability of the products, able to give me all the confidence to winn the races I will attend. It’s a proud to me to be an official driver of GS Racing and can take part in the developments of the products, mainly the new Pro Buggy 1/8.
Source: GS Racing [gsracing.com.tw]
Team Durango have announce Martin Achter as a new team member for 2009. Martin will run both the electric and nitro range of off-road buggies as well as the secret nitro truggy project that is in the making. 19 years old Martin brings in the vast experience of nearly 10 years of racing and beside the Team Durango drive Martin is backed up with a sponsorship Power-Save-Racing which products he will proudly support throughout the 2009 season. Martin had the following to say:
I am very proud to become a member of such a successful team like Team Durango and I am looking forward to race the new DNX408 and DEX410 buggies in the upcoming season. I’d like to take the opportunity and would like to thank my former team for the past two and very successful years.
Source: Team Durango
Having recently confirmed his move from Kyosho to Mugen for 2009, current German 1/8th scale buggy and truggy National Champion Tim Bremicker has officially joined the international RB Team. Tim raced with RB last season for the RMV Team and his move to the factory team carries forward this successful combination into the new season.
Source: RB [rbproducts.com]
