Dutch 1/10th Nitro On-road Championship – Report

The Mach Heemsteede played host for the opening round of the Dutch 1/10th Nitro On-road Championship with the weather forecast being everything but perfect for the first race of the season. Thankfully the 1/10th scale IC class is growing again as some very fast 1/10 Electric Touring Car racers made the move to nitro to get the excitement of a 30 minutes final. New for the 2015 season is a controlled tyre system, that was introduced to complement the stock Novarossi engine and low noise Hipex exhaust system rule. Light rain in the morning made that all heats were declared wet as the controlled Capricorn 37/40 shore tyres where not working yet. However the 3rd round of heats, run on a drying track, gave a surprise as electric racer John Bruins was on pole followed by a newcomer to the class, Jarno Holtman. On the 3 spot it was previous Dutch Champion Daan Jacobs, after having a sabbatical from RC cars and on 4th was another local electric racer in the form of Glenn Hogervorst.

Following the semifinals, that were partly influenced by light drizzle, the main final started on a dry track and with a clean takeoff for everybody. Daan Jacobs grabbed the early lead with a blistering pace followed by John Bruins, youngster Milan Holthuis and Jarno Holtman. Sadly enough Daan Jacobs had to retire with a broken steering servo and so the lead was taken by John Bruins. Glenn Hogervorst made his way through the field and was challenging John for the lead and half way into the race he took the 1st spot with Milan in 3rd. A fierce battle was going on for 4th place and in the end Raymond Tempelaars took the position followed by another electric entrant, Robert Krens and Jarno Holtman while up front Glenn took the win with a new track record of 107 laps in 30 minutes on the Mach track.

Final result:
1. Glenn Hogervorst
2. John Bruins
3. Milan Holthuis
4. Raymond Tempelaars
5. Robert Krens
6. Jarno Holtman
7. Dave de Ruiter
8. Daan Jacobs
9. Pedro Rombouts
10.Roy Bakker

The Kyosho Cup drivers also had their first race of the season. John Weytboer came out successful in the main from Mathieu van deer Hoeven and Hans Westerveld. Having no support anymore from the new Kyosho distributor they were empty handed on the podium after their final.

Thanks to Gaston van Kleef for the report.