On the Grapevine – Traiskirchen
Last weekend I traveled to Austria where the Yokomo Euro Touring Series set down at the unique Traiskirchen track for the penultimate round of the world famous championship with a great air of anticipation & excitement as four of the best drivers in the business came to town with a chance of making the title fight go to next month’s season finale at the Hudy Arena in Slovakia. While the series has established itself as a must do event for the world’s best drivers and manufacturers, an incident packed Leg 2 of the A-Main highlighted just how important an ETS win has become to the drivers. The most fraught 5-minutes of racing in the series’ six seasons of existence, the outbreak of raw emotions that ensued following four key incidents, while not a great advert for our sport, showed the intensity at which these guys perform. While the faces of the involved drivers after Leg 2 sent out a clear message that myself & my white notebook would be best off leaving them alone, I think the tension clearly showed these are not just guys ‘playing with toy cars’ but competitive sportsmen who have a passion for what they are doing. Don’t get me wrong I would not like this to become a regular occurrence but like any sport when there is a bit of drama it does create some extra buzz. I am glad to report that come the prize giving the drivers were exchanging hand shakes and admitting that things said in the heat of the moment where just that. Ultimately Marc Rheinard took the win in Austria from Ronald Volker to set the stage for a thrilling show down to the 2012/13 ETS between the two great German rivals.
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On arrival at the track on Thursday one of my first calls of duty was to congratulate Marc Rheinard on his recent Reedy Race of Champions win. I have been giving the former 3-time World Champion a bit of a hard time about his lack of a title for the past few months and the fact that his team-mate Viktor Wilck, last year’s Reedy Race Champion, had a more impressive tally of current titles. Unfortunately this year’s event had a very low entry and Marc was quick to highlight this fact. Once a major event on the international calendar, the race came up in conversation a few times over the weekend with the general opinion being that the race be shelved or given a much needed revamp. The Reedy Offroad Race, which I had the great pleasure of attending earlier this year and where offroad legend Brian Kinwald gave me a real appreciation for what the late Mike Reedy did for our sport, is a world class event with an image to match. Brent Thielke must be complimented for this along with his attention to detail. Unfortunately Touring Car is the poor cousin when it comes to its version of the the unique heads up racing event. I can see from a financial stand point why this might be, as offroad is by far the bigger class in the US but with Touring Car very much alive and well in Europe thanks to the ETS surely a combined effort from interested parties could bring the race back to its former glory. One suggestion is that the race should come to Europe next year as this is were most of the top drivers are from. With the US hosting next year’s World Touring Car World Championships there are rumours that the race could be hosted at Full Throttle Speedway in Florida as all the top teams would likely attend to use the race as practice for the Worlds. While still a bonus race for many drivers, the fact that they would prefer to see it shelved rather than continue to fade shows the drivers hold the event in high regard. Interestingly Kyosho’s Christopher Krapp’s participation this year, him finishing up 4th, marked the two time World’s finalist first ever trip to the United States. The German said he really enjoyed the experience but traveling around with Marc (Rheinard), a known connoisseur of steaks, he said it was nice to get home and back to eating normal again!
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Over the weekend there was also much talk about the 1:10 Offroad Worlds with the Warm-up Race having been held the previous weekend with Yokomo team manager Robert Itoh coming directly from the event after they & the Durango team stayed on for a few extra days of testing. Team Durango’s Hupo Honigl, who doesn’t live too far from Traiskirchen, dropped by the ETS and talking to him about the Pre-Worlds his first comment was how intense the heat was at the California track. Overall the former multiple European Champion said he had expected a lot more in terms of the organisation of the Warm-up race but overall the trip was worthwhile. Three days of testing after the race allowed them to test various layouts of their prototype 2WD buggy and work on the buggy’s balance which Hupo said was a very interesting exercise. Talk doing the rounds over the weekend is that IFMAR have selected Masami Hirosaka as Race Referee for the Worlds. While nobody doubts the r/c legends ability to referee a race there seems to be concerns over the fact that the 7-times Offroad World Champion is an ambassador for Yokomo who are sure to be title contenders with his protege Naoto Matsukura.
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While Xray chief Juraj Hudy was mainly on hand to support his touring car drivers, Marek Cerny taking the win for them in series biggest class Pro Stock, the self confessed workaholic took advantage of the adjoining offroad track in Traiskirchen by having his Czech offroad ace Martin Bayer there for three days. With sales of their first electric buggy, the XB4, exceeding expectations the Slovak company are now pushing forward plans to release their 2WD buggy. Between heats Juraj could be seen heading over to the former European Championship track to work with Bayer, the purpose of the test being to evaluate the buggy in low traction conditions. Chatting to Juraj and complimenting him on the excellent presentation of his new FX engine company, he said finding time to oversee the growing number of projects was starting to be a challenge of it own.
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Continuing with offroad, Marc Rheinard informs me that he will race at the Neo Race after being approached by Joesph Quagrine with an ‘Arrive n Drive’ offer for the UK event. Rheinard, who has contested the race previously on its traditional and much colder Easter weekend date, said the August date should make for a much more enjoyable event and with JQ having his own line of engines all the German needs to do for the race is turn up. Tamiya Racing Factory team-mate Lee Martin, who races for Mugen in 1:8, is providing tyres for the German through Proline. In addition to racing the nitro buggy, Marc will also compete in 1:8 Electric Buggy, saying this is the one he expects to be more competitive in.
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With this a World Championship year for 1:8 Onroad, factory HB driver Andy Moore was telling me that he hopes to contest the Japanese hosted event in October. The 2006 electric touring car World Champion made his 200mm Nitro Worlds debut in Bangkok last November finishing an impressive 4th and the Brit is keen to give 1:8 a go. Two year’s ago team-mate Atsushi Hara made his first 1:8 Worlds appearance in Miami and driving a Mugen made a very strong showing in the very specialised class which for many is the F1 of R/C racing. While there have been no sightings yet of a 1:8 HB chassis, with rumours after the Warm-up race being that the Japanese company had scrapped the idea, they do have designer Miyashita who knows a thing or two about designing a 1:8 car from his days at Kyosho and his R10 200mm creation took the TQ honours in Bangkok in the hands of Teemu Leino with Hara taking it to a podium finish. I personally hope HB do build a car as having such a main stream manufacturer coming into 1:8 can only be a good thing for rc racing’s original class.
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Talking of things Japanese, Terutaka Hanaumi, Mr. Xenon, announced that he is to organise his own international race later this year in Bangkok at the still under construction track of former electric touring car World Champion Surikarn Chaidajsuriya. Teru who is actually Korean, he has a Korean passport, came in for some great slagging from the very entertaining Mr. Jang from Much More who said everything else about Teru is Japanese so therefore he really is Japanese!!! The banter made for a bit of fun over dinner and the debate is set to continue. Teru’s reason for putting on the race which is scheduled for the end of November, is to bring a bit of ETS atmosphere to Thailand and focus more on what the drivers get from the three day event. With a number of sponsors already in place and Scotty Ernst confirmed as race announcer Teru plans to officially announce the race in the coming weeks.
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Finally a little piece of trivia that came to light over the weekend is that the team behind back to back ETS Champion Ronald Volker holds a total of 5 world titles!! Team-manager Robert Itoh, Race Engineer Umino and Ronald himself are all former Tamiya Cup World Champions, the latter two having each won the title twice. On further discussion of the topic it turns out that the team’s other star driver Naoto Matsukura has also won the Tamiya Cup as have Hayato Matsuzaki, Serpent’s Marc Fischer and Kyosho’s Christopher Krapp. Interestingly the only driver that would go on to drive professionally for Tamiya, Marc Rheinard, was only ever a runner up in the event.
Have an opinion on the topics discussed? Leave them in the comments below.
Oisin O’Briain is Red RC’s Event Editor. Traveling the world reporting on some of the biggest races in the sport he regularly chats with top drivers and key industry figures and in his new column ‘On the Grapevine’ he will try to bring readers an insight into the latest talk that is doing the rounds in the paddock along with the odd bit of trivia information that comes to light.
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author.
