Juho Levanen came very close to ending Ronald Volker’s domination of the Asian Touring Series pilot race at the Yatabe Arena in Japan with the Team Associated driver finishing just 15/100th behind the Team Yokomo driver. Japanese talent Akio Sobue put in a very competitive race making it three different cars in the top 3 as he secured third with his Tamiya TRF417.
View the complete event coverage here.
Ronald Volker is the Top Qualifier for the inaugural Asian Touring Series event after the German dominated today’s four rounds of qualifying at the World famous Yatabe Arena in Japan. With two of the five rounds to count, the Team Yokomo leader put pole position beyond the reach of his closest rivals Juho Levanen and Alexander Hagberg with his fourth straight TQ run and the focus for tomorrow morning’s final qualifier will now be on who will line-up second on the grid behind the ETS Champion.
View the complete event coverage here.
Current Euro Touring Series Champion Ronald Volker has taken the opening round of qualifying for the Asian Touring Series pilot race, the factory Yokomo driver running 19 laps in 5:11.104 to top practice pace setter Juho Levanen by 3 seconds. The German ace described the run as ‘clean’ and said while his LRP powered BD5 WXi was good there was room for some small improvement which he feels if made would allow him to push that little bit harder.
View the complete event coverage here.
Current Japanese Touring Car Champion Naoto Matsukura is the early pace setter at the Asian Touring Series pilot race that is being held this weekend at the world famous Yatabe Arena as part of the grand opening of the recently extended facility that features no less than four indoor tracks. Organised by the same crew that are behind the hugely successful Euro Touring series which kicked off its fifth season two weeks ago in Germany with a record entry, the first ATS event has attracted drivers from 14 countries including a number of Europe’s top drivers and official factory entries from Xray, Yokomo, Kyosho and Awesomatix.
View the complete event coverage here.
Alpha Engines have announced that top Spanish off road driver Borja Hernandez has joined their team. The former World Finalist and 2 time European Championship podium finisher will move to Alpha for the 2012 season to play a big role inside Alpha official driver’s team. Borja had the following the say about the deal:
I decided to join Alpha because the top quality, innovation and reliability of the products, able to give me all the confidence to win the races I will attend. It’s a proud to me to be an official driver of Alpha Engines and take part in racing and development of the products.
Source: Alpha [alpha-rc.com]
To compliment THE Engine, JQ Products have released their line of suitable glow plugs, called THE Plug. Made in Japan, these JQ3 turbo plugs are available now, supplied individually in blister packaging.
Source: JQ [jq-products.com]
The organisers of next weekend’s Asian Touring Series Pilot race at the Yatabe Arena have confirmed more top level entries for this exciting race with the news that former European finalists Lucas Urbain will attend the event. The factory Yokomo racer from France is just one of a number of new European drivers confirmed with Toni Rheinard, Michal Bok, Radek Flek, Ivan Laptev and Sandro Kuriger all going to compete. From Asia there is of course also a lot of interest with multiple World and Japanese National Champion Naoto Matsukura racing alongside former National Champions Daisuke Yoshioka, Takehiro Yamauchi & Shin Adachi as well as Korean National Champions Lee Jung Duk & Eung Chan Kim confirmed to compete. The event which will be run from the 18th to the 20th of November will be open to Modified and Pro Stock, running hand out 17.5T Speedpassion motors, as well as a large number of support classes including an offroad race at the Arena’s indoor dirt track. For further information on this event, visit the official ATS site here.
The JMRCA Japanese electric buggy nationals took place this weekend at the newly renovated Yatabe Arena, host to next weekend’s ATS race. With the race being on home soil for Yokomo, it was their factory driver and two time World 1/12th Champion who begun his title defense by taking the top qualifying spot in both 2wd and 4wd with the B-Max2 and B-Max4 respectively. In the 2wd class it was Kohta Akimoto (Kyosho) and Satoshi Maezumi (Tamiya) that completed the top 3, while in 4wd class it was Shin Adachi (Kyosho) and Keisuke Enomoto (Yokomo). In the 2wd finals, Naoto was unchallenged as he wrapped up his 4th consecutive title in this class winning all 3 legs ahead of Akimoto in 2nd and Maezumi in 3rd. It was the same result in 4wd as Naoto dominated all three legs to take victory in front of Adachi in 2nd and Enomoto in 3rd, giving Naoto his 5th consecutive 4wd National title.
