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December 11, 2025

’25 1:8 Onroad World Championship Chassis Focus Index

Another season of IFMAR World Championships wrapped up in Chile last weekend with 1:8 Onroad the fourth & final race of 2025. While IFMAR’s original World Championship would attract a small entry, that didn’t take away from the racing at the front with qualifying ending with cars from four different manufacturers making up the new for 2025 Direct to Final Top 4 qualifiers. For the 1-hour final that number would grow to 5 as Shepherd’s Tim Wood won the Last Chance Qualifier to represent the now British owned brand as the 11th car on the grid. Statistics compiled by IFMAR, this the 24th running of the title race, would show Mugen Seiki as the most popular chassis ahead of Capricorn and Shepherd who tied for second. Racing around the very large CACH, the most common source of power came from Ielasi Tuned followed by Max Power, who thanks to Shoki Takahata make it back to back engine World titles. In terms of radios used, Sanwa was the choice of over 50% of the drivers. With 2 X Mugen Seiki, 2 X Capricorn, 2 X Shepherds, and one Serpent and Xray each, we managed to get our hands on 8 cars from the five manufacturers represented in the final.

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December 11, 2025

EssexCarpetClash Round 3 – Report

The recent third round of the EssexCarpetClash would be perfect for Schumacher’s Ben Smith as he took the win in both 2WD and 4WD. With many drivers excited for the next round of Essex Carpet Clash, drivers entered to a track initially looking simple and flowing to race on. After a round of heated practice it turned out that this was a very demanding track to get right and needed a lot of concentration to get the perfect lap. 4WD would see Smith entering this round and dominating each qualifying run at the top of the timing sheets. Steve Biscoe would have great results with his x-ray car and would line up second on the grid for the three leg finals. Also having consistent runs in the final were Ellis Stafford Steve Brown a head of Alfie castle and Ben Elliott. The finals was more of a fight for who would be on the podium. Ben Smith won each leg showing how fast he truly is on a tyre combination and surface he’s not raised on before. Steve Biscoe again would be second best for the day in all finals and finished second on the podium a head of Ellis Stafford managing third.

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December 10, 2025

U.S. Carpet Offroad Champs wins for Horne & Lemeiux

Team Associated’s Aydin Horne and Xray’s Chase Lemieux where the Modified winners at the annual U.S. Carpet Offroad Championships held in Cleveland over the weekend. The Scotty Ernst promoted event runs a week after the same venue host famous U.S. Indoor Champs touring car race which in its 45th edition is the world’s longest running RC race. With the Offroad race attracting almost 500 entries in 2WD it was Horne taking all three qualifier who secured the TQ ahead of a trio of World Champions, Ryan Cavalieri, Spencer Rivkin and Tater Sontag. He would continue that form into the finals winning the opening 2 to secure the win ahead of Cavalieri. For the final podium position Sontag got a head of Rivkin who had a bad A2. In 4WD it was defending champion Lemieux who took the TQ ahead of team-mate Dakotah Phend, three different drivers posting TQ runs. Last year’s 2WD winner Brennan Schimmel made it an all Xray Top 3 on the grod ahead of Nate Sutherland who was fastest in Q3. In the triple Mains Lemieux retained his title with wins in the opening two while Phend took A3 to finish 2nd ahead of Sutherland who got third after a tie break with Horne.

Image: JConcepts [Facebook]

December 9, 2025

Volker wins EWS International 2025

Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker has won this year’s EWS International presented by Schumacher, the German taking the win ahead of Xray’s Alexander Hagberg and Schumacher’s Elliott Harper. Establishing itself as Britain’s top annual international touring car race, with last year’s winner Michal Orlowski not making the trip to Essex due to 1:12 racing commitments in China, it was multiple EWS International winner Volker who led for the weekend. Attracting a field of 40 Modified entries, Volker topped all four rounds of qualifying to secure the overall TQ with Hagberg lining up second, followed by Harper, Kyle Branson, Sören Sparbier, Christopher Krapp, and Lucas Urbain. He would convert his pole position in to wins in A1 & 2 for the overall victory, while the A3 win gave Hagberg the runner-up spot as Harper completed the podium. In Stock it was the Awesomatix of EWS Series Champion Zak Finlay who also dominated proceedings to take the TQ and win ahead of Denmark’s Jesper Rasmussen and Finley Whitelock. In FWD Xray’s Stefan Schulz took the win.

Image: Alexander Hagberg [Facebook]

December 8, 2025

Orlowski adds Asia title to 1:12 CV

Reigning World Champion and a 2-time European Champion, Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski has added the Asia Championship title to his CV after winning what is Asia top prize in racing and was formerly known as the FEMCA Championships. Racing at 2o26 World Championship venue Hongyu GDC, in Foshan, China, Orlowski dominated proceedings on the enclosed carpet track. A race that attracted 52 entries, the Polish driver topped four of the 5 qualifiers to secure the TQ ahead of the CRC of Japan’s Yugo Nagashima, who took Q4, with Xray’s Jan Ratheisky completing the Top 3. In the finals the order for the podium would stay as they started with Orlowski winning all three Mains. Second in A1 & 2 ahead of Shota Watanabe, Nagashima claimed second while a P2 in A3 was enough to give Ratheisky the third step on the podium on tie break with Watanabe. In 1:12 Spec, Xray’s Adam Izsay produced a clean sweep with the TQ and win ahead of Takashi Kato and Antonia Hung. This coming weekend the impressive Hongyu GDC track will host the Touring Car Asia Championships and Red RC are travelling straight from the IFMAR 1:8 Onroad Worlds in Chile to cover the action.

Image: Hongyu GDC

December 7, 2025

1:10 Offroad WC to return to Hudy Arena in 2027

IFMAR has announced that the 1:10 Electric Offroad World Championships is set to return to the Hudy Arena in 2027. The indoor dirt track, which is part of the Hudy & Xray factory in Slovakia, previously hosted the same World Championships when it was the EFRA Bloc’s last turn to host the race in 2019. With FAMAR originally awarded the 2027 Worlds, it was announced just after the recent Worlds in Australia that the South American Bloc had declined its turn to host the championships. IFMAR then opened up the hosting of the race to the other Bloc s inviting them each to put forward a single potential host venue with FEMCA putting forward the new Hongyu GDC track in China, which hosts the 2026 1:12 and ISTC Worlds, ROAR selecting Hoosier RC Hobbyplex in Indiana, USA, and EFRA the Hudy Arena. After their very impressive hosting of the 2025 Worlds, the Hills Off Road RC club was also included as a potential return host. Considering all four options, the world governing body selected the Hudy Arena, which this year hosted the 1:10 Offroad European Championships. In 2019 it was Spencer Rivkin in 2WD and Bruno Coelho in 4WD who where crowned World Champions in Trencin. In making the announcement IFMAR posted, ‘Attention Racers! Important announcement regarding the 2027 IFMAR Electric Off-Road Buggy World Championships. As previously announced, no venue in the FAMAR BLOC was available to host the event. The IFMAR Board of Directors put to the remaining BLOCs to put forward options to host the event and we received 4 valid options to consider. EFRA, ROAR and FEMCA all providing venue options as well as a 4th option to return to Hills Off Road RC. We thank each BLOC for working swiftly with the BOD and their member countries to put forward strong options for consideration. The BOD discussed, debated and ultimately voted on the options and are pleased to announce we have selected EFRA and the Hudy Racing Arena (Trencin, Slovakia) to host the 2027 Championships. We are confident this will be a strongly supported and highly successful event at what is a truly world class facility.

Source: IFMAR [ifmar.org]

December 7, 2025

Takahata becomes 2-time World Champion in Chile

It’s a very elusive club and up to now it has been exclusive to Italians, but today in Chile Mugen Seiki’s Shoki Takahata became a multiple 1:8 Onroad World Champion with a perfectly executed 1-hour main. Starting from fourth on the grid, once the 2019 World Champion worked his way to the front he would take control of the race eventually winning by over a lap from Simon Kurzbuch to give the new MRX7 a 1-2 finish. Takahata’s win would be made all the easier after issues for Top Qualifier Andrea Catanzani, who needed to make a body change in the race, and star of this week’s action Maxime Ripoll, the French teenager robbed of a second place finish as reward for his impressive efforts when his engine came to halt with 6-minutes remaining. While Kurzbuch benefited from this, with a fast charging Catanzani recovering ground, there would be a late & intense battle for the runner-up spot that also involved Capricorn’s Toni Gruber, the trio all running together on track. As the race approached the final minute, Catanzani having just got passed Gruber would then attempt a pass on Kurzbuch but contact was made resulting in his Serpent having a spin as the other two continued. The super fast Italian, who was the only driver to run a 17-second lap in the Main, would however get back up to Gruber and snatch the final podium position on the last corner of the last lap.

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December 6, 2025

Kurzbuch cruises back into contention in Chile with Semi win

Having missed out on a Top 4 direct to final qualifying position as he ended P5 at the end of the 6-rounds, Mugen Seiki’s Simon Kurzbuch has put himself back in contention for a second IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championship title by cruising to victory in his Semi final this morning in Chile. Winner of the World title in Brazil in 2015, a decade on the Swiss racer returned to South America as one of the pre-race favourites but on arriving at the CACH track in Santiago he struggled to find his true form. Leading away the second of the half hour Semis, Kurzbuch drove a calculated race with his crew executing a swift tyre change en-route to him winning by over a lap from the similar car of Britian’s Alex Thurston who together with third placed finisher Christope Louis progresses to their first World Championship final. The 24th running of IFMAR’s original World Championship, the first of the Semi Finals woulds see 15-year-old German driver Leon Fuhrmann head a Capricorn 1-2 from team-mate Thilo Diekmann, the separation 4.7-seconds at the finish. In third, a driver who needed the Last Chance Qualifier race to make Main here at the 1:8 GT Worlds back in September, Brazil’s Flavio Elias booked himself another 1:8 Onroad Worlds final appearance after recovering from a plug change during one of his pit stops to overtake leading Shepherd driver Tim Wood for the bump up position. Wood however would take the win in a very close finish to the 15-minute LCQ, 2/10ths of a second ahead of a Ricardo Hofmeijer, to become the 11th car on the grid and make it five different manufacturers in the final.

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