As the headline and story image state, Fastrace have announced that front running Spaniard Juan Carlos Canas has joined their team. The 5th placed finisher at this year’s European Championship, in his home country Spain, he will use the full line up of aftermarket option parts from the Italian company for 2017 and beyond.
Source: Fastrace [fastraceshop.com]
ARC have announced the signing of top Italian racer Andrea Pirani to their team. The former long time WRC driver and ENS font runner will race the Taiwanese company’s R8.0 and joins a team that includes European Championship runner up Toni Gruber, Lars Hoppe, John Ermen and Cristiano Sartor. Expect to see the quick Italian during the entire ENS & Italian National series as well as next year’s World Championships in France.
Source: ARC [arc-rc.com.tw]
Following yesterday’s announcement regarding Lee Martin leaving Mugen, Team Infinity have today confirmed that the British driver will be joining their International team. A World class off road driver, a former multiple European champion and multi time Worlds finalist who has been competing at the highest level for many years, he joins the Infinity team, which up until this point has focused on onroad, to help work on the company’s upcoming 1/8th offroad project. Lee had the following to say about the deal:
It’s a pleasure to be joining the Creation Model / Infinity team. The team infrastructure and their desire to succeed at the highest possible standard not only excites me but inspires me. Assisting in the development stage of the new 1/8th off road range is an opportunity that I could not miss, having the chance to work with Miura San to produce the most competitive vehicles we can with no compromises. Thank you to Kenji San for the chance to be apart of something special. Work starts now!
Source: Creation Model [creationmodel.net]
Lee Martin has announced his departure from Mugen Seiki, the British driver ending a 5 year relationship that saw him take the company’s first UK Championship along with other highlights such as Worlds finalist, Italian Job winner and multiple other final appearances at Neo and EFRA races. Lee had this to say:
The end of an era has come for me, after 5 years of driving with Mugen Seiki it is time for a change. I would publicly like to thank everyone at Mugen for the support and trust over the years working together, especially Stefan Habbecke at MSE, Sanada san, Kris Moore at MSR and John Yves Ferte for getting me on board in 2012. We had some fantastic times together and I appreciated every second of it.
Just a year on from signing with Kyosho Europe, Jack Embling has announced he will not continue with the Japanese manufacturer with it believed the British driver will team up for 2017 with one of the key American brands. The former protege of offroad ace Lee Martin, Embling enjoyed a successful domestic campaign with Kyosho being crowned the 2016 Truggy Champion as well as finishing 3rd overall in E-Buggy and 4th in the Nitro championship behind Darren Bloomfield, Elliot Boots and Lee Martin. Commenting on his Kyosho departure Jack said:
I would like to announce that I will not be continuing with Kyosho for the 2017 season. I would like to thank Mick, Mitsuo, Christophe and everyone at Kyosho for giving me the opportunity to race with them this year, and the rest of the team. I had always wanted to drive for Kyosho, and it’s been a great year on and off the track. However an opportunity came up which was hard to turn down. Watch this space for an exciting announcement for 2017 coming soon.
2010 1/8th Buggy European Champion B and multiple National Portuguese Champion, Ricardo Monteiro has announced his departure from long-term sponsor TLR. Ricardo leaves behind a successful campaign but he is leaving open for now what the future will be holding for him in terms of chassis sponsors. This is what Ricardo has to say:
All good things come to an end. After 7/8 years of awesome racing and many many good moments, it is time for me and TLR to part ways. First of all I would like to thank the people at Modelcar, in the form of Luis and André for believing me at the very start of my career and helping me get through to this stage, I wish you all the best luck on your future endeavours. Then a very BIG thank you to all the guys at TLR that ever helped me (Todd, Jerome Sartel and Ryan, Jerome Chambon and Adam Drake while they were there). It was many many years of ups and downs that make a good part of my r/c racing career that I will forever hold deer to me. I’m still not sure what’s ahead of me, but I am certain it will be an awesome new ride.
Italian company BMT have announced the signing of long time Xray driver Mario Spiniello to their team for the 2017 season as their top driver. The 2016 Italian Champion in the 1/10th scale class as well as runner up at the 2012 European Championships leaves long time sponsor Xray after 6 years of collaboration. Mario had the following to say:
I want to thank Team Xray, Martin Hudy, Fabio Domanin and all the other people of the team for all these years together, but I could not say no to Pasquale Iuliucci (BMT) that gives me the opportunity to race with an Italian team. This is a new challenge for me. It is the first year for the BMT 701 in 1/10 nitro category and I want to give to the team all my experience to obtain great results!
Source: BMT [bmt-team.com]
Korea based Sweep Racing have made the announcement that they have signed up Chinese American driver JJ Wang to use their on-road products and cooperate to develop tires, testing and promote the brand as well. The current US National Champion in nitro onroad, where he drives for Mugen, in electric he runs Xray and with his recent move to California we can expect to see him run more races in the US as part of this development work. JJ had this to say:
I want to thank Steve Kong and Sweep Racing for this opportunity. Now that I am based in the US where Sweep is a well-known brand, I hope to contribute to Sweep’s on road racing product development.
Source: Sweep [sweepracing.com]
