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July 13, 2025

Sobue reigns in Singapore to win eSIC 2025

Axon’s Akio Sobue reigned over the third edition of the Electric Singapore International Challenge (eSIC), the Top Qualifier backing up Saturday’s performance with a dominant Sunday. Taking the A1 win ahead of Xray’s Alexander Hagberg, the Japanese driver would repeat the result in A2 to secure an early overall win in Singapore. Debuting the first production example of Axon’s upcoming TC10/4 Touring Car release the result was the perfect launch for the Japanese manufacturer’s new car. While Sobue had the perfect weekend his team-mate Hayato Ishioka would be less fortunate. Securing P2 in qualifying after topping Q3, he suffered an electrical issue in A1 and A2, but with Sobue able to sit out A3 and watch he gave Ishioka his electrics for A3 and that led to the most exciting of the three A-Main encounters. With the power setting of Sobue’s ESC a little more aggressive to his own, leading away the field Ishioka would overshoot the back straight and drop down the order as Nicholas Lee took over the lead. Shadowed by Hagberg the Xray duo looked to have the race under control until Lee spun out. Having to change car for A3 after an off destroyed his car in A2, Lee was at a loss to explain why he spun out when he ‘wasn’t under pressure’ from his team-mate. With Hagberg now leading and Ishioka seemingly some way back, the Japanese driver came out of nowhere in the last two laps setting up a perfect show down of a drag race to the finish line – Hagberg just getting it by 0.027 to secure second overall. With Atsushi Hara backing up his P3 finish from A1 with another in A3, A2 not going his way, the former World Champion completed the podium at RCMC.

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July 13, 2025

Sobue cruises to eSIC A1 win ahead of Hagberg

Having feared they might wake to rain, racers at the Electric Singapore International Challenge (eSIC) have instead been greeting by the hottest day of the week in Singapore however the hot humid conditions still weren’t enough to stop the reign of Axon’s Akio Sobue at RCMC as he took a convincing A1 win ahead of Xray’s Alexander Hagberg. Leading away the international field, Top Qualifier Sobue and his team-mate Hayato Ishioka pulled clear with Hagberg getting by team-mate Nicholas Lee early on. While running on used tyres, Lee was holding fourth but then a mistake half way into the race dropped the home hero to last. While the race was ticking off laps, Hagberg would suddenly find himself with Ishioka. Unfortunately the hot conditions causing the Japanese driver to lose power resulting in Hagberg making a little contact as the came onto the straight. Once into P2, Hagberg could do nothing about Sobue who took the win by 2 & a half seconds. Benefiting from Ishioka and Lee’s issues, having lined up P6 Atsushi Hara came through with his Schumacher to complete the Top 3 just ahead of E.C Kim’s Awesomatix.

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July 12, 2025

Sobue is eSIC Top Qualifier as Axon claim 1-2 in quali

Akio Sobue is the Top Qualifier at the Electric Singapore International Challenge (eSIC), the Japanese driver leading an Axon 1-2 in qualifying today at the country’s RCMC track. Making his debut at the third & biggest eSIC race to-date, Sobue took early charge of today’s first official day of action by topping seeding and carrying that momentum into qualifying. Taking the opening two encounters, when team-mate Hayato Ishioka took Q3 it was assured a TC10/4 would start on pole. With Xray’s Nicholas Lee finally managing to break the Axon stranglehold in the fourth & final qualifier, taking the round ahead of Atsushi Hara, Sobue was confirmed the Top Qualifier. Trying to split the Japanese pair, unfortunately for Lee he came up 6/10ths of a second shy of bettering Ishioka’s TQ time meaning a 1-2 on the grid for the eSIC debutant Japanese manufacturer. With 2025 also marking Xray’s factory team debut at the international race, their new for 2025 driver Lee one half of the driving force behind the event, it will be the Singapore driver who starts P3. Team-mate Alexander Hagberg lines-up P4 with the top half of the grid being completed by E.C Kim, the leading Korean driver spinning out of a potential TQ run in Q4.

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July 12, 2025

Sobue takes opening 2 qualifiers in Singapore

Having topped seeding, Axon’s Akio Sobue has showed no signs of letting up on being the pace setter at this year’s Electric Singapore International Challenge (eSIC) as he took the opening two rounds of qualifying at the annual race. With main challengers Nicolas Lee and Alexander Hagberg both sitting out Q1, Hagberg more forced than opting, the first of the four scheduled qualifiers opened with Sobue leading an Axon 1-2 ahead of team-mate Hayato Ishioka with Chinese National Champion Jerry Dai completing the Top 3. With all the eSIC contenders back on track for Q2, Sobue proved Q1 was in fact a true indication of the Japanese driver’s speed at the controls of his new TC10/4 as he held off Lee to go two from two by a margin of 1.3-seconds. After missing Q1 due to his huge off in seeding, Hagberg proved he had rebuilt a good car being the only one to match Sobue in posting a 13.6-second fastest lap time. A spin however from the Swede in the second minute of the qualifier ended that challenge and he registered a P7. The benefactor would be Ethan Cheng, the Xray driver adding a P3 to go with his P6 from the opening round.

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July 11, 2025

Drivers settle-in in Singapore ahead of biggest eSIC

With the biggest Electric Singapore International Challenge (eSIC) taking place this weekend, drivers have been settling themselves in with open practice at the country’s only permanent track RCMC over the past few days. Just 10-minutes from the country’s famous Jewel Changi Airport, the third edition of eSIC is living up to its international title with drivers from 14-nations making up this year’s entry. This is also the first time the event has a greater number of international entries versus locals with 60% of the entry being drivers from other countries, Malaysia topping the visitor count followed by China. 2025 also marks the first factory entries from Xray and Axon. Singapore’s very own Nicholas Lee, a driving force behind the race, takes on eSIC for the first time in Xray colours and is joined by Alexander Hagberg and Jan Ratheisky. Hagberg returns to the track a decade on from his last visit. Axon are here with their up coming TC10/4 touring car release and while Sobue has raced here before with his previous team Infinity, the Japanese driver says he is going to count this as his first visit as he was very sick on the previous occasion and doesn’t remember too much about that particular trip. Another RCMC rookie this weekend is Atsushi Hara and the legend of the sport has a new Hara purple edition ride in the form of a Mi9 from Schumacher, this being his first run with the car on a ‘proper track’.

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July 10, 2025

AOC Korea 2025 – Date Announcement

Won last year by Axon’s Akio Sobue, Scotty Ernst has announced the return of his Asian Onroad Championship event to the beautiful GRC Raceway in Korea for 2025 with a race date of October 9-12. GRC Raceway which has just finished its full remodelling has positioned itself as one of the nicest RC venues in all of the World. GRC Raceway has everything you would need as a racer to enjoy the hobby at all levels. They offer 2 beautiful race tracks, 1 outside and 1 inside, with fully air-conditioned pit area plus an onsite Hobby shop all which is topped off with an onsite coffee shop and restaurant. The following classes with form the schedule for event AOC Korea – Modified Touring Car, 17.5 Boosted Touring Car, 21.5 Touring with Roar Legal Motor, GRC Super GT 21.5, FWD, and Mini 2WD.

Source: Asian Onroad Championship [aocrc.com]

July 3, 2025

2025 IFMAR 1:10 Offroad Worlds – Stage 2 Report

The Stage 2 report for the 1:10 Offroad World Championships which take place in Sydney, Australia, later this year has been published by IFMAR. The report outlines a more comprehensive time schedule for the Hills Off Road RC track hosted event that takes place in the North West of Sydney, Australia, from the 29 September with 2WD Registration day and opening ceremony and runs until October 6th when the 4WD World Champion will be decided. October 7 & 8th are designated rain days with the Banquet Dinner also listed for the 8th October. Another notable update is the list of officials which now lists two Race Directors with American Tim Caporal joining Australian Clive Silva in the role. Greg Cribbin fills the role of Technical Director, Gerard Elias is head Time Keeper, while the Race Referees will be Dan Maher, IFMAR President Eric Anderson, and FEMCA President Leonard Kee. The 20th running of the World title race, RC Race Media will broadcast the official live stream around the world. View the Stage 2 report here.

Source: IFMAR [Facebook]

June 27, 2025

New Foshan ISTC | 1:12 World C/ship Track – First Images

With IFMAR announcing in January that Foshan in China has been awarded the 2026 ISTC and 1:12 World Championships, the hosts are using the occasion to build a super impressive brand new RC facility in the city. A project spearheaded by Gavin Kwok, who was instrumental in bringing the GDC track in Foshan to the international stage through the staging of the FIRC/FEMCA Championship race in 2023 & 2024, the new facility is located in the centre of the Foshan business district with building set for completion at the event of July. The facility will comprise of 3 tracks, the main outdoor asphalt track covering any area 80m X 43m. A second but covered asphalt track measures 42m X 23m while offroad racer will also be catered for with a 50m X 26m offroad track. The venue will have space for several shops and a main pro shop to facilitate supplies and parts for racers. With all three tracks to be floodlit, racer will be able to utilise all the tracks both day and night. The second time China will host the ISTC and 1:12 Worlds, Beijing previously hosting the title deciders in 2016, the new Foshan track will host the 1:12 Worlds from March 26th to 29th with Electric Touring Car running from March 31st to April 4th, 2026.

View more images here