Red RC » Electric

January 13, 2024

EssexCarpetClash Round 4 – Report

Round 4 at EssexCarpetClash saw everyone return after Christmas ready for another round of the popular south based UK series. Another track was ready for a full days racing, that some found challenging to grips with, but would find their feet quickly once racing started. Lee Martin showed the pace of his Schumacher ride, topping the timing sheets in all the four qualifying runs. Team mate Ben Smith would line up second on the grid joint on points with Xray driver Harley Eldridge, only being beaten by a second on count-back timing. Charlie Ware, Kyle Moon and Ed Kerry all had good qualifying round scores, taking the next three grid places for the 11 car A final. Martin continued with how he set off in qualifying and would not look back, again taking all 3 leg wins and giving him the perfect race day! The fight would then be between Smith and Eldridge, who would sit where on the podium having both finished 2nd and 3rd in the first 2 finals. Smith managed to take the second step, with Eldridge rounding off the podium position.

Continue reading report here

January 10, 2024

Schumacher Winter Series Round 4 – Report

The popular Lincolnshire, UK, based Schumacher Winter Series resumed after the Christmas break with Round 4 taking place over the weekend. In the Contact RC 17.5 class Chris Lovey with his Nosram powered Xray x4 would take TQ at this encounter taking three of the four rounds of qualifying. 1:8 circuit ace Tim Wood would line up second on the grid taking the last round of qualifying with his Mugen, ahead of Alex Brocklebank and his Schumacher. Alex would tie break with Paul Sleight and his Awesomatix, and Dave Sedgewick also with an Awesomatix. Daniel Burks would round out the six car a final with his Destiny. A single legged A-final would see the field away clean. A bunching of the pack so issues, and as drivers diced for positions mistakes were made. Lovely would manage to pull a gap, Paul Sleight from 4th on the grid and at the midway point it would seem he was pulling Chris back in. They would hold station til the end with Chris taking the win. Daniel Burks would be in a race of his own to this position, with Tim Wood just holding off Dave Sedgewick for 4th and 5th respectably. Alex Brocklebank would round out the six drivers.

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January 8, 2024

Phend wins 2nd edition of ‘Clash of Champions’

Having won the inaugural ‘Clash of Champions’ 12-months ago, it was a case of deja vu for TLR’s Dakotah Phend over the weekend as he again took the top honours in the modified Buggy classes winning both 2WD and 4WD at the Hoosier RC Hobbyplex event in Indiana. In qualifying it was Team Associated’s Spencer Rivkin with the new B7 who secured the TQ ahead of Phend after taking two of the three rounds with Davey Batta completing the Top 3 ahead of Cole Tollard. Sporting a FlySky radio, as was World Champion team-mate Tater Sontag at the race, in 4WD Phend topped all three qualifiers to secure the TQ ahead of Schumacher’s Broc Champlin with Rivkin 3rd on the grid. While Phend would wrap up the 4WD win after taking the opening two encounters, in 2WD things went to A3. After a win in A1 ahead of Champlin as Rivkin dropped to third in the second half of the race, Phend would be only P8 in A2 after a bad first lap as Tollard took the win from Champlin with Rivkin again third. The former World Champion would lead A3 until he broke just inside the final minute handing Phend the win and overall victory over Tollard with Rivkin completing the podium. Bringing a close to the second running of the Clash of Champions was the big money Champions race. A single 8-minute 2WD Mod Buggy encounter involving drivers having to take one, faster, joker lap during the race it was Champlin who came out on top to take home the $2,000 first place prize.

Image: JConcepts [jconcepts.net]

January 3, 2024

Sworkz confirm team for MIBO International debut

Sworkz has confirmed it will be sending its team to this year’s MIBO International Race in Czech Republic. The second running of the event that sees some of the World’s top offroad and onroad drivers race side by side on two large indoor carpet tracks, this will be Sworkz first time attending the 2 and a half day event. Taking place on February 16-18, with practice starting on the Friday evening, multiple European Champion Joern Neumann, Micha Widmaier and Antonia Kovalszki, who all attended the World Championships in Arizona in September, will represent the brand on its debut. A long time dream of former International Touring Car racer Michal Bok to host his own major international event in Hrotovice, the first edition of MIBO International last year saw multiple World Champion Bruno Coelho take double buggy honours at the Sport V Hotel venue while former World Champion Ronald Volker was crowned the Touring Car Champion. After the success of inaugural event, the 2nd edition looks set to attract an even stronger international team entry and Red RC will be there to bring you coverage from both tracks.

Source: MIBO [mibosport.com]

January 3, 2024

Euro Buggy Masters/Euros Warm-up – Announcement

The organisers of the annual Euro Buggy Masters in Sweden have announced that the indoor event will double up this year as the Warm-up Race for the EFRA 1:10 Offroad European Championships. A club based in the south of the country, Furulund RC Klubb has secured use of a massive almost 4000 seater indoor sport hall in the city of Malmo for the 2024 edition of the EBM. Taking place from February 23-25, the track will be built using completely new EOS carpet to create a bespoke track layout giving all drivers the same track time and opportunity for a close and fair racing. Last held in November 2022 when Michal Orlwski took the 4WD win and Jessica Pålsson took the 2WD honours, the race moves to the start of the season this year on February 23-25 as the club hosts the European Championships from September 23-28.

Source: Furulund RCK [frck.se]

January 2, 2024

2024 EFRA Homologated Motor Lists

EFRA, the governing body for RC racing in Europe, has just published updated Homologated Motor lists for 2024 for all electric racing categories. Competitors looking to compete at Europrean Championship and EFRA GP events in 1:12, 1:10 Touring Cars and 1:10 Offroad classes can only use Brushless Motors that are included on the 2024 EFRA Homologation Lists, a procedure that began in 2016. When a motor (or rotor) has been approved and included on the relative list, the manufacturer must not change the technical specification, visual appearance or description. Any changes require a new part number and the motor (or rotor) will have to be resubmitted for approval. Drivers are also not allowed to make any changes to the motor, something that happened in Pro Stock at the 2022 European Championships when two driver’s motors were ‘found not to comply with the submitted samples to the EFRA Spec Homologation Lists’ promoting Olivier Bultynck to Champion. Homologation has caused a number of manufacturers issues recently with team drivers having to switch motors or batteries at recent World Championships as their sponsors’ where not IFMAR approved. ROAR, the North American governing body, has had a number of high profile cases where motors where randomly purchased and tested and found to not meet the specification of the original submitted motor that was approved for its sanctioned events. A standard many independent races run by, the offending motors had their motors removed from the approved list. View the full EFRA Motor Homologation lists here.

Source: EFRA [efra.ws]

December 23, 2023

New date confirmed for IFMAR 1:8 eBuggy World Cup

After being forced to cancel the event just days before its planned date of last September due to a lack of entries, IFMAR has announced the new date of April 5-7, 2024, for the first ever World Cup for 1:8 Electric Buggy. Concerns were raised when the initial date was announced as it was just 1-week after the 1:10 Offroad World Championships in Arizona which was probably one of the biggest contributing factors to it getting only 15 confirmed entries but the new date should allow for a much stronger entry. With eBuggy a hugely important category for manufacturers while 1:8 nitro has enjoyed World Championship status since 1986, the World Cup will be the first step for the electric category to become a World Championship category in 2025. The World Cup will be hosted by the Club ACDB “OS BEIROES” at their 310m track in Guarda, Portugal whichk previously hosted the 2010 EFRA European 1:8 Nitro Buggy Championship when Reno Savoya took the third of his European titles. View the updated Stage 1 report here.

Source: IFMAR [Facebook]

December 22, 2023

2024 SIGP International Grand Prix – Announcement

Sunpadow Batteries has announced that the SIGP International RC Car Grand Prix Onroad will be resumed in 2024 with the event taking place March 20-24 (Updated). The Sunpadow International Grand Prix (SIGP) event had established itself as one of the leading annual international RC event in China and attracted many of the sports top drivers with World Champion Bruno Coelho the winner of the onroad edition in 2019. Taking place at the 2017 Electric Offroad Championship venue in Xiamen, both the onroad and offroad tracks are built side by side next to Sunpadow’s production facility. The SIGP will continue to offer one of the biggest prizes in the sport with total prize money of $25,000 on offer over the categories which include 1:8 GP onroad, 1:8 EP onroad, 1:10 Modified Touring Car and 1:10 Stock Touring Car. Registration will open on January 20th, 2024.

View track images here