The 2nd part of Xray’s interview series with 2014/15 ETS series winners Marek Cerny and Jan Rathiesky is now online. Having already heard from Marek Cerny, this time it is the turn of back to back to back Formula Champion and Pro Stock championship contender Jan Rathiesky from Germany.
Read the full interview with Jan here
Sunday saw the start of the UK based Autumn Shoot Out series. Run by the successful clubs C.A.R.S and Swifts Raceway, the series would cater for the GT class cars and run over four meetings with C.A.R.S hosted the opening round that fielded a competitive collection of racers. In GT12 it was Rory Hobkirk who was the man to beat in qualifying. He was being closely followed by Sion Wedley and Summer Shoot Out winner Gavin Stephenson. Stephen Lander was also in the chase with the new Mardave Assassin, the car could not take TQ on its debut but it did record the fastest lap. The final was a great battle between Hobkirk, Wedley and Stephenson. With Hobkirk and Wedley having problems with back markers it was left for Stephenson to show why he is a Shoot Out champ.
Continue reading the report here
The final round of the Dutch Electric On-road Nationals was held at the fast and flowing track of the MAC De Baanbrekers in Rucphen this past weekend. The nice weather made for perfect racing conditions and the event started out with free practice on Saturday with the usual classes of Touring Modified, Touring Stock and Formula would be accompanied by the 10.5T Pro10 class who made a guest appearance. In the Modified class Mitchell van Es (Yokomo) was the man to beat all weekend. After the three qualifiers he took the TQ followed by Govert Verbeke (Xray) and Rob Jansen (Team Magic). In the finals Mitchell would again show his skills as he made a clean sweep to take the win from Rob Jansen and Athan de Witte (VBC).
The fourth round of the Indonesian EP On-road National Championship took place at Sigma Progresif Circuit in Bandung, West Java with 45 entries for the three classes of Touring Car 13.5T Boosted, FWD and Mini. The Touring Boosted class was dominated by Bowie Ginting who took the pole position for the A-mains while Arya Seta took the TQ in the FWD class. At the end Bowie came out successful in the finals also as he took the day’s win from Suwardi Suliandy in second and Peter Anthonijsz in third.
After Saturday’s thunderstorm and rain scare, the sun was back for Sunday allowing the race to proceed with the final two rounds of mains to decide Asia On-road Championship’s 4th round champions. It was do or die time for Xray’s Alexander Hagberg with Yokomo’s Ronald Volker taking a close win in A1. Much like in A1, Volker pushed hard on the 1st lap to get a comfortable gap between him and his rivals. Trading lap for lap, Volker’s lead remained 0.8 seconds throughout the race. With time running out, Hagberg was pushing maximum and unfortunately caught the curb and rolled his car with a minute left. This would allow Volker to cruise to his 2nd win and take the overall in the Modified Sedan class. Hagberg would finish just 1.7 seconds back from Volker for 2nd followed by Nicholas Lee in 3rd.
With open practice and seeding over at the fourth round of the Asia On-road Championship, the tension was starting to rise like a hot air balloon here in Hong Kong. The wait was over and Saturday finally came and went. With four rounds of qualifying and the decision to go ahead and run one round of the triple A-mains was a crucial call as the surrounding area near Tom Racing Circuit saw flash floods later in the evening. Setup, tire strategy, and rain was the hot buzz in the pits as all drivers were pushing maximum to get the best results possible.
With open practice over here at round four of the Asia On-Road Championship at Tom Racing Circuit in Hong Kong and everyone putting in their finishing touches to their car setup, the seeding round was fun and exciting in every aspect. With only four minutes to set their fastest three consecutive laps, the two seeding rounds was still an all out battle on the clock. In the first round of seeding, Team Yokomo’s Ronald Volker was just able to eclipse the newly crowned European Champion, Alexander Hagberg by just 0.1 second.
Round two of the RC Car World/Middle River Hobbies Halloween Classic Warm-up Series was held at RC Car World in New Jersey, with race number one held at Middle River hobbies in Maryland a week earlier. Many of the nation’s fastest drivers came in preparation of the Annual Halloween Classic held in OH. With 55 total entries, Stock 17.5 Touring Car was the largest class with 31 entries and it featured many of the Northeast corridor’s fastest drivers like Mike Gee, Craig Xavier, and Jeff Cuffs. Fresh off his TQ run at the previous warm-up race held at MRH the prior week, Xray driver Robbie Dodge came to the race looking to build on his momentum. Robbie would need his car to perform at its best to follow up his previous performance.
