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October 30, 2026

Hobby Culture Festival China – Entertaining & Engaging the Crowds

Hobby Culture Festival China (HCFC) opened today and on arriving at the huge* Hangzhou International Expo Center for the very first time we were greeted by a very familiar face & good friend of Red RC, none other than Masami Hirosaka. The RC Racing legend is here at the 3-day show as a guest of the show organisers to give demonstrations & entertain the tens of thousands of visitors expected to attend this very much interactive Expo. After catching up with Masami and trying his unique ‘1 of 2’ hand built custom radios for size, we would later find out that his appearance on the show’s RC Rallying stand ties in nicely with a category that is currently enjoying huge growth in China. Chatting to well known Chinese industry figure YST over on the Hobbywing booth, he told us sales of RC Rally cars is witnessing huge growth thanks to its ‘play with it anywhere’ appeal. With both the Chinese National Crawler and Drifting Championships being staged at HCFC, with two very well presented ‘mini venues’ for each championship, while Masami is no stranger to drifting it appears he has been sucked in by crawling! Having checked out the Crawler course, he told us he now wants to have a go. On that request, the show organisers have told him they will see what they can do about getting him some track time in between the official running of what appears from our visit to Crawler pits to be a very busy National Championship schedule. One cool element of the main Crawler course, there being a number of courses for the different scales competing, is the real road going Volkswagen that is part of the course with competitors driving in through the back seats of the car. This is a pretty cool link up with Volkswagen who have branding and car information boards around the course. With the Crawling appearing to be a very family orientation competition, VW might be onto something with supplying the car as a element of the course!

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October 30, 2026

ROAR issues clarification on TC Body Approval List

Following its announcement on New Touring Car Body Rules earlier this month, ROAR has issued a clarification regarding it Body Approval List. The governing body for RC racing in the United States & Canada, said that while the Avalon Vortex will be removed from the list on December 31st, as it fails to meet the new GBS-II Touring Car rules, there are other bodies that some mistakenly concluded will also be removed. With 4-year approval terms that were due to naturally expire on December 31, 2026, in order to correct this misunderstanding ROAR has automatically extended the expiration date to October 31, 2027 for all legal TC bodies that would have otherwise expired naturally on December 31st. In the clarification ROAR also highlighted that there are other TC bodies that are likely to fail the GBS-II rules, but these bodies have never been submitted to them for inspection so were never on the ROAR-Approved list.

Read full Clarification post here

October 27, 2026

2026 Hobby Culture Festival China (HCFC) – Preview

This weekend sees the 2nd edition of Hobby Culture Festival China (HCFC) return to Hangzhou, one of the seven ancient capitals of China, with the event bringing together competition & hobby RC, model exhibitions, interactive experiences, and hobby culture activities all under one roof. Opening this Friday (Oct 3oth) and running until Sunday at the Hangzhou International Expo Center, HCFC will cover an area of 20,000 square metre and is expected to attracted tens of thousands of enthusiasts over the three days with, the 1st addition having attracted 26,500 visitors. For the 2nd year of the event, the organisers are promising the exhibition will be fully upgraded to create a ‘super event’ that integrates RC cars, static models, model airplanes, model ships, and tanks. With familiar RC brands Kyosho, HPI Racing, Hobbywing, FlySky, and SkyRC among the exhibitors, the event will also showcase competitive RC with China’s governing body for RC car activities, CMAC (Car Modelling Association of China) staging the National Championships for both Drifting and Rock Crawling alongside the main expo on two separate side by side track. Linking the expo and the national championships for the 2026 HCFC will give enthusiasts the opportunity to experience the excitement of a national level championship up close. It will also provide participating brands and drivers with the opportunity to interact directly with a large number of hobby consumers and potential future RC competitors. Having attended the very impressive Hobby Expo China back in April, Red RC is excited to have been invited to Hobby Culture Festival China to experience what its organisers say is going to be very different kind of Expo. Two disciplines we have yet to witness as competitive events, we are particularly interested in checking out the staging of the Drift and Rock Crawling Championships and learning about them and how visitors interact with each discipline.

Check out HCFC Floor Plan & Exbititor list here

October 27, 2026

ROAR announces 2027 Nationals Calendar

ROAR, the sanctioning body for RC racing in the United States & Canada, has announced the tracks and schedule for its 2027 National Championships. Onroad will officially kick off the 2027 season with the Carpet Nationals which on March 3-7th returns to Apex Raceway in Tennessee after hosting the championships this year. Next up is the 1:10 Offroad Carpet Nationals which will be staged at PDX Underground in Oregon from April 14-18th. Moving outdoors on May 20-23rd, TSCAR in Ohio is the venue for Nitro Onroad to decided its National Champions. A month later it will be the turn of the electric onroad paved titles, the 2026 Champions just decided over the weekend in Florida, with racers travelling to The Groove in Illinos on June 17-20th. With 7 National Championship events & one IFMAR World Championship to run, the second half of the season starts with the Canadian 1:8 Offroad Nationals which will be held at BEGO Racing RC Raceway in Quebec. Offroad racers are then in for a busy month of July with the 1:10 Dirt Nationals taking place from June 30th to July 4th followed shortly afterwords by the 1:8 Offroad Nationals at Coyote Hobbies & Raceway in California from July 15-18th. ROAR wraps up its 2027 season with the hosting of the IFMAR eBuggy World Championship at Gateway RC Park at Lake City in Florida from September 29th to October 3rd.

View Calendar Poster here

October 26, 2026

Codd crowned new Australian Champion at rain effected Touring Car Nationals

Lincoln Codd is the new 2026 RCRA Australian National Champion, the RC Maker driver taking the title at a rain effected event over the weekend. A title held by Nicolas Lee who won last year at West Coast Model RC in Perth, this year’s host was Bayside Radio Control Car Club and qualifying would see Codd take the TQ honours in a competitive field. Managing to run 4 of the 5 scheduled rounds as they battled the weather and ever changing track conditions, Codd topped two rounds to secure the top spot ahead of team-mate Jeff Hamonn who was fastest in Q1. Fastest in Q3 Jeff Mackie made it an all RC Maker Top 3 with the ARC of Brayden Stanley securing P4. That qualifying ranking was to declared the result as Mother Nature prevented any finals from being run. In Stock, defending champion Michael Stine qualifying 6th, it was Awesomatix’s Jordan Caruso who would take the title having TQ’d from Logan Rintoul.

Image: Lincoln Codd [Facebook]

October 26, 2026

Isaacs takes back ROAR Paved National title

Switching from winning on carpet last weekend, when he took his second consecutive TC title at the MonTech NYGP, to asphalt, Awesomatix’s Sam Isaacs has retaken the ROAR Electric Onroad Paved Nationals title. Racing at Valkaria RC Raceway in Florida, four rounds of qualifying would see Isaacs take the TQ honours after he topped ever round. Lining up in second with would be Xray’s Dave Vera from team-mate Keven Hebert, this the one & only asphalt race of the year for the Canadian. With 2025 Champion Stuart Mason not in attendance, the triple finals would decide a new 2026 Champion but Isaac continued his dominant form to win A1 & 2 to retake the title he last held in 2024 with victory at N-Control RC Raceway in Texas. Winning A3, Vera would finish runner-up with Hebert completing the podium ahead of Felix Law. In Super Stock it was Xray’s Mike Gee who took the TQ & win ahead of Craig Xavier and Vera.

Image: Keven Hebert [Facebook]

October 26, 2026

Romagnoli wins Italian 1:8 National Championship finale

Xray’s Luca Romagnoli has won the third & final round of the AMSCI 1:8 Onroad Italian National Championship which was staged at the 2027 IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championship circuit Fiorano over the weekend. In qualifying it was Jonathan Gandin who took the TQ ahead of Xray pairing Filippo Domanin and Romagnoli with Round 2 winner Francesco Tironi qualifying P5 ahead of the Leno round Top Qualifier Mirko Salemi. With the race attracting a number of international racers including Capricorn’s Toni Gruber & Thilo Diekmann from Germany, and Mugen Seiki’s Burak Kilic, in the 45-minute final it was Romagnoli who became the third different winning of the season. He took the win from long time race leader Domanin by just over half a lap with Infinity’s Lamberto Collari keeping the veterans in the mix as he claimed the final step on the podium ahead of Gandin from P6 on the grid. Overall Infinity’s Andrea Muscolino was crowned the overall Champion from Ielasi Tuned’s Luca Ielasi who was winner of the season opener at Locorotondo back in May.

Image: Infinity [Facebook]

October 26, 2026

Another dominant weekend for Payne at Masters of Foam

Having done the double in New York last weekend at the MonTech New York Grand Prix, Excelerate RC’s Ollie Payne returned to Europe to take the double at the Masters of Foam in Belgium. Having established itself as one of the major races on the international 1:12 calendar, this year’s Miniatuur Racing Club Zwevegem organised event attracted 146 entries with Payne coming into the event as the defending Champion in both Modified and Stock. In qualifying the British driver would secure both TQ honours with the Xray of Norway’s Mathias Nedrebo his closest rival in Mod and the Schumacher of Finland’s Niko Saarinen the nearest challenger in Stock. Able to wrap up both 2026 wins in A2, on the Modified podium he was joined by A3 winner Nedrebo and Schumacher’s Matthieu Dambrine in 3rd. In Stock Awesomatix’s 3rd place qualifier Olivier Bultynck won A3 to secure second ahead of Saarinen. In 1:12 17.5 GT it was British racer Adam Southgate who took the win.

Image: Trackside RC Media [Facebook]