The final round of the Italian nitro on-road championship was held at Cassino last weekend. New Capricorn signing Daniele Ielasi took the win in the 1/8th expert class with his Lab C801 car from the second spot on the grid after his team mates Dario Balestri and Lamberto Collari hit trouble during the final. Carmine Raiola and Andrea Pirani completed the podium one and three laps down respectively.
Source: Capricorn [capricornrc.com]
The annual IRCC Airport Race took place at the Chubu International Airport in Japan. The carpet race track was set-up in the airport’s event place making it easy for foreign competitors to enter the race. A total of seven classes was run at the meeting that saw legend RC driver Masami Hirosaka attending both in the Stock Touring and 1/12 GT class. The race catered mainly for Japanese drivers but the attendance of Scotty Ernst, who not only announced several of the finals but who also attended the meeting as a driver, gave the IRCC an international touch. Another noticeable international contender was Jonathan Chia, a Singapore Airlines pilot who landed on Sunday morning and joined the race straight after. Although he missed the first day of the event, he enjoyed the race and considers to come again next year when the organisers aim to create an even more international race.
Thanks to Atsushi Hasegawa for sending the report.
IFMAR have made a surprise announcement that they will run control tires at this year’s 1/8th Worlds in Japan. This is in response to the ongoing tire treatment story which it says “…is a poison that keeps drivers at home and for sure also the reason a lot of drivers stopped in 2012. Although we are able to detect the majority of the products that are available there is still a market and this market tries to make products that are more and more difficult to detect. It is like doping in all sport activities, there will always be people that want to try it and people that produce it.” It will however not be a single brand control tire but in fact a control tire from multiple manufacturers as long as they will be supplying at least 10 drivers at the event. All tires from all brands must be identical in diameter as well as shore and they will be accepting applications from tire companies in the next 2 weeks. Read the full statement here (PDF).
This year’s Nordic Championships for 1/8th offroad will be held in Vantaan Vauhtikeskus, Finland from the 2nd to the 4th of August. Your standard Nordics format, best 2 from 4 rounds of qualifying with EFRA style finals, the track has a clay surface with approximately 5 jump combinations with lap times of about 39-40 seconds. Entries are open until the 27th of July so if you wish to compete against the best Scandinavians then get signed up. You can find more information here (PDF).
Last weekend was the annual Trofeo Novarossi took place on the fantastic Gussago track in Italy and World Champion Robert Batlle (Mugen/Novarossi/ProCircuit/Nitrolux) sent us this report. ‘We arrived on friday morning to visit Novarossi Factory as every year, amazing factory for one of the best engine manufacturers in the world. The weather on Thursday was terrible and we had to wait until Friday afternoon to start practice. We could make only 4 or 5 tanks due to the day was finished. Saturday was sunny and the race could start. There were a lot of good drivers like the well known 2013 French champion Jerome Aigoin, the 2013 European B Champion Marco “Vale tutto” Baruffolo, Italian Champion Davide Tortorici, the young Italian star Davide Ongaro, Alex Zanchettin, Alessandro Stocco, Novarossi’s engineer Federico Sala, and more… also Mrs Grazia, Mr Cesare Rossi and all Novarossi crew were watching us during the race. Qualyfing was a fight for TQ between Jerome and myself, the first round was won by Jerome, second, third and fourth went to myself, and the last round was the Italian driver Del Petre who got it. Sunday was even warmer than Saturday so we had to drive on hard compounds to be able to make a whole semi or final. There was a fight during almost all Semi A for the win between Tortorici and myself, he had a mistake which allowed me to win so Davide finished second. In Semi B the two fast guys were Aigoin and Baruffolo but both had problems so they couldn’t win, even though they were able to bump up to the main final. In the final we started really well with no mistakes while all the others got together, so we could take advantage which allowed us to win this race. Second spot went for Jerome Aigoin and third the young Ongaro.’
Thanks to Robert Batlle for the report.
Last weekend was the 23rd running of the annual Belgium GP, under its new name ‘International Race Kampenhout’. The event is very popular, with many people requesting entries, but due to the nature of the event and venue the organisers keep an entry limit of 80 in 2wd and 70 in 4wd, allowing reasonable length days and plenty of track time, with open practice in the days preceding the event. It really is a great event, very relaxed atmosphere and a showcase for RC racing with is location in a park, where many activities take place over the weekend, drawing in many spectators and drivers from 8 countries.
Continue reading the report here
Round 3 of the Jakarta Regional 1/10 EP Championship was held at the Jakarta International Twin Circuit Senayan which is normally a nitro track, but had a modification to accommodate EP cars done and then ran in counter-clockwise direction. In the primary superstock 10.5 boosted class, Bowie Ginting took the TQ spot from Teddy Syach with only 0.037 seconds separated them. Heri Susanto completed the top 3. In Stock class, Ronald Kasengkang took a comfortable TQ by 6 seconds from Robert Hendrawan and Ignatius Ryan, while young racer Muhammad Izzah also took an easy TQ in the FWD class.
Continue reading the report here
The 2013 Much-More UK GP is in it’s 8th year now with this weekend’s round at the Stonehaven circuit being paired up with another round later in the year at Carlisle Radio Model Car Club on August 17/18th. Stonehaven has always attracted strong support from racers from Northern Ireland and this year, BRCA National Associated driver, Alan Bickerstaff made the long journey along with Graham Kenny (Xray), Scott Kenny (Yokomo), Austin Elliott and Martin Kenny. Close racing was guaranteed with BRCA National T.O.P. Photon EX driver, Brian Eldridge also making the long trip north from London and some strong local drivers also in the mix.
Continue reading the report here
