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April 20, 2026

Champlin & Lemieux win ROAR Carpet Offroad Nationals

Schumacher’s Broc Champlin and Xray’s Chase Lemieux are the 2026 ROAR Carpet Offroad National Champions, Champlin defending his 4WD title while Lemieux becomes the new 2WD Champion. Racing at Maximus R/C Raceway in Seabrook, New Hampshire, it was Champlin who came into the event as the double back tp back defending Champion and qualifying would see the 2WD World Champion line-up P3 for both classes. In 2WD it was Phend who took the TQ over the four qualifiers ahead of team-mate Lemieux. In 4WD, it was Schumacher’s Brennan Schimmel who took the TQ on tiebreak with Lemieux, them both recording two TQ runs each. In 2WD it was Lemieux who took the A1 win ahead of Champlin as Phend dropped to P4 and again getting to the front to win A2, this time aheads of Phend, Lemieux locked in his first National title. With Phend second, Schimmel completed the podium. In 4WD Schimmel converted TQ into an A1 but winning A2 & tasking a later A3 win it was Champlin who tok the overall to retain his title. Despite a rough A2, Schimmel fnished runner-up with Phend taking the final step on the podium.

Image: ROAR Racing [Facebook]

April 19, 2026

Hagberg claims record 9th European 1:12 title

Alexander Hagberg has claimed his 9th EFRA 1:12 European Championship title, the Xray driver surpassing David Spashett as the championship’s most successful driver today in Messina, Italy. In qualifying, Hagberg would open with a TQ run adding three more over the 5 rounds. Topping the third round, defending Champion Marc Rheinard put his Awesomatix second on the grid ahead of Mathias Nedrebo, Simon Lauter and Martin Hudy. A1 would see Hagberg set the fastest lap as he pulled away out front to win the 8-minute encounter by over 4-seconds from Rheinard. A2 would see a lot more action with traffic playing crucial roles in the results. The first incident at the mid point of the race saw Rheinard get collected by Hudy’s car as it bounced off the outside boards on the straight and into the path of the German who was 1-second behind Hagberg at the time. This promoted Norwegian Nedrebo to second 3-seconds back from Hagberg, the Swede looking like the remaining 4-minutes would just be a formality to him taking a record 9th win. Hitting traffic on the penultimate lap, unfortunately contact with 1:8 GT World Champion Alessio Mazzeo would lead to a series of crashes for Hagbeg allowing Nedrebo through along with Jan Ratheisky. Unable to get the places back over the final lap, Hagberg finished P3 and the title race was still open. The final encounter however would see Hagberg lead home Rheinard and Nedrebo and lock in his ninth title 12-years after claiming his first one, also in Italy. Nedrebo would make it an Xray 1-2 with Rheinard completing the podium. It was to be a double title weekend for Xray as Adam Izsay became the new European Spec Champion. Starting from P2 behind the Excelerate of defending Champion Ollie Payne, the Hungarian would win the title thanks to his A1 winning time which gave him the tie-breaker over A3 winner Payne. Winning A2 from P3 on the grid, the Schumacher of Andrea Torregiani completed the podium at Raradise RC Arena.

Image: Alexander Hagberg [Facebook]

April 17, 2026

Zalewski takes first EOS win in Slovakia

Xray’s Bartek Zalewski has taken his first Euro Offroad Series win, the Polish driver securing the 2WD victory today at the Hudy Arena in Slovakia. The back to back 2026 MIBO International 2WD Champion and MKGP double winner, would secure the overall TQ for the second of the 2 races that make up the 2026 EOS. Behind him it was the Schumacher of Round 1 double winner Michal Orlowski with Martin Bayer who became the reigning European 2WD Champion at Xray’s home track completing the Top 3 from Team Associated’s Joona Haatanen. In the finals, the pack could do nothing about Zalewski pace on the polish indoor dirt and he took A1 convincingly. He repeated in A2 to finally secure a win he had been edging closer & closer to. Winning A3 Orlowski made it a Polish 1-2 while second in the closing 2WD encounter allowed Haatanen to complete the podium ahead of David Ronnefalk and Bayer.

Image: EOS [eos.racing]

April 16, 2026

Thurston opens BRCA title defence with Halifax win

While unpredictable weather greeted racers for the opening round of the BRCA British National 1:8 Onroad Championship at Halifax, it was business as usual for the Mugen Seiki of reigning Champion Alex Thurston who took the win. Qualifying for the opening race of the 8 round championship would see Thurston secure the TQ by some margin ahead of Michael Lee and Richard Boult as 2025 season opening race winner Tim Wood found himself down in P18. With a damp track for the start of the half final, it would dry out allowing Thurston to take a convincing win over the Shepherd pairing of 5th place qualifier David Spashett and Andrew Hastings. Next up in the championship is the Brooklands track which hosts a double header on May 3-4.

Image: Alex Thurston [Facebook]

April 16, 2026

Greece to host Tamiya Open European Championships

The organisers of the Open European Championship for Tamiya onroad cars have announced that for the first time ever they will take place in Greece. Scheduled to run from May 1-3, 2026, the event is organised by ATA Świat Modeli i Zabawek in cooperation with Tamiya, Hobbyland Greece, and the Automobilklub Polski. With racing set to take place at Sonik Arena in Thessaloniki, Greece, this event is the result of several years of collaboration between these company and the Greek RC community, with all involved very proud to finally bring this idea to life. Those familiar with ATA will know the great work Niko Triandafilidis has done for the hobby and in particular is efforts are bringing young drivers into racing. The race regulations have been carefully prepared by RC communities from Poland, Greece, and Germany to ensure accessibility and fair competition for drivers from different backgrounds. What makes this event special it is the first open European-level Tamiya championship held in Greece and it is open to all Tamiya enthusiasts – from beginners to experienced racers. Multiple classes are designed so that everyone can find a suitable category to compete in. An additional highlights for participants is a free accommodation offer for the first two registered drivers from each European country who will receive free hotel accommodation provided by the organiser. With registration already open drivers can sign up here.

Source: Tamiya Open European Championship

April 15, 2026

2026 Hobby Expo China – Preview

This weekend sees the staging of the 24th edition of Hobby Expo China at the Beijing Exhibition Centre in the capital city and the main RC related halls, 9 & 11, will see 70 booths display their products among over 300 exhibitors of hobby products. With international Chinese RC brands like Hobbywing, FlySky, Gens ace, Savox, Sunpadow, Surpass Hobby, Sky RC, ISDT, and Carisma represented as well as foreign brands Kyosho and Futaba, the Expo will also feature a number of RC car demos area which will greet visitors as they enter the exhibition centre. With the Expo covering 25,000 square metres, the promoters have created a designated Buggy & Rally Demo area, an RC Drifting area, and a Crawler area, where members of the public will get the opportunity to try each of these disciplines for themselves – a key ‘try me’ opportunity to encourage and attract new interest in the RC hobby at all levels. With Red RC visiting the established & important Expo for the first time this weekend, talking to those in the industry who have attended previously we have been warned to be surprised by the size of the crowds the Expo attracts and how busy it is. Officially more than 70,000 attended last year over the 3-days. In addition to public visitors, the show also attracts buyers and distributors, brand representatives, supply chain and manufacturing professionals, product development and marketing teams, and institutions (museums, education, sports). Running from Friday to Sunday, the HEC also has a huge number of diecast model exhibitors, many of whom do limited edition show releases which contribute to the high public attendance and hype around the weekend. While we will focus on RC car related content while visiting, we will also be looking at diecasts both out of personal interest but also to explore if there is anything to be learned from what that segment are doing to generate the current interest in that market especially in China.

View floor plan here

April 15, 2026

IFMAR Large Scale Worlds on target for capacity entry

The IFMAR Large Scale World Championships look set to return with a potential capacity entry in Switzerland as the governing body published details on the latest entries ahead of the Summer event. The last World title for the class was awarded back in 2022 after the planned 2024 World Championships in Australia was cancelled due to a lack of entries. With the class popular in Europe, the awarding of the race to the iconic MRTM Lostallo track, the home of large scale racing, the 12th running of the Worlds looks set to be close to the 150 permitted entries. In its post, IFMAR highlighted that 111 entries have been received from the EFRA Bloc (Europe), with 6 from FEMCA (Asia), 1 from FAMAR (South America) and up to 5 from ROAR (North America). With the Worlds 3 & a half months away, any open places with be redistributed the first week of which could allow 16 more drivers from Europe to join the race. With Lostallo hosting the opening round of the 2026 Euro Large Scale Series last weekend, which was won by reigning World Champion Markus Feldmann, round 2 of that series at the end of June will act as the World Warm-up race, track staging the actual Worlds from July 27 to August 1st.

Source: IFMAR [Facebook]

April 15, 2026

Isaacs wins Mod TC at Canadian Nationals

Awesomatix’s Sam Isaacs took the Modified Touring Car win at this year’s Canadian Onroad Nationals hosted by Rose City Speedway in Ontario. Attracting 339 entries, Xray’s Adam Izsay made the trip to the race with the Hungarian coming away with four podium finishes that also included winning the large Touring Super Stock field and the FWD class. In Modified TC, it was multiple ROAR Champion Isaacs who secured the TQ ahead of defending Champion Hebert. In the single A-Main Isaacs led from start to finish, with Izsay, who set the fastest lap of the race, getting by Hebert for second. While a small field in 1:12 Modified, Hebert held onto his title winning from Isaacs as Top Qualifier Izsay who dropped to third. With Touring Super Stock having a big enough entry to warranty a G Final, it was Eric Anderson who was Iszay’s closest challenger with his Awesomatix while Craig Xavier completed the podium from 4th on the grid and also won Touring Stock. Interestingly Anderson won himself a Giant Mountain Bike in the race raffle!!

Image: Sam Isaacs [Facebook]