Red RC » Events

March 22, 2026

Volker wins 100th ETS race, Orlowski retains title

Marking the 100th race for the series, Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker has won the season finale of the 2025/26 Euro Touring Series in Austrian with his closest rival of the weekend Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski retaining his overall title in Vienna with P2. On a winning roll that included victory at the recent MIBO International in Czech, Volker was the benchmark on the carpet in Wiener Neustadt topping seeding before securing the TQ with fastest runs 3 of the four qualifiers. Fastest in Q3, Orlowski would line-up by P2 ahead of his only potential title challenger Marc Rheinard, the Awesomatix driver having only a small mathematical chance of denying Orlowski his third consecutive ETS title. In Saturday evening’s opening A-Main, despite the best efforts of Orlowski who pressured the German through the race, Volker would take the win with Rheinard and team-mate Simon Lauter a distant 3rd & 4th. Sunday morning’s A2 would seal the deal for Volker as he cruised to the win and his second consecutive ETS victory having won in Daun last month. Rheinard completed the season finale podium behind A3 winner Orlowski. In Pro Stock, Top Qualifier Jaroslav Kriz also wrapped up an early win taking the opening two A-Mains ahead of Xray team-mate Adam Iszay. Mugen Seiki’s Sören Sparbier completed the podium. The title was already decided in favour of Olivier Bultynck at the previous round in Germany, the Belgian finishing out his campaign with 4th in Daun.

Image: ETS [Facebook]

March 21, 2026

Hongyu GDC EP Onroad Races Announcement

Hongyu GDC has announced the dates for its annual end of season Electric Onroad Races for 1:12 and Electric Touring Car. The 1:12 event on the indoor carpet track will run from December 5-7, while the Electric Touring Car event on the outdoor asphalt track will run from December 8-12th. An event that was first hosted in 2023 at the old GDC Indoor track, in Foshan, China, with Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker taking the win, the race has grown in status each year with World Champion Bruno Coelho winning in 2024 for Xray and again in 2025 for Infinity when the event moved to the brand new world class Hongyu GDC track. Introducing 1:12 race in 2025, which runs weekend ahead of the touring car action, this race was won by Schumacher’s reigning 1:12 World Champion Michal Orlowski. With the cancellation of the IFMAR World Championships at Hongyu GDC, track owner Gavin Kwok has made the early date announcement for its signature annual electric onroad races in the hope some drivers may be able to reschedule their flights to the December dates.

Source: Hongy GDC [Facebook]

March 18, 2026

FEMCA issues apology over World Championship cancellation

The governing body that represents 15 nations in Asia & Australasia and the IFMAR Bloc that is responsible for the staging of this year’s 1:12 and ISTC World Championships, FEMCA has issued a public apology to drivers over the cancellation of the races at Hongyu GDC in China. FEMCA President Leonard Kee, who only took over as head of the bloc last May from long serving Trevor Reid, made the apology via a Facebook post on the FEMCA page in which he explains that the lack of necessary government approvals to host the races ‘blindsided both the organizer, GDC, and myself’. From Malaysia and well known throughout Asia for his race announcing, Kee also stated that, ‘We understand there is a lot of rumor and speculation within the community, but we will not be engaging with conjecture’ adding ‘China and GDC remain top-tier in our community, with a venue many consider the finest. I, too, felt deeply disappointed—an “Et tu, Brute?” moment—when those entrusted didn’t fulfill their role.’ With alternative venues being talked to by IFMAR in order to host the Worlds later this year, FEMCA is set to continue as the host Bloc with an announcement on the rescheduled date/venue imminent.

Read full FEMCA apology here

March 18, 2026

Hongyu GDC Worlds track layouts

A week from today these are the tracks that would have greeted drivers from around the world as they arrived at the Hongyu GDC track in Foshan, China, for what should have been the official registration day of the 22nd running of the IFMAR 1:12 World Championship. As we all frustratingly know unfortunately last week IFMAR found themselves in the unenviable position of having to announce the cancellation of the event, together with the ISTC Worlds that was to follow. This was ultimately due to necessary government approvals to host the races not being in place. With approval for the venue to host the event revoked abruptly as the RC industry and host track made final preparations for what is our Olympic Games, having waited the 2-year cycle for the world’s most important race to come around, talks to get new approvals from the newly appointed staff at the Chinese National RC body for the original dates proved unsuccessful. The cancellation sent a huge shockwave through the racing community and the IFMAR Board of Directors are currently working on potential dates and venue options so as we can still crown World Champions in 2026. An announcement on this is expected in the coming days. What is even more frustrating is that race organiser Gavin Kwok has the stage set for these World Championships but unfortunately not the piece of paperwork to allow the best racers in the world race on it. The new Touring Car Track layout )main images) has been down for a number of weeks with no running permitted on it as part of the IFMAR rules while the 1:12 got a huge transformation from that that was used at the FEMCA race last December. The totally new layout and design was created by Pawel Kowalski from Polish track builders Racestars, who built the recent MIBO International dual track layout and have created tracks for the ETS and EOS.

View 1:12 track layout here

March 17, 2026

PNWC 2026 – Announcement

PN Racing has announced that the annual PNWC will take place in the Netherlands in 2026 with Mini-zshop.nl in Munnekeburen hosting the World Cup for 1:28 from November 5-8th. With the 2025 PNWC hosted by 5280 Raceway in Colorado, USA, the classes most prestigious race returns to Europe for the 20th edition having previously been staged in France in 2024. At Mini-zshop.nl drivers can expect a world-class track layout designed to test every driver’s precision, speed, and setup at one of the premier facilities in the country. Registration open date will be announced soon via the Mini-zshop.nl and official PN Racing social channels.

Source: PN Racing [pnracing.com]

March 16, 2026

Catanzani opens Italian GT title defence with Naxos win

Serpent’s Andrea Catanzani opened his AMSCI 1:8 GT Italian National Championship title defence with the perfect weekend winning the opening race of 2026 with victory. Racing at Naxos World in Sicily, the home track of 1:8 GT World Champion Alessio Mazzeo, Catazani took the TQ honours with three TQ runs. Returning to the championship again in 2026, Nova Engines backed Turkish offroad ace Burak Kilic qualified P2 on his debut running a Raptor, with Raptor team driver Mazzeo completing the Top 3. Round 1 of the 3 round championship, setting the only 26-lap of the 30-minute final Catanzani took the win by 9-seconds over Mazzeo with Kilic completing the podium ahead of the Genius of reigning European Champion Filippo Beretta.

Image: Andrea Catanzani [Facebook]

March 16, 2026

DNC double for Tekno’s Van Dalen

Tekno’s Seth VanDalen completed the classic double at the Dirt Nitro Challenge over the weekend winning both Nitro Buggy and Nitro Truggy as the Joey Christensen signature event. The 27th edition of US race, it was the second year in a row the now California based event has been a happy hunting group for the US manufacturer, Ryan Maifield (Nitro Buggy) and VanDalen (Nitro Truggy) last year’s winners. With a 755 entries over all classes this year, in qualifying it was the Xray of Dakotah Phend who secured the Nitro Buggy TQ after three rounds of qualifying ahead of Sworkz’s Juan Carlos Canas and Team Associated’s Spencer Rivkin with VanDalen securing P4. In Truggy it was Maifield who took the TQ from team-mates VanDalen and Spencer Heckert. In Saturday’s Truggy final, Maifield led the way until he crashed and took a wheel off his Tekno just before the 2/3rd mark of the 45-minute encounter allowing VanDalen to take over the lead and successfully defend his title. The Sworkz of Silver State Indoor Champion Mason Fuller and Kyosho’s Ryan Lutz completed the podium. In the main event, Nitro Buggy final bringing racing at The Dirt at Peris track to a conclusion, it was Phend who led away from pole for more than half the race until a mistake. Winning the B Final to book 15th spot on the A-Main grid, Maifield would work his way into contention running second within 5-seconds of Phend, but at the 28-minute mark he flamed out and his race was done. After Phend’s error it was VanDalen who was out front where he wold stay to complete the DNC double. In eBuggy it was Sworkz’s Camden Lime would took the TQ and win, winning the 10-minute final from Canas and Phend.

Image: Tekno [Facebook]

March 12, 2026

2026 Speed King Tour Rd1 – Report

The first round of high profile Japanese Speed King Tour 2026 took place at Super Rajikon Oomiya indoor tarmac track in Saitama prefecture on March 8th. To allow drivers prepare for the upcoming ISTC Worlds in China, the Modified TC0 class didn’t run at the season opener with the TC1 and TC2 classes making up the schedule. Xray driver Rento Sasaki showed his ability at TC1 class (Stock) A final. Rento did perfect start from pole position and never made mistake to take the win. Yuto Sakai and Taku Wakamatsu tried to catch Rento up but couldn’t pull it off. The 2025 TC1 class ‘Speed King’ Champion this was the perfect start to Rento’s title defence. In the TC2 class (G Force motor and ESC), TQ driver Manabu Ota made a good start and led the race until half of the A-Final. Atsushi Fujimaki had been chasing Ota and did brilliant overtake to take the lead. Fujimaki kept his position to the finish and Ota could not get P1 back. Masayuki Higo finished 3rd from No.4 grid. Round 2 of Speed King Tour will be held at New Next Rush Circuit outdoor tarmac track at 26th of April.

Source: Speed King Tour [speedkingtour.com]