The Pro-Line track in Banning, California played host to the 2019 SoCal Shootout recently. Xray’s Kyle Turner took the TQ in the 1/8th E-Buggy class and he would battle with Kyosho’s CJ Jelin for the win, but a wrong tyre compound choice, an off-setup left and a couple of mistakes meant he had to let CJ go for the win with Kyle coming in 2nd. TLR’s Dylan Nelson came in 3rd to round out the podium.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
The 2019 Big Barn Shootout was held in Chilliwack, BC this past weekend. The track was very large, fast and a challenging layout. This year the event had a lot more entries which made for longer days and stiffer competition, with drivers coming from as far as Ontario and the North western United States as well as western Canada. The higher numbers made the track surface different from last year, it started out smooth and low grip, as the weekend went along the grip came up and the track started to develop some holes and ruts, which made the main events more challenging. Official practice started at 11am on Friday and went until 10pm, this was limited to five practice sessions per class entered and was regulated by punch cards. Saturday was three round of qualifying and it was Xray’s Ty Tessmann who was able to take the TQ in both classes.
The first round of this year’s XRS Alpe Adria was held in Tolmin recently. The race was held in the three classes of Touring Modified, Touring 13.5 XRS and 1/8th Nitro On-road. The weekend kicked off with practice on Saturday with Sunday being race day with two timed rounds of practice as well as four qualifiers for the electric classes and three rounds of qualifying for IC Track. In Touring Stock it was Patrik Pozgaj with the TQ while in Touring Modified Alojzij Osvald came out fastest. 1/8 IC Track saw Nejc Mihelic taking the overall TQ after switching chassis brands during the off season.
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The opening round of Norwegian 1/10th Buggy Nationals was hosted by the KMBK club, located in Grimstad in the south of Norway. The track wasn’t huge but hospitality was, which made for a great weekend thanks to the professional club. The weekend kicked off with free practice on Friday and with the track layout being unchanged for some time, things would be very tight especially in the main 4WD class as most of the club’s members race in the ultra-fast wheeler category. Fast local driver Gisle Brøvig is a very strong driver and the biggest local hope for the race. On Saturday it was straight into 2WD qualifying – four rounds and best two counts. Daniel Kobbevkik took all qualify rounds by a huge margin, it was very open on podium spots behind Daniel, and nothing was settled before last A-main. Four drivers were fighting for the remaining podium spots: Adrian Sognestad had two 2nd place finished, but both Petter Berntsen and Oyvind Stusdal had one 3rd place each, and if they could take a win in last final they would push him down to 3rd. Vincent Ruger, another young and upcoming driver, was also in the mix for the podium, and he also needed a win to make it.
Round 1 of the Dutch IC Track Nationals was held at the Baanbrekers track in Rucphen this past weekend. This year both the 1/8th and 1/10th classes will be run on the same weekend which makes for a busy Sunday for many. Also the Rucphen track will host the May round of the ENS, so many drivers used the event to get some laps under their belt. Saturday’s practice already showed that Milan Holthuis would be the guy to beat. Consistently fast he had quickly adapted to the switch of handout tyre supplier this year. Sunday qualifying would see Milan take the TQ but the gap to Julius Kolff in 2nd was under two seconds so there was room for interesting fights in the final. 3rd on the grid was for Jurmin Etnel. The gap from 4th to 8th position in qualifying was also less than a second so close racing was guaranteed. Noteworthy were the two new drivers this year. Both only 11 years old, they made the step up from the GT class and did very well. Merijn Schipper showed promise, but was held back by some engine tuning issues. Boris Kolff qualified for the A-main on his first 1/10th race and showed smooth lines all day.
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The second round of the NitroXCross Summer Series was once again held at the Brookthorpe track in the UK. When the dust had settled the winner was Team Associated’s Mike Lewis with veteran racer, Graham Alsop (HB Racing) coming on the runner-up spot. Team Associated’s Matt Lewis would round out the top 3 results.
Source: BRCA [brca.org]
The opening round of the Greek 1/10th scale nitro championship was held at the Fanatix Racing Track in Athens. After five rounds of qualifying, Vasilis Lykaris managed to grab the pole position for the main final but he would crash in the warm-up laps and asked for some extra time which dropped him back to 13th position on the starting grid. On the opening lap Lykaris jumped into 4th position behind Papachristos, followed by Lekkas (5th), Karabelas (6th) and Kostas Sidiropoulos on the 7th spot. Some ten minutes before the finish of the race Sidiropoulos faced an engine failure and lost any chance for a good result. Up front Karabelas did a great race and though he ran two finals, his car still was running perfectly till the end of the A-main, finishing 2nd while Vasilis Lykaris brought his car home on the top of the podium, having a perfect start for the season after 3 consecutive championships.
Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]
Round 4 of CTS4 was held at the beautiful Valkaria RC Raceway in Grant Valkaria, Florida this past weekend. The weather was in the high 80’s and the track was enhanced with raised curbing for better racing experience on the former ROAR Nationals circuit. Located next to an airport and surrounded by a pond gives the atmosphere a very pleasant attraction site. In the Modified division Mike Gee (Awesomatix) showed the way during practice turning the fastest lap and secured TQ honors after Q1. Sitting out Q2 it was Dave Vera (Awesomatix) who showed the way over Corey Parsons finishing a couple of seconds behind Gee’s finishing time. Vera would then win Q3 closer to his original time but fell short of the TQ position.
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