The opening round of the 2018 ERCE Open Championship was held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands with 15 racers attending in the 17.5T Touring class. Jari van de Wal took the TQ after the qualifiers and in the finals he was hotly chased by Mark Tullemans in A1 and A2, but ultimately it was Jari who hold the upper hand to take the win from Mark Tullemans 2nd and Dave Lunenburg 3rd.
Source: HRC Distribution [hrcdistribution.com]
With the two carpet races on this year’s Yokomo Euro Touring Series leaving Marc Rheinard and Bruno Coelho sharing the lead in the points table, the championship moves to Spain this weekend (13-15 April) for Europe’s first major international outdoor race of 2018. With the large Asoger track having made a popular debut on the ETS calendar 12-months ago, it was to be Coelho who would go down as the first winner in Madrid enroute to the successful defence of his championship title. Like last season, the Xray driver again starts off the switch to asphalt at the top of the points but this time he shares it with Rheinard. The Infinity driver won the season opener in Austria ahead of Coelho with the duo swapping positions at Round 2 and now they each want to leave Spain with a second win and break clear of their rivals.
The warm-up race for the 2018 IFMAR Electric On-road World Championships will be held on the weekend of the 29th of April at the Welkom RC Arena in Welkom, South Africa. It is a joint event with round 2 of the SARDA Nationals and the race also marks the opening of the new asphalt indoor facility. Scotty Ernst has been confirmed as race control and the announcer at this event with ten professional and International drivers attending the warm-up. The owner and host Antonio Caroli is working day and night to prepare the facility to ensure that a memorable event is presented with the track’ most important features are complete such as main building, asphalt track and drivers stand, toilets and showers, bar area, on site hobby shop and the kitchen and bar area. The purposely built pit tables will be installed next week and then all other cosmetics and final touches done over the next few months.
The second round of the French Brushless Championship was held at the Pierrefeu track last weekend. TLR’s Jerome Sartel took the TQ in the E-Buggy class and he would also come out on top after the A-mains to take the win from Kyosho’s Rayan Medjoubi 2nd and Team Associated driver Cyril Baldini 3rd. Over in the E-Truggy class it was again Jerome with the TQ and win, leaving behind TLR’s Felix Koegler and Mugen’s Gerald Delaguette in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Image: Rayan Medjoubi
The first round of this year’s Asian Onroad Championships was held at Shanghai’s RCIv2 facility. In Modified Touring it was the two Team Destiny drivers Yugo Nagashima and Jin Sawada, claiming a win each in the opening A-mains, who would decide the race for the overall win. In the hunt though for a top spot also was 2nd qualifier Xray driver JJ Wang who had a 2nd and a 4th place finish coming into the A3 final. The top four on the grid got away cleanly at the sound of the tone and freight trained through the field with only 3-seconds separating them. They would carry this momentum along with super clean racing and finish the way they started. Yugo Nagashima would claim his second win and overall win. JJ Wang claimed 2nd and with his other finishes put him 3rd on the podium and Jin Sawada finished 3rd, but with his other finishes he would claim the over all 2nd.
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The Swiss Chiasso club recently held a club race and in the Touring Modified class it was Philipp Uber with the win. Local hero Antonino Mangiaracina seemed a bit quicker in the finals, however Philipp would take profit of a DNF and new tyres, meaning he would be able to secure the win as Markus Streuli rounded out the podium result in 3rd.
Source: HRC Distribution [hrcdistribution.com]
The second round of the Italian Large Scale On-road Championship was held in Gubbio last weekend. Alessio Mazzeo would bring home the win in the 30-minutes Expert Touring A-main from Edoardo Repetti in 2nd and Nicola Marrone 3rd. Andrea Catalani and Ambrogio would round out the top 5 result.
Source: Tourex [tourex-competition.com]
Last weekend saw the running of the 2018 Serpent Cup at Sydney’s John Grant International Raceway in Moorebank, NSW, Australia. With big numbers in each of the classes, the racing was hotly contested and humid conditions over three days hosted by the New South Wales Radio Controlled Car Racing Club. Mugen Seiki factory driver Jeff Hamon, competing in 1/8th scale, 200mm Touring and EP Modified over the weekend was the early pace setter in Nitro Tourer taking the TQ ahead of some very fast local drivers. George Karozis displayed a great turn of pace and consistency in qualifying, only to be out qualified at the final attempt by Serpent driver David Chen and the Xray driver Andrew Bardetta in the last round of qualifying on Sunday morning, while Tim Moylan, Ricky Kradolfer and youngster Braydon Stanley (all Mugen) rounded out the top 7 direct spots to the A-main final.
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