The final round of the Lalihouse Indoor Offroad Series was held this past weekend with a special guest in appearance. Two time IFMAR World Champion Atsushi Hara was there to battle against a fast bunch of local talent and in the 1/10h 4WD Electric Buggy class Hara soon made his intensions clear by taking the overall TQ and winning all three A-mains to take the day’s win from young Jonathan Yeung on the runner-up spot.
Circulo Verde’s CV Race Track played host to the 3rd Annual Philippines Underdawg Race. The event is the only race where nitro buggies run together without the usual segregation between expert, intermediate and novice drivers; this way everybody gets a chance to compete against everyone else. Paul Capino set the TQ but with the finals underway, Capino lost his grip on the lead with a loose engine mount screw and the rest of the field battled it out for the next 55 minutes. In the end, Sherwin Yu took the win followed very closely by former electric driver Gerome Ling. Raffy Abello and Nani Tagle would round out the third and fourth spots respectively, making it an all Team Associated top 4.
Source: Team Associated [teamassociated.com]
Sign-up for the 17th annual The Dirt Nitro Challenge will start next Friday, November 20th. For the first time in the 17 year history of the DNC the organisers are limiting entries for the 1/8th scale track, something that is needed after a huge amount of last-minute entries at the 2015 edition. Capping of the entries at around 650 will ensure a smooth event for everyone including time schedules for the weekend and finishing each night at reasonable hours. More information about the iconic event as well as sign-up are available here.
The third consecutive season of the Austrian King of Carpet series will kick off on the 28th of November at the technical Black Art Raceway in Traiskirchen. The series is run in the classes of 1/12th Modified and 10.5T Blinky, 1/10th 10.5T 1S Blinky on CRC or Contact control tyres and a 21.5T Formula class run on Ride ETS tyres. The single day races take place on Saturday with free practice in the morning followed by three rounds of qualifying and single mains, with the B-final winners bumping up into the A-main. More information and sign-in can be found here.
The recent 2015 Australian National Titles were hosted by the Whalan Model Car Club in Sydney. Simon Nicholson (Yokomo) would top qualify in the Touring Modified class from VBC’s Ryan Maker who ran the prototype of VBC’s upcoming D08 car. HB’s driver Jason Dorn would round out the top 3 after the qualifiers. The finals then saw Ryan take the win in A1 and A3, handing him the overall Australian National Title from Simon Nicholson in second and Ari Bakla (Xray) in third.
Source: VBC Racing [vbcracing.com]
Round three of the Florida State Series was held last weekend at the world famous Fort Myers track with a decent turnout of seven heats between all classes. In 1/8th qualifying Paolo Morganti and DJ Apolaro exchanged the TQ position a couple of times with Paolo getting the overall TQ. DJ would start 2nd on the grid and was looking for a good battle as both had very similar pace throughout the weekend. The final came and it did not disappoint as DJ had a few chances to make a pass, but did not want to chance hitting Paolo and making things bad for both of them. DJ waited to see if pit cycles would help him, but they did not. Both ended running within one second the entire race for the most part and at a very high pace with low 11 second laps. DJ got the lead in the middle of the race and was running strong till he had a little issue in the pits and was back to 2nd, chasing again. At around the 20 minute mark Paolo made an error in the high-speed “S” section of the track and with DJ being so close he actually collected him. At first it looked like DJ’s car broke, but it just damaged the body. He took the lead and two laps later it started to rain, allowing DJ to take the win from Paolo Morganti and Tony Rice in a shortened race. Elsewhere in the 200mm Sedan class it was Rino Lino who would take the win.
View the 200mm Sedan podium here
The opening round of the Czech Xray Winter Series was held in Kolin in several electric on-road and off-road classes. In Touring Modified Xray’s own Martin Hudy laid down a flawless performance with his biggest rivals being Jiri Vysin and Jiri Janousek and at the end this would also be the top 3 order. Karel and Martin Kratochvil rounded out the top 5 result.
The first ever Masters of Dirt Indoor Championships were held at BeachRC’s legendary Carolina indoor clay track and the storyline became immediately obvious; could local rising star Griffin Hanna hold off the proven talents of former world champion Steven Hartson to earn the first ever Master of Dirt title. Just a week prior the layout was flattened, as the ever evolving venue played host to a dirt oval race, The Dixie Nationals. However a fast and flowing off-road layout had been carved out with plenty of whip worthy features available for the racers to test their equipment and skills. In Saturday’s qualifying Griffin Hanna’s feverish pace proved too much for the traveling Hartson to deal with. Griffin’s Serpent kits on JConcpet rubber were able to clinch top honors in Pro 2WD Buggy, 4WD Buggy, and Stadium Truck. Hartson would settle to start in the 2nd spot in those three classes, but with double 10 minute A-mains on the menu for Sunday everything was still up for grabs.
