The 2018 Russian National On-road Championship were recently held at the LEMAR ModelSport racing track located close to the city of Rostov-On-Don. The fairly new facility is located in the southern part of the country and offered perfect racing conditions for the pilots. In the 1/10th 200mm class it was Alexey Butuzov who lead an all-Xray A-main result from Mikhail Bykov 2nd and Alexander Naumov 3rd.
The 2018 O.S. Off-road Challenge was held at the Yoshino-Works track in Shiojiri, Japan this past weekend. In the Pro Nitro Buggy class it was Mugen driver Atsushi Hara with the win from Kyosho’s Yusuke Sugiura on the runner-up spot as Mugen’s Kenji Tsuruta took the final podium spot.
Source: Mugen [mugenseiki.com]
The 2018 EFRA 1/8th Nitro Buggy European Championship was held in Portugal this past week. Qualifying at the Radiomodelismo de Freixedas track was dominated by Davide Ongaro as the Italian phenomenon swept all five rounds of qualifying to put a vice like grip on this 1/8th IC Off Road European Championship. Reigning European Champions Robert Batlle qualified 2nd, and was Davide’s closet challenger though never getting within five seconds of his time. Bruno Coelho was a surprise 3rd overall the versatile Portuguese eliciting the help of Ty and Gord Tessman over from Canada to help set up and run his car, with instant results as when left to just do the stick work there are few Bruno’s equal. Reigning world champion David Ronnefalk had a torrid time in qualification with poor tyre choices and failures leaving him to scrape into 4th overall, still without a decent set-up. Juan Carlos Canas was our 5th qualifier, and left rueing what might have been when a miscommunication in round 2 saw him come in to the pits when he still had another lap to complete, those lost points would have put him 3rd. The one factor none of the drivers could avoid was the oppressive heat, with 38°C all thru Friday and the chance that the finals would be even hotter.
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The Model Race Genk club played host to round 5 of the Dutch 1/8th scale IC Track Nationals last weekend. In the premier NK class it was Robbin Hertong with the win from Roy Bakker and Arie Manten. With the win of Robbin and a bad weekend for Jeffrey, the title decision will likely go down to the wire at the very last race of the championship.
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Last weekend the third round of the Austrian IC Championship took place at the MAC Amstetten club in hot summer temperatures of around 35°C. In the 1/10 Nitro class everything went according to plan for Gerhard Kandelhart, taking TQ honours followed by Leonardo Varga, Christoph Rohrmoser and Franz Engel in 4th place (all Shepherd). The final saw a clean start with everyone trying to avoid contact and the first four drivers were able to break away from the field quite quickly. At the first stop for fuel, Leonardo pitted a lap later and could take over the lead with Gerhard loosing time coming in and out of the pits with some traffic finally ended in a crash and an engine flame-out. Gerhard fought his way back to 2nd place through, but eventually risked too much and went out of fuel two laps before the end. Thus Leonardo Varga took the lead and the race wing and secured himself a maiden Austrian Championship title. The other podium spots were taken by Franz Engel and Gerhard Kandelhart.
Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]
The 2018 King of Kings race was held at Stateline R/C Raceway in Fremont, Indiana. In the Pro Nitro Buggy class Team Associated’s Cole Tollard came back from a flameout halfway through the final and ended up winning the class by almost a full lap from HB Racing’s Spencer Heckert 2nd and Team Associated’s Austin Horne 3rd.
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This past weekend the Queensland Championships was held at the world class facility England Park Raceway located in Brendale. The weekend consisted of tough, close racing but at the end of the 30-minute final it was to be Nick Salib taking the win driving his Infinity. 2nd was Jeff Hamon driving a Mugen and 3rd Steven Jovanovic driving a Capricorn.
Source: Creation Model [creationmodel.net]
Round 8 of the Chilean National IC Track Championship was hosted by the Aeromodelos de Chile club in Santiago de Chile. In the 1/8th class Francisco Lara (Serpent/Picco) from Spain, after been out of the racing scene for eleven months, took the overall TQ, scoring a new track record of 22.151s in the process. From the tone Francisco took the lead while a huge battle for the 2nd place was going on between Alvaro Jara (Shepherd/Sonic), Matias Otaegui (Xray/Sonic) and Cristobal Herrera. Later however Francisco ran into trouble as his car was loosing performance, allowing Alvaro, Cristobal and Matias to get by. Soon after Cristobal began to attack Jara on every short straight and in every curve, trying to show his car in Jara’s “mirror”. When the final five minutes began, Jara’s car suffered a flame out but thanks to some quick pit work he was able to bring home a 3rd place behind runner-up, Matias Otaegui and eventual winner, Cristobal Herrera.
