The opening round of the Swiss 1/8th Off-road National Championship was held this past weekend. In the Expert class Patrick Hofer would bring home the win in the 45-minute main final one lap ahead of Team Associated teammate Robby Lüber while Jeremy Pitted (HB Racing) ended the race in 3rd, some eight seconds short of Ronny’s time.
Source: Team Associated [facebook.com]
Ty Tessmann has completed the double at the Philippine Masters, the Xray driver winning the much anticipated buggy showdown with arch rival David Ronnefalk to add to his earlier Truggy victory in Manila. With both Tessmann and Ronnefalk’s participation in the 7th running of the Philippine Airlines sponsored race attracting much international interest, it was the latter who drew the first blood as the HB Racing driver claimed the TQ after 5 rounds of qualifying. In the final however, after some early battles and mistakes by both drivers it was Tessmann who had the upper hand as the Canadian took control of the race helped by a fuel strategy that meant two less visits to the pits over the 1-hour main. With 2nd place qualifier Kyle McBride suffering two flame outs at the start of the race, putting an end to him being in the mix, Atsushi Hara would make it an all World Champions podium at CV Offroad Track as he finished ahead of outgoing Philippine Masters Champion Adam Drake.
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Ty Tessmann has taken a convincing Truggy win at the Philippine Masters, the Xray driver winning the 1-hour Main in Manila from outgoing champion Adam Drake. Starting from second on the grid, the Canadian was gifted the lead at the start as Top Qualifier Kyle McBride had a fumbled set down on the grid. Once in front, Tessmann took control of the race and while McBride would recover and close to within 4-seconds of him it was all in vein. Chasing down the leader with six & a half minutes to go, the Australian would make a mistake in a 180 corner and facing into the oncoming traffic would get collected popping a right steering block. Continuing the lap & limping back to the pits, despite the best efforts of his pit crew they couldn’t force it back into position and his race was done. This promoted Drake to second with Aaron Stringer also moving up to complete the podium ahead of top local driver Jordan Go. Along with McBride, another of the international visitors to retire would be Atsushi Hara. Popping a steering rod early on but able to rejoin after being returned to the pits, the former World Champion would then run out of fuel twice before retiring at the 43-minute mark when he broke a front centre drive shaft.
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The second round of the Indonesia 1/8th Buggy National Championship was held this past weekend at the Maxspin track in Maribaya, West Java, Indonesia. A total of 74 drivers from Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Banjarmasin, Balikpapan, Bali, Kendari, Batam as well as local drivers attended the event whose schedule would see six rounds of 10-minutes qualifying although at the end only three rounds of 5-minutes qualifying would be held due to heavy rain. Ultimately Stanley Wangsanegara (HB Racing/O.S.) took the TQ honours and he would end the 45-minute main final on the runner-up spot while Adrian Sutanto (Kyosho/O.S.) came out successful. John Agus (Kyosho/O.S.) ended the day on the 3 spot.
The opening round of the Austrian 1/8th On-road National Championship was held at the Sollenau track over the weekend. Right from the start of the free practice it became clear that both Neijc Mihelic and team mate Herfried Pucher would be in the mix for the overall win. Come qualifying Pucher would walk away with the TQ in round one some 0.5 seconds in front of Mihelic. In round two the young Slovenian fought back and won in front of Pucher by 0.4 seconds and ultimately Mihelic would take the TQ honours in front of Pucher, who set a new track record in 16.876 seconds, being the only driver to score a sub-17 seconds lap. Pucher, Levy, Vignjevic and Dokter would be the drivers to attend in the Super Pole race with Pucher ultimately proceeding directly to the main final while the others had to go through their respective semi finals.
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Round 2 of the Italian Nitro Buggy National Championship was held at the Ongaroring over the weekend. The event started out with a rain-soaked track on Friday but the weather and track conditions would better throughout the weekend. Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro would sweep the Expert class by winning all qualifying rounds to take the overall TQ from Riccardo Berton (Kyosho) and Alex Zanchettin (Tekno). In the 45-minute main final it was again Davide who took control of things, ending the race one lap ahead of Riccardo Berton while Marco Baruffolo (TLR) completed the podium result another lap down in 3rd.
Image: Davide Ongaro
The opening round of the Austrian 1/8th Off-road National Championship was held in Graz over the weekend. In the 1/8th Nitro Buggy class and in a somewhat dramatic main final, Jürgen Trieb (SWorkz/TPro) would take the win by 0.5 seconds in front of Marc de Zwart (TLR/HotRace Tyres). Dominic Bauer (Mugen/Pro-Line) rounded out the podium result in 3rd. In the 40+ main final Wolfgang Heusel (TLR) would walk away with the win from Georg Horninger (SWorkz) in 2nd and Klaus Maunz (JQRacing) 3rd.
David Ronnefalk has claimed the overall TQ at the Philippine Masters, the HB Racing driver taking three of the five buggy qualifiers at the Manila based event. With drivers counting their best two rounds, Ronnefalk would be forced to wait until the final round to find out if he had pole for the 1-hour Main as arch rival Ty Tessmann had opened Day 2 of the event with a TQ run. Former winner Kyle McBride however would get the better of both World Champions in Q5, not only ensuring Ronnefalk pole position but also demoting Tessmann to third on the grid thanks to his time being quicker than Tessmann set in Q3.
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