Red RC » Gas

May 2, 2025

Kilic closer but another TQ run for Ongaro

While a repeat of the opening qualifier result, Q2 at the Philippine Masters saw Mugen Seiki’s Burak Kilic get a lot closer to Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro. With a 1-second buffer over the Manila race first timer in Q1, the defending back to back winner of Asia’s biggest annual 1:8 Offroad race had just 4/10ths in hand over Kilic in the second round, the later saying afterwards traffic had cost him a the chance of the TQ. Summing up his run Ongaro reported the wind was causing him some issues but added ‘wind is part of the game and you can do nothing. For the rest (of the run) it was good’. On his performance Kilic said, ‘It was really good but just held me up from making the TQ. I mean it was the same for Davide he also had many traffic but we made a good race’. While the original schedule for Friday’s action was just two qualifiers, the event famous driver’s banquet taking place this evening in the capital city, the threat of rain tomorrow means drivers will go at it one more time today with a third round of qualifying. While up front things looked, again the Top 2 the only drivers to cover 9-laps, the second round produced some notable improvements from Naoto Matsukra and Pekko Iivonan who posted the 3rd and 4th fastest times ahead of Ryan Lutz. Having had a Top 3 in Q1, Sworkz diver Mattia Polito could only manage P7, the Italian reporting he had a complete lack of traction this time round.

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May 2, 2025

Ongaro from Kilic as qualifying gets underway in Manila

With qualifying getting underway at the Philippine Masters in Manila this morning, it was Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro who topped the first of the 4 scheduled qualifiers from Mugen Seiki’s Burak Kilic. Having topped yesterday’s seeding from Infinity’s Kouki Kato, Ongaro completed 9-laps of the Circulo Verde Track over the 5-minute qualifier with Kilic, the only other drive to make 9-laps, just 1-second off. It was to be a frustrating start to qualifying for Kato as he crashed on his opening lap and needed to be marshal. Losing 4-seconds, the fired up Japanese driver would go on to set the fastest lap by an impressive margin as he recovered to salvage a P5. Making it an all European based Top 3, Italy’s Mattia Polito managed to go ahead of Kyosho’s Ryan Lutz on the final lap. Seeded No.8, the American lost 3/10ths of a second to the Sworkz driver on their 8th lap giving Polito 3rd for the round by just 0.048. Behind them reigning Asian Buggy Championships Champion Christian Wolhuter completed the Top 6, this weekend’s second round of the Cayote backed championship the Australian Sworkz driver’s first outing of the season.

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May 1, 2025

Kilic fastest in SP2, Kato maintains top seed status

He said after SP1 he felt his car would be faster for the second seeding round at the Philippine Masters and that turned out to be the case as Burak Kilic took his Nova Engines powered Mugen Seiki to the fastest 2-consecutive laps. Going one better than he did in the morning’s opening round, Kilic’s time however would not better than that set by Kouki Kato, that time still more than 2/10ths of a second faster around the technical track where currently 36.8-seconds are the benchmark lap times. Behind Kilic, Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik set the second fastest time with an improvement of 5/10ths on his SP1 effort. Almost half a second off his morning time, something he put down down his tyre prep, Kato would complete the Top 3 ahead of his Infinity team-mate Naoto Matsukura who was much happier with his latest effort. Fifth fastest in SP1, Sworkz’ Mattia Polito again rounded out the Top 5 of the high qualify field ahead of the race’s defending champion Davide Ongaro.

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May 1, 2025

Kato sets early pace at Philippine Masters

Infinity’s Kouki Kato has set the pace in the opening round of seeding practice at the Philippine Masters, the Japanese driver fastest by a decent margin over 2-consecutive laps of this year’s more technical Manila track layout. The second round of the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships, Kato was the winner of last season’s championship finale in Indonesia but this weekend marks his first trip to the legendary Philippines race and it was another of the race’s first timers, Mugen Seiki’s Burak Kilic, who was his closest rival 7/10ths of a second back with the rest of the Top 5 covered by just 2/10ths. The first of the three seeding rounds that make up Thursday schedule would see Team Associated’s reigning World Champion Davide Ongaro complete the Top 3 ahead of team-mate Alex Bernadzik with Italy’s Mattia Polito fifth as the leading Sworkz driver.

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April 28, 2025

Fuller hits the big time with clean sweep at Silver State

Sworkz’s Mason Fuller hit the big time as he completed a clean sweep at the 2025 Silver State Indoor Championships, the young American talent taking his first major win in style to come away from the Las Vegas event with four winners trophies. With latest edition of the Joey Christensen event attracting just over 700 entries, qualifying saw Muller lay down his intentions as he took two of the three qualifiers to secure the TQ for the blue ribbon Nitro Buggy final. Behind him, team-mate Juan Carlos Canas was fastest in Q2 to secure the P2 starting position for the defence of the title the Spaniard won last year. Kyosho’s young talent Phi-Long Nguyen qualified P3 ahead of Tekno’s Dirt Nitro Challenging winning duo Seth VanDalen and Ryan Maifield. In the final, having already taken the wins in Nitro Truggy, Electric Truggy, and eBuggy, Muller delivered the big one to win the 45-minute encounter by 23-seconds from Canas. FEMCA Champion Nguyen took the final step on the podium ahead of Team Associated pairing Spencer Rivkin and Brandon Rose.

Image: TheDirt Racing [Facebook]

March 23, 2025

Edmunds earns biggest career win at Asian Buggy Championships opener

Mayako Youth Mentoring Program driver Jayden Edmunds earned the biggest win of his career today with victory in New Zealand following an exciting season opener to the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships. With the Counties RC Car Club track hosting the first of the four encounters that make up the third season of the 1:8 Offroad Championship, Edmunds sent the first hint of his potential when he topped the second round of qualifying before the highly experienced Kyle McBride hit his stride to take the final two qualifiers and the overall TQ. Lining up P3 for the 45-minute final behind Sworkz’s Jayden Jamieson, after plenty of shuffling for position at the start, four different leaders in the opening four minutes, Edmunds would settle into serious contention when he took the lead from HB Racing’s Logan Toia on lap 33. With McBride and Toia, who had three stints at leading, both suffering multiple flameouts ending their challenges, Edmunds would find himself under attack from fellow countryman Caleb Noble. With a very fast car, his Tekno posting the fastest lap of the race, Noble went to the front with a nice pass coming onto the main straight however as both drivers made their final pit stops, Noble pitting a lap earlier, Edmunds’ stop helped him to retake the lead. Again Caleb appeared quicker but Edmunds played it cool. As they came around to start their final lap, a mistake by Noble gave Edmunds the breathing room he needed to secure a very popular first international race win. Finishing 6-seconds back, Top Seed Noble was clearly unhappy with his second place. Opening the event strongly with a TQ in the opening qualifier, before starting to feel under the weather on Saturday, Jamieson was happy to survive to finish P3 and claim the Kiwi’s first Asian Buggy Championships podium finish in Nitro Buggy. Just 3.6-seconds back, the WIRC of eBuggy podium finisher and local racer Kasey Dawson capped off an impressive weekend with fourth while Dylan Toia completed the Top 5.

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March 22, 2025

McBride Top Qualifier at Asian Buggy Championships season opener

Kyle McBride is the Top Qualifier at the season opener of the Cayote supported Asian Buggy Championships. The Australian secured pole for tomorrow’s 45-minute Nitro Buggy A-Main when he took the fourth & final round of qualifying in New Zealand this morning. After yesterday’s 3-rounds of qualifying at the Counties RC Car Club track produced three different winners, it set the stage for a four way battle for the overall TQ between McBride, Sworkz’s Jayden Jamieson, Mayako’s Jayden Edmunds and WIRC’s Kasey Dawson. Having ended yesterday with a TQ run in Q3, mistakes costing him dearer in the opening two heats, McBride would make his intentions for Day 2 of qualifying very clear early on as he kicked things off with his first TQ run in the final eBuggy round. With the top heat of Nitro Buggy bringing a close to qualifying, McBride delivered the only 10-lapper to take Q4 ahead of Tekno’s Caleb Noble, Edmunds and Jamieson. Overall it will be Jamieson who will start from P2 ahead of Edmunds, Noble and Dawson with Logan Toia’s HB Racing buggy completing the top half of the starting grid which features buggies from 6 different manufacturers! While it was a double TQ run morning for McBride, Noble again his closest rival, the honour of Top Qualifier for the triple A-Main of eBuggy goes to Logan Toia with McBride starting P2 and Top Seed Dawson third.

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November 23, 2024

Groskamp back on top of the World

Jilles Groskamp is back on top of the World, the Infinity driver becoming the new IFMAR 1:10 Onroad World Champion at the Huge RC Circuit in Bangkok 12-years after winning the Electric Touring Car World Title. Having booked his way directly into the 1-hour Main by winning Super Pole, Groskamp would in the end cruise to victory to become Nitro Touring Car’s 10th different Champion as outgoing Champion Tadahiko Sahashi struggled in his quest to be the first driver to successful defend the title. Starting as the Top Qualifier, this being his second time to secure pole at the Worlds, Teemu Leino’s race lasted less than 10-minutes as the Finn flipped his Infinity after his second fuel stop and the impact with the boards broke a front shock. With 2018 Champion Naoto Matsukura looking like he was on to repeat his earlier dominant Semi final performance, as the race reached halfway and he had a clear lead over the field, a touch of the curbing ended his challenge. The subsequent impact after the roll would break a rear shock shaft but with the car still running on the spring he would limp home in P6, 7-laps down on his winning team-mate. For 1:8 World Champion Dario Balestri a dead receiver battery would cause him to crash out of a podium finish and DNF with just over 2-minutes to go. Behind Jilles, having managed to un-lap himself towards the end of the race, Capricorn’s Toni Gruber would claim second with tenth place starter Charlee Phutiyothin making it two Capricorns on the podium.

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