The 2017 BarCup was held this past weekend at the Barco-off track in Barco, Italy. Alessandro Stocco took the TQ and win in the F1 class with his Reds-powered TLR buggy from TLR/Reds Racing team mate, Alessandro Castoldi while Leonardo Valente (JQRacing/Reds Racing) completed the podium result in 3rd.
Source: Reds Racing [reds-racing.com]
The French RC94 club in Sucy-en-Brie held an 1/8th Nitro Buggy regional race over the weekend and it was Samuel Miroir who took the TQ after the qualifiers. In the 30-minute 1/8th Nitro Open class main final however it was Vincent Meertens (TLR/RC Concept), who only sat in P11 after the qualifiers and who would set the pace to bring home the win one lap ahead of Thomas Carandi (Kyosho/Novarossi) in 2nd and Pierre Raboulin (Mugen/Ninja) in 3rd.
Source: RC Concept [rcconcept.net]
The second round of the Italian GT National Championship was held at the Cassino track over the weekend. In the Expert class Francesco Tironi took a convincing win in front of Giuseppe D’Angelo and Loris Luise. In the F2 category young Andrea Catanzani would come out fastest in the main final from another youngster, Antonio Romano, while Mauro Mieli had to settle for 3rd overall.
The 2017 Nordic Contest was held in Eskilstuna, Sweden over the weekend. The event was also the warm-up race for the EFRA 1/8th Nitro Buggy European Championships later this year and so it attracted most of Europe’s top racers to battle for the winning honours in the 1/8th Nitro and E-Buggy classes. In the Nitro category it was Kyosho’s Elliott Boots who walked away with the silverware after the 45-minute main final, leaving the pole position holder, Sweden’s David Ronnefalk (HB Racing) behind by one lap while Mugen’s Robert Batlle completed the top 3 result another lap down in 3rd. Kyosho’s Joao Figueiredo came in 4th, a lap in front of overall top qualifier Davide Ongaro (Team Associated). Oscar Baldo (TLR), Joseph Quagraine (JQRacing), Darren Bloomfield (Agama), Infinity’s Lee Martin, running a HB Racing car, and Tekno RC’s Alex Zanchettin rounded out the top 10 result that saw eight different brands competing in the main final.
Image: Robert Batlle
The recent second round of the Australian National Series attracted almost 200 entries for the 1/8 Buggy and Truck classes. The 4-day event was held in Melbourne and it started off on Thursday were two rounds of practice and the first round of qualifying was held. The track was very hard packed. Kyle McBride started off by taking both the Nitro Buggy and Nitro Truggy TQ in the opening qualifier and at the end of day two Kyle managed to smash the field and take the overall TQ in both Buggy and Truck on Friday evening. The finals were run on the weekend and right before the big final it started to rain so Kyle went out on a risky tyre strategy on his truck for the one hour A-main. This turned out to be an excellent choice as halfway through the race more and more rain came, but he had stretched himself out to a few laps’ lead over the whole field. The event organizers decided to cut the race down to 45 minutes due to the track getting dangerous for marshals meaning Kyle would take his first win of the weekend. On Sunday McBride cruised to an easy win in the semi-final to put myself on pole for the long, 1-hour main ahead. He got off to a good start and never looked back to take the win from tone to tone to take the double TQ and double win at the Australian Nationals round 2.
View the Nitro Buggy podium here
The 4th annual The Dirt Lone Star Challenge was held at Thornhill Racing Circuit. The race has been growing yearly, bringing in more entries each year, this time totalling 358. This year for the track layout Joey and Thornhill decided to incorporate a “joker” lane into the track. The joker lane was optional and you could use it one time per qualifier per class and twice for each main per class; it was an easier and faster section which saved about 5 to 7 seconds off a lap. In the 30-minute Pro Nitro Buggy final Jake Dellinger started 2nd behind Noah Dickerson. The tone went off and Jake followed Dickerson around for the first two laps. Both of them used their joker on lap 1 but for lap 2 Noah took the normal line while Jake took the joker again, giving him an instant 5 to 6 second lead, which he turned into a 10 to 12 second lead before Dickerson ran into mechanical issues. Ultimately Jake went on to finish the main in first, nearly a lap and a half on 2nd.
Continue reading the report here
The second round of the Belgian nitro on-road nationals was held at the Model Race Genk track last weekend. Due to a motocross track near the RC circuit traction was hard to find thanks to a dust layer on the surface, meaning lot of setup work for all drivers. Ultimately Robin D’hondt would make the best out of the conditions, taking the pole position for the A-mains and grabbing the day’s win some seven laps in front of Yves Zoma in 2nd and Raphaël Benkhélifa, who ended the 30-minute race another two laps down in 3rd.
Source: Capricorn [capricornrc.com]
The NSW State Championship was held at the John Grant Raceway in Sydney, Australia. From the moment practice started on Thursday, Aaron lee was setting the pace but after some solid consistent qualifying Jeff Hamon took the TQ spot by one point. The crowd at the track saw a final that was going to go down to the wire. The start was clean until Aaron made a mistake and dropped five seconds and completed the first lap in last place. Putting his head down Aaron had made his way back to 2nd place by the first pit stop. Pushing hard the gap was closing on Hamon out front. By the second pit stop Hamon had flamed out which gave Aaron Lee (Shepherd) the lead that he would hold onto until the checkered, winning by four laps and also setting the fastest lap of the race. Kane Alderton (Xray) in 2nd place and Leigh Dytor (Mugen) in 3rd were completing the podium.
Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]
