Homestead RC Raceway of Florida, USA, was selected to host the 2018 IFMAR 200mm Nitro On-road World Championships. Home of the 2011 1/8th Worlds that gave Mugen Seiki’s Robert Pietsch his first IFMAR title, the club is used to organising high-class events on his long 305 metres track with the next one being the 2016 ROAR Fuel On-road Nationals in October.
View an image of the 2011 Worlds track here
The sixth and final round of the Xray Turkish On-road Championships were held at the Bursa Bumod track. This was actually the fifth round this year as round five was cancelled due to sanctions all of the country at that time. The 1/10th 200mm Nitro A-main saw Mustafa Alp loosing the lead in the opening stages as he took off a little bit late which allowed P2 starter, Halit Körpe to jumbo into the lead. Mustafa though was able to soon pass Halit for the lead and he started to pull away right away. At about 6 minutes into the race Alp already started to lap the field and from that moment on the went into cruise mode. About 50 laps into the race, Halit ran into issues and he had to retire, promoting Alain into second place. A planned stop for tyres didn’t change anything up front and so Mustafa took an easy win some six laps ahead of Alan with Onur rounding out the top 3 result. Overall in the championship Mustafa brought home the tittle from Halit Körpe on the runner-up spot and Alain Sarafyan who completed the championship podium.
The third round of the South African Gas On-road National Championships was held at the long and testing DMCC race track in Durban, Kwazulu-Natal. Conditions for the weekend would prove a little bit unpredictable with rain for most of official practice on Friday. Driver’s setups made in open practice would need to be tweaked with very little time to get ready for Saturday qualifiers. 1/8 Scale would see the battle between Jacques Liebenberg (Capricorn) and Wayne Joelson (Mugen) be hotly contested. With both drivers equal on qualifying points, the decider would come down to last round with Liebenberg taking it to a tie breaker and the TQ with only 0.3 seconds ahead of Joelson. Harold van Eeden (Capricorn) who has been showing his metal this year would claim the last top 3 spot.
Continue reading the report here
Hosted by the St. Louis Dirt Burners, this year was the 10th Annual Futaba Nitro Challenge. With over 200 entries, this race drew racers from all over the country to compete in the 3-day event. Qualifying would be held on Friday and Saturday, and the mains on Sunday. This year also featured the Dash for Cash exhibition and double A-mains for the Pro classes. In Pro Nitro Buggy Cole Ogden would take the overall TQ from Josh Wheeler in second.
This past weekend the Pro-Line test track in Banning, California held the famous SikCross event. This was the second annual event put on by Levi Jackson and as per usual, the event was unique. There were three qualifiers with each one counting and points were given on how high racers have finished their race. The races were heads-up, gate start and super exciting moto cross style legs. But qualifying didn’t mean much as it just allowed the pick of gate position. The nitro mains were also unique in that they were basically a typical 45 minute A-main but broken up into three, 15-minute races back to back with 5-minute breaks in between. This break allowed for a change of tyres or air filter or if a driver happened to have a mechanical failure as there was another chance in the next one. All three counted and so every position was paramount.
Continue reading the report here
Team Infinity have announced the addition of Germany’s Oliver Mack and Armin Weihert to their already star studded factory team. Oliver, who spent close to a decade with Shepherd, claimed his first EFRA European A title with the German team in 2015 is joined in the move by long time pitman Weihart who has worked at Shepherd for more than a decade. The pairing has already had a successful first outing with the car during last weekend’s Novarossi Trophy in Fiorano with the next big races being the German Nationals followed by the fourth and final round of the ENS held in Fiorano in October. Oliver has the following to say about the deal:
I want to thank Shepherd and the Schäfer family for the past 8 years that were crowned by the European Championship title in 2015. I am now looking forward to the new adventure with Infinity. My first outing with the new car was already pretty successful and I am very excited to run it at the German Nationals and the ENS in Italy.
Source: Infinity [creationmodel.net]
This past weekend the 2016 Novarossi Trophy was held at the Fiorano track in Italy with some of the country’s fastest nitro on-road drivers in attendance. The 1/8th on-road class saw Infinity’s Lamberto Collari walking away with the win in the 30-minute A-main from Capricorn’s Dario Balestri in second and WRC’s Andrea Pirani in third. Carmine Raiola and Alberto Picco rounded out the top 5 result.
The final round of the 2016 French 1/8th On-road Championship was held at the Beaumont-Monteux track last weekend. The weather was perfect with warm temperatures and bright sunshine. Leading the championship going into the final round Arnaud Mathieu (Capricorn) would only need a fifth place finish to take the overall Elite class title. The qualifiers saw Christophe Louis (Mugen) taking the top spot in front of Leo Arnold (Xray), one of the title contenders, while Arnaud Mathieu rounded out the top 3.
