July 27, 2011

Morganti & Burch win Timezone Gran Prix

Morganti & Burch win Timezone Gran Prix

Last weekend saw over 110 racers converge on the famous Timezone Raceway Park for the 3rd annual Timezone Gran Prix, located in Battle Ground Washington. The track is located on private property and only hosts one large event a year. This year’s entries included some of the top drivers from the Northwest, along with the factory pilots Paolo Morganti and Scott Kimbrow from Serpent, the current IFMAR 10th Scale World Champion Ralph Burch, Mike Swauger and Dave Ehrlich, along with Mugen drivers Richard St. Cyr and JJ Wang from Shanghai China. This was by far the largest and most competitive race ever held at Timezone with the freshly re-sealed track surface, the lap records fell all weekend. The European style ribbon track with banked corners and grass infield presented quite a challenge to all of the drivers and it was interesting to watch the drivers tune their cars and skills to adjust to the true road course conditions. After three rounds of qualifying on Saturday, it was Paolo Morganti that took TQ honours in 1/8th Open, Scott Kimbrow in 1/10th sedan and Ryan Newbury in 1/8th scale GT. In the 1/8th scale Open class it was pole man Paolo Morganti that took the win by 2 laps ahead of Richard St.Cyr, with Mike Swauger coming home in 3rd, 2 laps further back. In the 1/10th Sedan class it was WC Ralph Burch that won by 5 seconds from Scott Kimbrow with JJ Wang in 2nd, while in the GT class Jeff Holt won ahead of Ryan Newbury and Try McKune, the top 3 all on the same lap.

Source: Time Zone Racing [timezoneracing.com] / Image: Serpent


July 26, 2011

Takaaki Shimo wins Japanese 1/8th Nationals

Takaaki Shimo wins Japanese 1/8th Nationals

The JMRCA Japanese 1/8th scale on road Nationals were held last weekend at the Boss Speed track in Tokyo. Qualifying went the way of Serpent driver Masao Tanaka with Keisuke Fukuda and Takaaki Shimo completing the top 3. In the finals it was a close battle for the win between Fukuda and Shimo, with the Kyosho driver Shimo just taking the victory by a second ahead of the Mugen of Fukuda, while Kyosho driver Takahata took 3rd spot a lap further back with top qualifier Tanaka taking 4th. The win for Shimo is his 10th Japanese title.

View videos of the main final here


July 26, 2011

Martin Bayer wins 2011 1/5th European title

Martin Bayer wins 2011 1/5th European title

Last weekend saw the European Championships for large scale touring cars held in Leipzig, Germany. Qualifying would see Czech driver Ales Bayer take the pole position running the prototype RS5 Rx12 chassis ahead of Lauterbacher driver Markus Feldmann, but following the semi finals, in which Ales would run out of fuel while leading, it would be the German on pole starting just ahead of Martin Bayer in 2nd. In the final Feldmann would lead but after only 10 laps engine trouble would take the reigning champion out of the race allowing BA Arnaldi from France to inherit the lead. A later battle with Martin Bayer saw the Czech driver get past and bring home the win at the end of the 30 minute main to claim the European title ahead of Croatian Dario Vesali in 2nd with Arnaldi finishing in 3rd.

Image: RS5 Modelsport [rs5-modelsport.com]


July 23, 2011

Tony Knauth wins Aussiemove Rd2

ORCAussiemoveRd2

Tony Knauth has won the recent second round of this year’s Aussiemove off-road series at the OCR circuit. The Mugen driver was hard chases for the win by Marc Christianson (Mugen) and Serpent driver Tim Nicol. Fourth place after five rounds of running went to Nathan Tampe (Hyper) with Daniel White  (Mugen) in fifth place.

Source: OCR Raceway [ocrraceway.com]


July 22, 2011

Video – 2011 Futaba/O.S. Engine Nitro Challenge

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpEwis8KIIU[/youtube]

Check out the highlights from the 2011 Futaba/O.S. Engine Nitro Challenge “Dash for Cash” at the Dirt Burners Greentree R/C Raceway in St. Louis, MO by clicking the video above.

Source: Hobbico [hobbico.com]


July 22, 2011

Merril Myers wins @ Blue Diamond Park

Merril-Myers

Merrill Myers has won the 1/10 touring 200mm class at the 3rd annual Pete Johnson Have a Nice Day memorial Race at Blue Diamond Park. Merrill Myers (Shepard Velox v11) took down the win, sweeping two of the three legs with Mike Keely (Xray NT1) in second, and Irvine Cole (Capricorn Lab-C01) finishing third seven seconds over the TQ driver Juan Amador in fourth. It was a hard fought battle for third and fourth with the position changing many times of the course of the triple A’s. Merrill and Mike couldn’t be touched in first and second respectively.

Source: Sky Rocket Racing [skyrocketracing.com]


July 21, 2011

Nogueira & Coelho win Portuguese on-road nationals Rd4

PortugueseNationalsRd4-18scale

Ricardo Nogueira and Bruno Coelho won the recent fourth round of the Portuguese on-road nationals in 1/8 scale and 1/10 scale 200mm respectively. Bruno TQ’ed both classes but it was Ricardo Nogueira (Serpent/Novarossi) who won 1/8 scale after Mugen driver Bruno hit engine problems with 10 minutes to go. This helped Ricardo Costa (Mugen Seiki/Novarossi) to claim the second place with Coelho in third place.

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July 21, 2011

Hungarian Offroad Championships Rd4

Buggy

The 4th round of the Hungarian off-road Championships took place in Bokor last weekend at great weather conditions. The track raced on is about 370m long and made from a mix of soil and sand with many different artificial surfaces like carpet, stones and more at different places. The track owners, the Szebelledi family, did a great job again to make it a superb event. In the Buggy class it was Cseko Gergely who grabbed the TQ by winning 4 out of the 6 qualification rounds. All the usual frontrunners bumped up into the main from the semis except young Palla Balazs who forced to retire. The main final started without Bruzsa Richard who looked to be the main contender for the win showing great pace in the semi but was hit by throttle servo problems during the 3min warm-up and had to retire. After the start Gergely opened the gap ahead of the trio of Gabnai Gergo, Toth Bence and Szebelledi Laszlo. Laszlo looked to be the fastest among them but an inconsistent engine and several cut-offs prevented him to finish any of the top places. Gabnai Gergo and Toth Bence continued to battle with mainly Gergo being in front. However at the closing stage of the race Bence remained in front of Gergo and finished 2nd.

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