Robert Pietsch has taken the provisional pole position after one of four heats at the 1/8 nitro on-road European Championship in Locorotondo, located between Bari and Brindisi in the south of Italia. The Mugen factory driver has pushed the new MRX5 to 27 laps in 7.01,675 minutes. The MRX5, which has been responsibly designed by Robert Pietsch himself, will hit the market at the end of July.
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Byron Fuel Team Drivers Mike Swauger and Paolo Morganti took first place in 1/8 4WD and 1/10 Sedan at the 6th Annual Byron Fuels On-Road Challenge held last weekend at Leisure Hours Raceway in Joliet, Illinois. Mike Lyday took 1st place in the Spec GT Class. Of 9 podium positions in the 3 classes, Byron Fuel dominated all but one position and that was 2nd place Sedan. Byron Fuels hosts this on-road classic annually and while attracting world class drivers from coast to coast, it has traditionally provided a venue where our average club racer can drive alongside world champions.
Serpent have announced that former European Champion Oliver Simon, from Germany, has chosen the Serpent Cobra after intensive track testing. Oliver will race at next week’s European Championships in Portugal and will also compete in the German off road championships later this year.
Source: Serpent [serpent.com]
An exciting penultimate round of qualifying has brought Day 2 of the IFMAR 1:12 World Championships to a close with Marc Rheinard topping Q5 to end the domination of defending Champion Naoto Matsukura. Rheinard was the only driver to record 37 laps for the round which saw the overnight Top 3 qualifiers all make mistakes.
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Last week saw the 2010 Futaba OS Jakarta Open held on the Jakarta International Twin Circuits track in Indonesia. In 1/10th scale, qualifying started on the Saturday with 3 heats. The first qualifier saw Steven Jovanovic set the pace with 17 laps in 5:08.271sec. Azri Amri taking 2nd with 17 laps in 5:17.841 & Erwin Luhur taking 3rd with 17 laps in 5:18.389. In the 2nd round Steven J ran out of fuel so he couldn’t improve, but Sadikin From Jakarta bumped up to 2nd place with 17 laps in 5:09.354 & Erwin Luhur in 3rd place. The third qualifier saw Sadikin take TQ with 17 laps 5:06.274 & Erwin Luhur in second with 17 laps 5:06.686. Steven J dropped down to 3rd position after setting a blistering lap time of 17.326sec but to then run out of fuel at 4:42.562sec. The fourth qualifier was rained out on Saturday afternoon, so the final qualifier was on Sunday morning and it saw Bowie Ginting move up into 4th position with 17 laps 5:10.290.
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The German 1/10th scale EFRA GP took place last weekend at the Ettlingen track in the south west of the country. Practice was on from Thursday till Saturday noon and most of the only 20 drivers participating arrived on Saturday. What it lacked in quantity the event made up for in quality attracting the likes of Dirk Wischnewski, Robert Pietsch, Patrick Schäfer, Eric Dankel, Martin Lissau and double electric touring car World Champion Marc Rheinard. After qualifying it was current European Champion Wischnewski that took the pole position 2.5 seconds clear of Marc Rheinard, with Robert Pietsch and Eric Dankel completing the top 4. These 4 direct qualifiers were joined in the main final by Martin Lissau, Patrick Nähr, Simon Balk, Remy Möller, Patrick Schäfer and Patrick Gassauer. The start of the final saw Rheinard take the lead in front of Wischnewski, but after 20 minutes it was Wischnewski with a 3 lap advantage over Remy Möller in 2nd. But bad luck struck Wischnewski when he stripped his 2nd gear, which allowed Patrick Gassauer to take over the lead and eventually claim the win by 9 seconds over 2nd place Robert Pietsch who was recovering from an earlier problem and Dirk Wischnewski in 3rd.
Top international gas racer and World Championship top qualifier Robert Pietsch will be supported by the LMI Racing Team through 2010. The German Mugen factory driver, and designer of the all new MRX-5, will use LMI Racing products, mostly their range of Blitz shells, in both the 1/8th scale and 1/10th scale classes.
Source: LMI [lmiracing.com]
It was a beautiful sunny day for third round of the Irish Onroad Nitro National Championships that took place at the country’s only permanent track which is situated on the outskirts of Dublin city. Hot weather and sugar watering of the track on race morning made for perfect race conditions at the St.Annes circuit and in 1:10 200mm it was business as usual for defending champion Chris Steele. The Shepherd team driver maintained his domination of the class making it three out of three in qualifying by claiming his third TQ honours of the season taking his Murnan Modified RB powered Velox V10 around the track in the fastest five minute run of the 2010 season. In the 30-minute final Steele led from start to finish to take a convincing victory over the Serpent of David Mulligan. Having qualified second on the grid Chris Lawlor had a troubled race at the controls of Kyosho but still managed to maintain his run of podium finishes.
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