The organisers of the US Open Fuel Championships were in touch to tell us that the 4th running of the event will take place from the 3rd to the 6th of December. Open to Sedan and 1/8th which sees a Factory and Open class in each, the race will once again be held at the Kissimmee Raceway in Florida. For more information on the event, including details on how to enter, visit the events official site here.
Round 4 of the French 1/10th scale 200mm Nationals took place at the weekend at the Niort track in the west of the country. Maxime Favrelle won the race after taking the lead when Jacky Mouton made his tyre stop. Maxime kept the same set of Kronos tyres for the whole race and could take the win ahead of Arnaud Chaussard in 2nd and Basile Concialdi 3rd, giving the Xray NT1 the complete podium.
Source: Racing Experience [racing-experience.fr]
The final round of the French 1/8th scale on road Nationals were held last weekend at the Clermont Ferrand track, host of the 1999 1/8th World Championships. In qualifying it was Adrien Bertin who, fresh from his 3rd place at the Worlds in Switzerland, continued to set the pace in the Nationals by taking the TQ ahead of Sébastien Zatla, Christophe Aygon and Laurent Zatla. Adrien was untouchable in the main final and the Kyosho/Team Orion driver won easily from Kyosho/NR racer Laurent Zatla in 2nd after a great fight with Serpent/RB driver Stephane Riccobonno. This win gave Bertin the National title in the Elite class. In the National class it was Arnaud Mathieu that took the pole position and in the final he never gave up his lead, winning the race, while Gerald Colinet took the National title.
Click here to see the National class winner
The 6th and final race for the Dutch Nomac and NK Championships were held on the beautiful AMCA track in Apeldoorn. The weather was a bit cold and in the afternoon there were many short showers falling on a drying track which made the sub-finals very unpredictable. In the NK class it was RickV who decided not to drive because he is already Champion. Ilia v. Gastel took the pole position followed by John Ermen, Jordy Blok with surprising young driver Jeffrey Rietveld taking the 4th direct place in the final. In the final Ilia was unbeatable and drove his car with 2 laps ahead to the top place of the podium followed by John Ermen and Jordy Blok, both finishing on the same lap. In the Nomac class it was Gunther v. Staey taking the pole, with a better time than that from Ilia v. Gastel in the NK class, and was followed by Steven Cuypers, Robin d’Hondt and Richard Keur. In the final it was Worlds finalist Robin d’Hondt taking the win followed by Gunther v. Staey with Richard Keur 3rd.
Click here to see the Nomac podium
Round 7 of the BRCA 1/10th scale 200mm Nationals were held last weekend at the Cotswolds track and with good weather for the weekend the racers could concentrate on their setups on Saturday for Sunday’s event. In the first round of qualifying the track was a little off but Kyle Branson running the Serpent 733 managed to take TQ in front of Serpent driver Neal King, with Mark Green having problems in the first qualifying. In the second round Kyle was still on TQ just in front of Mark who managed to get a good run in, with the positions remaining the same after the 3rd round, but in the fourth Mark took TQ by 7 tenths of a second as Branson had problems in the warm up and was unable to start in time. In the final both Mark and Kyle got off to a good start with the youngster taking the lead on the first lap. After only 7 laps, Mark got tangled up with a back marker and broke his car, retiring on the spot. After 20 minutes Kyle had a 1 lap lead and just backed off a little to stay there for the remainder of the race, eventually winning by 2 laps ahead of Johnathan Dobney with Chris Slater in third. This win gave the Sirio back Serpent driver the British Championship ahead of Johnathan. There is one more national to be held at the end of the year in Halifax.
For R/C racers Labor Day weekend in Minnesota has become R/C X-Fest weekend. For the 5th annual event 3 of the fastest drivers in the world converged in Cambridge, Minnesota for a weekend of excitement and no-holds barred entertainment. With an event known for a multitude of classes and special events, the R/C X-Fest has become something to remember for all participants. There is always something going on it seems during the X-Fest, like Powder-puff, Big Air Contest, Spud Run, Helicopter night fly, R/C Boat Demo and Mini X Off-road track rental are just a snippet of events available.
Read the rest of the report here
Thomas Guensel is the new German Champion 1/10 200mm nitro. The Xray driver celebrated an impressive victory in the 45 minutes finale of the German Nationals on Sunday at Tuerkheim in the German State Bavaria. With an advantage of two laps the 26 years old Guensel saw the checkered flag in an exciting finale to take the valuable German scale crown. 18 year old Simon Balk and 41 year old Michael Heinrich completed the podium on second and third. The final was another outstanding success for Xray importer Bertram Kessler (SMI Motorsport) and his own engine line Orcan: The top five positions – with dethroned champion Dirk Wischnewski on four and Eric Dankel on five – went to Xray and the Orcan LR3 power unit, manufactured by Novarossi and all of them tuned by engine expert Michael Heinrich.
Continue reading the extensive report here
Last weekend at the Hokusei circuit saw the 2009 1/10th scale JMRCA National Championships run under changing weather conditions. Rain forced the cancellation of rounds 3, 4, 5 & 6 of qualifying, with round 3 being able to be run on Sunday morning before the finals. In the Open class it was Kyosho driver Takaaki Shimo that took the top qualifying spot ahead of former World Champion Keisuke Fukuda. The first part of the final saw positions remain unchanged at the front with Shimo leading from Fukuda, Terauchi and Furukawa. Later in the race Tadahiko Sahashi, who was recovering from a poor start, worked his way through the field and eventually took 2nd behind Keisuke Fukuda who took the win, with Shimo ending the race back in 3rd. In the Sportsman class, 13 year old Takumi Matsuda, driving a Serpent 733 took the win, just 0.2 seconds from M. Inagaki after 40 minutes of action.
Click here to see the Sportsman podium
