Red RC » Gas

June 16, 2009

Steele & Campbell win Irish Nationals Rd4

The fourth round of Ireland’s On road Nitro Nationals took place over the weekend at the St.Annes track near Dublin city where Chris Steele took his third 200mm win of the season and Ian Campbell notched up his first 1:8 victory following a thrilling 30 minute final. Qualifying on pole for the 200mm race ahead of fellow Kyosho driver Chris Lawlor, Steele dominated the race setting the fastest lap enroute to a 7-lap winning margin over the Xray of Eoin Doran with Thomas Ward completing the podium. In 1:8 it was defending champion Clive Connolly who took TQ honours with his IDM powered Mugen over the Kyosho of current championship leader Austin Elliot. A very close final saw four drivers in the hunt for the win but that dropped to three when Elliot flamed out and then to two when Connolly had to make an unscheduled tyre stop five minutes from the end. This left Campbell and 1:8 returnee Steele, winner of the 200mm race, to battle it out for the top spot on the podium. In the end teenager Campbell, whose Matrix tyres equipped Shepherd recorded the fastest lap of the race, took the win by 7 seconds from Steele’s Kyosho with the recovering Connolly a further 7 seconds adrift in third.

Click here to see the 1/8th scale podium

June 16, 2009

Stefan Pregnolato is European ‘B’ Junior Champion

Forgotten at the prize ceremony during the European ‘B’ Championships in Cassino 2 weeks ago, EFRA have confirmed that 14-year old Shepherd driver Stefan Pregnolato is the European B Junior Champion. Already in qualifying Stefano showed great potential by driving the 3rd best time with his Velox V8 and reaching the main final directly. During the final he was on the third place for quite a long time but unfortunately in the last lap he dropped down to 5th position. Nevertheless this was enough to claim the titel of Europe’s best under 17 driver at this years Championships.

Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]

June 16, 2009

Karl-Heinz Meister takes German West Rd6

What a pity! Once again rain hampered the racing action of the Western German Championship I.C. 1/8 – for the fourth time in a row. Practice for the sixth and last round of the Western German Championship was held in Oberhausen under the best possible conditions with blue sky and temperatures around 25 degrees. On Sunday first clouds welcomed the racers and after round three of the heats it started to rain and didn’t stop for the rest of the day. In a drivers meeting it was decided not to continue this disappointing race day and to count the race following the heats order.

Continue reading the full report

June 13, 2009

Scott Kimbrow dominates Capital Classic

The top 1/8th scale drivers in the country were in attendance last weekend for the 3rd Annual Capital Classic run at the 301 Raceway, which has become one of the largest nitro on-road races of the year. This years race saw over 180 entries in three classes. With qualifying all said and done on this super-fast, fuel hungry track, Scott Kimbrow was able to take the TQ spot in 1/8th scale by 3 seconds over Paolo Morganti in 2nd. The fist half of the 45 minute A-main saw some close racing, but Scott was able to pull away after the halfway point when Scott decided there was no need to change tires. Many of the other racers changed tires or made short pit stops, but Scott had a different strategy and won from the Mugen pairing of Mike Swauger in 2nd and Paul Ciccarello in 3rd. In the 1/10th scale 200mm class it was Xray driver Paul Lemieux that took the win from team mates Ralph Burch in 2nd and Gianni Giorgio in 3rd, while the Masters class was won by Maxy Fuel’s very own Maxy Velazco.

Source: Kyosho [kyoshoamerica.com]

June 11, 2009

Ecuadorian National Championship Rd1

Last weekend, the opening round for the Ecuadorian National Championship took place in Quito, Ecuador. The 40 min final placed driver Pablo Cobos with his Sirio powered V-One RRR Evo2 as the winner of the round. Cobos was closely followed by Alfonso Quirola and Daniel Vela, all finishing on 119 laps on the astonishing Miraflores Track with the A-main final an amazing way to end this 3 day race event. The race started without problems placing the TQ driver Hermann Saa into the lead. His early decision to change tires proved miscalculated when rain starting falling after 30 minuted allowing other drivers to avoid the long pit stop as the tire wear reduced. The sun came back out and saw Cobos, Quirola and Vela emerge as the front runners.

Click here to continue reading the report

June 10, 2009

West Caribbean RC Pro Series Rd2

This past weekend saw the Landfill RC track in Puerto Rico play host to round 2 of the West Caribbean RC Pro Series. In 1/8th buggy it was Rafa Sabatier who took the win with his Mugen MBX6 fallowed by team mate Tory Santiago, while in 3rd spot was Kyosho’s Peter Alvarado. Rafa ran a flawless 1 hour main, while Santiago and Alvarado flamed out twice making it impossible to challenge Sabatier’s near perfect run. In the truggy class, Mugen Team Driver Tory Santiago took the win with his ‘out of the box’ MBX6T with 2nd place going to team mate Choto Mendez, while the final podium position going to Associated driver Jaime Negron.

Click here to see the truggy podium

June 10, 2009

Marco Müller victorious at Rd3 in Switzerland

Last weekend the 3rd Round of the Swiss Championship took place in Lostallo, host of this summer’s World Championships. After winning the first round and placing second on the last round of the Swiss Championship Shepherd driver Marco Müller demonstrated that he can also handle difficult race conditions. During practice on Friday the weather was really nice but when the qualifying started on Saturday, heavy rain reached the track which even turned into a hailstorm. Marco found the best setup for his Velox for this difficult conditions and took the TQ spot for the 45 minute final on Sunday. On Sunday morning the sun came out, but during the semi-finals it began to rain again. The final was started on a drying track and Marco could pull away right from the start. But 15 minutes before the end the rain started again and a lot of tires were changed in the pit lane. Marco kept cool and although he had some minor radio glitches because of the rain he still could defend his lead and won the race with a 1 lap gap on the 2nd placed Jürg Nydegger, with Silvio Hächler taking 3rd another lap behind.

Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]

June 10, 2009

Saarinen wins Rd2 of Finnish Nationals

Last weekend saw the 2nd round of the Finnish championships for nitro touring cars run at a new track in Raisio. The track has a very tight infield and some slow speed corners, but a very long straight, which makes it very challenging for all drivers. Qualifying went the way of Mugen racer Teemu Saarinen, who managed to continue his quick pace in the main final setting the fastest lap on his way to taking the win from team mate Ari Salminen by 3 laps, with Xray driver Pekka Koivula in 3rd.

Source: Mugen [mid-mugen.eu]