Red RC » International

August 16, 2018

Coelho fastest after Day 1 in South Africa

Bruno Coelho is the fastest man in South Africa at the end of the opening day of the 10th running of the IFMAR Electric Touring Car World Championships. The Xray driver was fastest with his time from the penultimate round of the day’s eight rounds of free practice moving ahead of reigning champion Ronald Volker. Volker who was fastest for the first part of the day with his Round 4 time standing his best of the day would top the final practice but overall was 3/10ths off Coelho, a margin that is smaller that it sounds given the fastest 3-consecutive laps is 1:10.736. Christopher Krapp backed up Yokomo’s form at the Welkom RC Arena by posting the 3rd fastest time of the day posting his best laps in Round 7. While drivers reported the otherwise pretty consistent track to be slightly slower for the final practice, Freddy Sudhoff managed to improve on his time ending the day 4th ahead of Swedes Viktor Wilck and Alexander Hagberg.

Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.

August 16, 2018

Volker sets early pace at World Championships

Ronald Volker is the early pace setter at the 1:10 Electric Touring Car World Championships in South Africa. With four of the opening day’s 8 scheduled free practice sessions complete, the reigning Champion’s Yokomo was fastest over 3-consecutive laps of the impressive Welkom RC Arena track from Bruno Coelho. The 10th running of the Touring Car World Championships, this will be the first title to be decided indoors since the inaugural Worlds back in 2000 but such is the size of the brand new facility the fastest laps seen so far are taking a rather lengthy 23-seconds. Behind Volker and Coelho it was Freddy Sudhoff who was third quickest ahead of Viktor Wilck who completed the Top 4 to represent the fourth of the manufacturers with factory team representation at the event. Behind Wilck, Christopher Krapp was 5th fastest ahead of new 1:12 World Champion Alexander Hagberg.

Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.

August 15, 2018

Neil Cragg powered by Piranha Racing Fuel

Nemo Racing and Piranha Racing Fuels have announced that National, European and World Champion driver Neil Cragg joined their team. The Team Associated factory driver has chosen their 25% fully synthetic blend to power his nitro fleet. Nemo Racing and Piranha Racing Fuels are looking forward to work with Neil for the remainder of this season and beyond.

Source: Nemo Racing [nemoracing.com]

August 15, 2018

Alexander Hagberg crowned 1/12th scale World Champion

The 2018 IFMAR Electric On-road World Championships are held in Welkom, South Africa this week, hosted by the amazing Welkom RC Arena. The facility was built especially for the event and it is a true world-class one. The event kicked off with the 1/12th scale classes with an open Modified and supporting Stock 13.5T class being run at the event. Unfortunately only 29 entries were received for both categories, giving the feeling of a club race event with international participation. Despite the very low turnout racing was tight, however in the Modified it was Xray’s Alexander Hagberg who stood out by making a clean sweep in qualifying to take an easy overall TQ from Morotech’s Hideo Kitazawa and Xray’s Florian Joos.

Continue reading the report here

August 13, 2018

Thilo Tödtmann teams up with JP GIMAR

JP GIMAR have officially announced the signing of German frontrunner Thilo Tödtmann to their team. The multi-time ENS podium finisher,
U.S. Nitro Worldcup winner, reigning FEMCA Champion and multiple European Championship finalist will be using the Italian brand’s nitro engines during his upcoming campaign that will include all major national and international races. Thilo has the following to say about the deal:

From my heart I would like to thank the Picco brothers for their cooperation over the past year and a half. I am looking forward to team up with with JP Gimar and Giovanni Crea in person. His dedication and most importantly his passion for racing is something that impressed me from the first day and I think we have a great future ahead of us.

Source: JP GIMAR [facebook.com]

August 12, 2018

EFRA 1/10th IC Track European Championships – Report

The 2018 EFRA 1/10th IC Track European Championships were held at the Vila Real circuit in Portugal this past week. After 17 rounds of practice, qualifying began and Germany’s Robert Pietsch looked like he had greater consistency than anyone else in the lead up to qualifying, and so it proved as he took the first two rounds of qualifying on Thursday evening, the first from Teemu Leino and Kyle Branson, the second from Branson and Alessio Mazzeo. With the best three rounds from five to count, this put Pietsch in a very strong position going into Friday morning’s final three rounds of qualifying.

Continue reading the report here

August 8, 2018

Joona Haatanen crowned European Junior Champion

Every year, Europe’s finest gather for the ultimate 1:8th nitro showdown, better known as the EFRA 1/8th European Championships. This year, the CRF track in Freixedas, Portugal played host to offer its challenging yet extremely fun layout to decide the victor and crown a new European Champion. The CRF track is quite unique and extremely beautiful to look at. Some call it a work of art and in many ways, it does live up to the hype. The white dirt is sealed with a glue/bonding agent to help keep the track together. The result is a very hard surface that’s almost like sandpaper. However, the weight and sheer force of the 8th scale cars hitting the jumps, the faces would get massively deformed and practically unjumpable. The track crew worked hard each night as they patched the track with cement that’s rolled onsite. While Xray’s Bruno Coelho took a surprise win in the main final, the Junior finals saw Europe’s brightest stars battle it out for top honors with Team Associated’s Joona Haatanen peaking at the right moment. In the young field of talent, Joona’s precision started to shine as the track picked up grip and his motor, car tuning, and driving all coming together for the main where he was able to win with a decent time margin back to 2nd. Leonardo Valente finished 2nd with Kyosho’s Jessica Palsson 3rd.

Source: JConcepts [jconcepts.net]

August 5, 2018

Bruno Coelho crowned 1/8th Nitro Buggy Euro Champ

The 2018 EFRA 1/8th Nitro Buggy European Championship was held in Portugal this past week. Qualifying at the Radiomodelismo de Freixedas track was dominated by Davide Ongaro as the Italian phenomenon swept all five rounds of qualifying to put a vice like grip on this 1/8th IC Off Road European Championship. Reigning European Champions Robert Batlle qualified 2nd, and was Davide’s closet challenger though never getting within five seconds of his time. Bruno Coelho was a surprise 3rd overall the versatile Portuguese eliciting the help of Ty and Gord Tessman over from Canada to help set up and run his car, with instant results as when left to just do the stick work there are few Bruno’s equal. Reigning world champion David Ronnefalk had a torrid time in qualification with poor tyre choices and failures leaving him to scrape into 4th overall, still without a decent set-up. Juan Carlos Canas was our 5th qualifier, and left rueing what might have been when a miscommunication in round 2 saw him come in to the pits when he still had another lap to complete, those lost points would have put him 3rd. The one factor none of the drivers could avoid was the oppressive heat, with 38°C all thru Friday and the chance that the finals would be even hotter.

Continue reading the report here