Red RC » International

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

July 29, 2018

David Ronnefalk takes 4WD EP Buggy Euros title

During this week’s EFRA 1/10th Electric Buggy European Championships held in Reims, France, it was HB Racing’s David Ronnefalk who took the double title of 2WD and 4WD. His 4WD win came just a few days after winning the 2WD title, the sixth Euros title for the Swedish ace. The race was a show of dominance from David. After taking the TQ position, the newly crowned 2WD Champion won A-main number one and two with an advance of two seconds in the first and four seconds in the second final handing him the overall in front of the Schumacher duo of Jörn Neumann and Michal Orlowski.

View the final results here

July 29, 2018

EFRA Large Scale Off-road Euros – Report

This past week three European Championships were up for grabs in Austria in the Large Scale 1/6th 4WD, 2WD and Short Course classes. The 4WD final produced 30 minutes of the highest quality racing, with never more than a couple of seconds between the leaders and the lead changing on multiple occasions. Pekko Iivonen led from the pole but was soon in a monumental scrap with reigning European champions Dario Veseli of Croatia and TQ man Sven Rodenwald from Germany. With all three teammates in the MCD equipe, there was a desire from all three to keep the racing as fair as possible. The first turning point cam at about half way when a couple of mistakes dropped Sven out of contention, leaving Pekko and Dario to dice for the win. With fastest laps being traded and the lead regularly swopping the second key element of the final became apparent as one of Iivonen’s front tyres begun to become unglued. Now just missing the ultimate pace the Finnish youngster could not stay with Veseli who claimed his third successive 4WD European title.

Continue reading the report here

July 26, 2018

David Ronnefalk crowned 2018 2WD European Champion

The 2018 EFRA 1/10th Electric Buggy European Championship are held in Reims, France this week. On the FFVRC club’s slippery clay indoor track the 2WD portion of the event saw a great qualifying battle between Team Associated’s Joona Haatanen and Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski who would be trading TQs each of the first four qualifying rounds until Yokomo’s Lee Martin made himself only the third TQ driver with a win in round 5. However it was still Haatanen with the overall from Orlowski 2nd. Lee would grab the 3 spot on the grid thanks to his TQ, promoting HB Racing’s David Ronnefalk, who looked to be fast all week, into 4th on the grid.

Continue reading the report here

July 23, 2018

Kurzbuch & Mazza crowned 2018 IC Track Euro Champs

The 2018 EFRA European 1/8th IC Track Championships were held at the Cassino track in Italy last week. After a few days of free practice for all, Thursday saw two rounds of seeding practice, with a drivers best three consecutive laps to count. At the conclusion of seeding practice the top 64 drivers would go on to contest the European 1/8 IC A championships, while the remaining 29 drivers would do battle for the Euro B title. In the Euro A category, Simon Kurzbuch laid down an early marker, taking round one by 5/100ths from Dario Balestri and Teemu Leino, before Balestri hit back to take round two from Robert Pietsch and Kurzbuch in the last of Thursday’s qualifying action. The cooler track temperature on Friday morning meant round three could be critical, as it was likely to produce the fastest run time, which could prove critical in a tie break situation later on. Kurzbuch took the round by 7/10ths from Balestri, with Pietsch coming home third. Balestri knew what he had to do to deny Kurzbuch the pole in round four, and duly delivered, beating him by the largest gap so far of 1.3 seconds, with the ever-reliable Pietsch in third.

Continue reading the report here

July 18, 2018

Dominic Greiner teams up with Energy Fuel

Pepe Group have announced the signing of IFMAR World Champion, Dominic Greiner to their factory team. Dominic will be using Energy Fuel for the remainder of his campaign, starting at this week’s EFRA 1/8th IC Track European Championships in Cassino, Italy.

Source: Pepe Group [pepegroup.net]

July 18, 2018

Andrea Pirani joins Ielasi Tuned

Ielasi Tuned have announced the signing of Italian front runner, Andrea Pirani. Andrea will start using his new power plants at this week’s EFRA 1/8th Euros in Cassino, Italy with his weapon of choice being the newly introduced Raptor.21 engine. This is what Andrea has to say about the deal:

I want to thank Daniele Ielasi for this opportunity, I’m really excited to run Ielasi Tuned Engines for the upcoming European Championship and next few years. I’m sure we can make good result together.

Source: Ielasi Tuned [ielasituned.com]