Red RC » International

May 13, 2024

2024 IFMAR 1:10 Nitro Touring World Championship – Stage 1 Report

The Stage 1 Report for the IFMAR 1:10 Nitro Touring World Championship which takes place later this year in Costa Rica has been published. The event is scheduled to take place at the Mini Autodromo La Cruces track from November 14-24 and will mark the 10th running of the championship. Expected to be supported strongly by drivers from across Central and South America, it appears the classes declining popularity and the duration of the race, 9 days of track time, mean international entries could be limited. Red RC reached out to a number of manufacturers regarding their attendance plans with two responding that they are still undecided on whether they will send drivers. One manufacturer confirmed that they will not be sending any official factory drivers from either its Japanese, European or American teams. Infinity are the reigning champions thanks to Tadahiko Sahashi win in Thailand in 2022. The team enjoyed a dominant performance in Bangkok filling 9 of the 10 spots, Capricorn the only other brand in the final at RC Addict. After such a result and also winning the title at the previous Worlds with Naoto Matuskura, the Japanese manufacturer has little to prove by attending with a large team. EFRA has reportedly received interest from around 10 drivers seeking to attend the race. Having covered the last 7 runnings of the 1:10 Nitro Touring World Championships, it is Red RC’s intentions to travel to Costa Rica to report on the race. View Stage 1 Report by clicking here.

Source: EFRA [Facebook]

May 12, 2024

IFMAR 2024 1:8 Offroad World C/ship Stage 1 Report

The organisers of the 2024 IFMAR 1:8 Offroad World Championship to be hosted at the RC-Redován circuit in Spain have published the Stage 1 report for the 19th running of the Championship. At the end of March, the impressive track which hosted the previous World Championship in 2022 was announced as a late replacement venue just a week after the originally selected hosts Brazil announced it would be unable to run the event for the FAMAR Bloc. Since then, the well known Baldo brother’s family have been busy making preparations once again for hosting the sport’s biggest race. Executing an excellent World Championship in 2022, where Davide Ongaro defended his title win from four years earlier in Australia, the Stage 1 Report contains important and useful information for the capacity entry that will descend on the track in early September. One big announcement from the report is that former EFRA President Javier Garcia will be Race Director.

View Stage Report here

May 6, 2024

Canas wins Silver State Indoor Championships

Sworkz Juan Carlos Canas took the big win at the 2024 Silver State Indoor Championships, the Spanish driver winning Pro Nitro Buggy ahead of the Tekno of Truggy Champion Ryan Maifield and TLR’s Dakotah Phend. Once again attracting a massive 1100+ entries, qualifying for the Las Vegas event would see Maifield secure the TQ honours after the completion of the 3 rounds ahead of Team Associated’s Spencer Rivkin with Canas third and Phend P4. In the 45-minute final, Rivkin enjoyed a few laps a the front early on before Maifield took charge but 10-minutes in costly mistakes dropped him back. With Canas taking the lead, pit stops giving Phend the lead for a few laps before everything settled down, once in front the European Champion edged out a lead eventually finishing with over 12-seconds on Maifield. Phend would complete the podium a further 5-seconds back. Having won the event a year earlier, Marco Barufollo would finish 5th at South Point Casino and Hotel behind Seth VanDalen. In Truggy, Maifield made the class his own taking the TQ and win from Mason Fuller and Phend, the Top 3 finishing in the same order as they started. In eBuggy, Top Qualifier Fuller won followed home by Maifield and Canas.

Image: TheDirt Racing [Facebook]

May 6, 2024

Orlowski wins 1up Racing West Coast Invitational

The inaugural 1up Racing West Coast Invitational took place at 2024 IFMAR World Championship host track Finishline RC Raceway where Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski took the win. A nod to the famed Reedy Race Race of Champions, which last ran in 2019, the Mike Reedy Memorial Invitational Touring Car class attracted some strong international entries to the Bakersfield, California, track for 12 rounds of heads up racing. With a field of 16 invitational drivers, Orlowski and Xray’s Bruno Coelho would go right to the wire for the title. Sharing a total of 6 wins each and both ending up on 16 points, and all tie break avenues exhausted, 2nd places, 3rd place etc. the fastest 3 run times combined would give the on form Pole the title over the current World Campion. With most of the major manufacturers using the event to get track time ahead of the ISTC World Championships, that take place in early November, it would the Axon of Japanes driver Akio Sobue who completed the podium. Also with four win Awesomatix’ Lucas Urbain finished 4th ahead of team-mate and best of the host nation representative Sam Isaacs. Yokomo’s Nicholas Lee rounded out the Top 6. Making it a double celebration for Schumacher, Italian Mattia Collina took the traditional race format Open Touring Car win from David Mayhew and Byrce Butterfield while Xray’s Jan Ratheisky won 17.5.

Image: 1up Racing [1upracing.com]

May 1, 2024

The Michal Orlowski Column – Edition No.2

You all loved his first column so we are delighted that Michal Orlowski has somehow found time in his busy schedule to give us another great column as an insight into his world as Schumacher’s star factory driver. Once again we’ll let Michal take it away and tell you in his own style what has been going on over the last two months….. ‘It has been a while since my last update here. We have been hard at work with the team to finish off the winter season on a high. We attended numerous events between February and April, which I will tell you all about, emphasising the struggles and how we could overcome them together. After attending the Mibosport Cup in early February, it was time to switch back to buggy mode. For the last few years, the MK GP event has been one of the mostly anticipated off-road races of the winter season with hundreds of drivers participating, but more importantly thousands of people coming to watch us race RC cars. The event is held in the MK shopping centre in Milton Keynes, UK, home to the Redbull F1 team. The event is organised by the Silverstone Club, who hosts weekly club races and a winter series at a smaller venue. This gave us the chance to test on the unique carpet the MK GP crew decided to use since 2023.

Continue reading here

April 30, 2024

Hobbywing Cup – Mächler, Sawada & Lee announced

The organisers of the Hobbywing Cup have announced a number of well known international drivers will make the trip to the Shanghai International Model Auto Racing Arena (SIMARA) in China for the May 30 – June 2 electric touring car event. 1:12 Spec World Champion Max Mächler will make the trip from Germany with his Awesomatix touring car, while Nicolas Lee travels from Singapore for the factory Yokomo team. Japanese driver Shin Sawada with represent Xray in the Open Brushless class at the 4-day event. The Hobbywing Cup will also see drivers battle it out around the 65m by 35m track in categories for Stock, Sports Class and Tamiya TT02.

Source: Hobbywing [hobbywing.com]

April 26, 2024

2024 Philippine Masters Chassis Focus Index

Last weekend Red RC made our third trip to Manila for the world class offroad event that is the Philippine Masters. Famed as being Asia’s biggest annual 1:8 Offroad race, the Circulo Verde track is renowned for its difficulty and 3D style build with this year’s 12 edition of the race using a new method to seal the surface. This resulted in minimal tyre wear even over the 1-hour Main final in which Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro recovered from an early flame out to take his fourth win in the capital city. The first time Sparko was officially represented at the race, a great driver by Ryan Pavidis netted the American runner-up spot. Great to see the legendary Atsushi Hara back racing at the the front end. It was great to once again do a chassis focus with him, Sworkz hooking him up for the event, and it great to see the former World Champion enjoying his racing so much once again. Attracting 205 entries from 16-nations, we got the chance to photograph buggies from 9 drivers representing 7 different manufacturers as well as the TQ & winning Sworks truggy of Bulgaria visitor Plamen Petrov we will have compiled into our latest Chassis Focus Index.

View Chassis Focus Index here

April 21, 2024

Early flameout forces Ongaro to work hard for PM24 win

Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro was forced to work a little harder than expected for his latest Philippine Masters win, the reigning World Champion suffering an early flame out that handed Atsushi Hara a lead he would hold for almost half of the 1-hour final. With the crowd fully behind the legend that is Hara, when pitted for fuel at the 38-minute mark Ongaro would take back up the race lead where he would stay to the finish. The attention then turned to a battle between Hara and Ryan Pavidis, the American getting by the former World Champion in the final 3-minutes having been last of the 15 car field after the opening lap. Not far behind Joern Nuemann would finish as he started, P4. Having made it an Associated 1-2 in qualifying Alex Bernadzik’s race came undone around 37-minutes in with a flame just as he was called to fuel the next lap, the Australian eventually finishing 6th. The second round of the Asian Buggy Championships, Round 1 winner Ryan Lutz suffered similar fate earlier in the race and records a P7 on his first trip to Manila.

Continue reading here