Red RC » International

January 3, 2024

Sworkz confirm team for MIBO International debut

Sworkz has confirmed it will be sending its team to this year’s MIBO International Race in Czech Republic. The second running of the event that sees some of the World’s top offroad and onroad drivers race side by side on two large indoor carpet tracks, this will be Sworkz first time attending the 2 and a half day event. Taking place on February 16-18, with practice starting on the Friday evening, multiple European Champion Joern Neumann, Micha Widmaier and Antonia Kovalszki, who all attended the World Championships in Arizona in September, will represent the brand on its debut. A long time dream of former International Touring Car racer Michal Bok to host his own major international event in Hrotovice, the first edition of MIBO International last year saw multiple World Champion Bruno Coelho take double buggy honours at the Sport V Hotel venue while former World Champion Ronald Volker was crowned the Touring Car Champion. After the success of inaugural event, the 2nd edition looks set to attract an even stronger international team entry and Red RC will be there to bring you coverage from both tracks.

Source: MIBO [mibosport.com]

January 3, 2024

Euro Buggy Masters/Euros Warm-up – Announcement

The organisers of the annual Euro Buggy Masters in Sweden have announced that the indoor event will double up this year as the Warm-up Race for the EFRA 1:10 Offroad European Championships. A club based in the south of the country, Furulund RC Klubb has secured use of a massive almost 4000 seater indoor sport hall in the city of Malmo for the 2024 edition of the EBM. Taking place from February 23-25, the track will be built using completely new EOS carpet to create a bespoke track layout giving all drivers the same track time and opportunity for a close and fair racing. Last held in November 2022 when Michal Orlwski took the 4WD win and Jessica Pålsson took the 2WD honours, the race moves to the start of the season this year on February 23-25 as the club hosts the European Championships from September 23-28.

Source: Furulund RCK [frck.se]

January 2, 2024

2024 EFRA Homologated Motor Lists

EFRA, the governing body for RC racing in Europe, has just published updated Homologated Motor lists for 2024 for all electric racing categories. Competitors looking to compete at Europrean Championship and EFRA GP events in 1:12, 1:10 Touring Cars and 1:10 Offroad classes can only use Brushless Motors that are included on the 2024 EFRA Homologation Lists, a procedure that began in 2016. When a motor (or rotor) has been approved and included on the relative list, the manufacturer must not change the technical specification, visual appearance or description. Any changes require a new part number and the motor (or rotor) will have to be resubmitted for approval. Drivers are also not allowed to make any changes to the motor, something that happened in Pro Stock at the 2022 European Championships when two driver’s motors were ‘found not to comply with the submitted samples to the EFRA Spec Homologation Lists’ promoting Olivier Bultynck to Champion. Homologation has caused a number of manufacturers issues recently with team drivers having to switch motors or batteries at recent World Championships as their sponsors’ where not IFMAR approved. ROAR, the North American governing body, has had a number of high profile cases where motors where randomly purchased and tested and found to not meet the specification of the original submitted motor that was approved for its sanctioned events. A standard many independent races run by, the offending motors had their motors removed from the approved list. View the full EFRA Motor Homologation lists here.

Source: EFRA [efra.ws]

January 2, 2024

Tessman calls time on career after 20-years of racing

2014 1:8 Buggy World Champion Ty Tessman has called time on an impressive career that puts him up there among the greats of offroad racing. The Canadian announced the decision to retire from the sport after 20-years of racing as he is set to become a father in 2024. Never an easy decision for any sports professional who has dedicate their live to achieving success, the decision by Xray to drop him at the end of 2023 after a 7-year partnership would certainly have played a factor in his departure from the sport. A driver who only represented two manufacturers during his extensive career, Tessman paid tribute to Hot Bodies for giving him the opportunity to turn professional in the sport with his father Gord and mother Leann a pivotal part of the ‘Team Tessman’ journey, the highlight of which was his World title win in Italy 10-years ago. Having witnessed and reported on many of Ty greatest wins over the years, Red RC would like to thank the Tessmans for the memories (late cold nights at the Dirt Nitro Challenge pitting in the Pro-Line tent particular stand outs!!) of some epic race battles and wish Ty all the best in his new family life. Who knows maybe the story will repeat itself in years to come.

Read Ty’s full announcement here

December 23, 2023

New date confirmed for IFMAR 1:8 eBuggy World Cup

After being forced to cancel the event just days before its planned date of last September due to a lack of entries, IFMAR has announced the new date of April 5-7, 2024, for the first ever World Cup for 1:8 Electric Buggy. Concerns were raised when the initial date was announced as it was just 1-week after the 1:10 Offroad World Championships in Arizona which was probably one of the biggest contributing factors to it getting only 15 confirmed entries but the new date should allow for a much stronger entry. With eBuggy a hugely important category for manufacturers while 1:8 nitro has enjoyed World Championship status since 1986, the World Cup will be the first step for the electric category to become a World Championship category in 2025. The World Cup will be hosted by the Club ACDB “OS BEIROES” at their 310m track in Guarda, Portugal whichk previously hosted the 2010 EFRA European 1:8 Nitro Buggy Championship when Reno Savoya took the third of his European titles. View the updated Stage 1 report here.

Source: IFMAR [Facebook]

December 23, 2023

2024 Philippine Masters registration opens

Having established itself as Asia’s biggest annual 1:8 Offroad race, the organisers of the Philippine Masters have announced the opening of registration for the 12th edition of the high profile Manila based event. A sell out event in 2023, the race saw World Champion David Ongaro win the Buggy title for Team Associated while Sworkz’ Micha Widmaier came away with the Truggy victory. With the Philippines famed as a holiday destination, the event has a truly unique vibe living up to the nations tourism tagline ‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’ with many of the large international driver entry combining the race with holidays at the country’s world famous white sand beaches. Along with Ongaro and Widmaier, Robert Battle, David Ronnefalk, Adam Drake, Ty Tessmann, Atsushi Hara and Kyle McBride are just some of the other international drivers to enjoy both the racing and hospitality in the capital city. Again a capacity entry is expected to be reached quickly as the Philippine Masters plays host to the second round of the Asia Buggy Championships which after kicking off in February in New Zealand will also visit Australia and Indonesia in 2024 and at the end of which there will be an overall Champion of the region crowned.

Source: Philippine Masters [philippinemastersrc.com]

December 22, 2023

2024 SIGP International Grand Prix – Announcement

Sunpadow Batteries has announced that the SIGP International RC Car Grand Prix Onroad will be resumed in 2024 with the event taking place March 20-24 (Updated). The Sunpadow International Grand Prix (SIGP) event had established itself as one of the leading annual international RC event in China and attracted many of the sports top drivers with World Champion Bruno Coelho the winner of the onroad edition in 2019. Taking place at the 2017 Electric Offroad Championship venue in Xiamen, both the onroad and offroad tracks are built side by side next to Sunpadow’s production facility. The SIGP will continue to offer one of the biggest prizes in the sport with total prize money of $25,000 on offer over the categories which include 1:8 GP onroad, 1:8 EP onroad, 1:10 Modified Touring Car and 1:10 Stock Touring Car. Registration will open on January 20th, 2024.

View track images here

December 21, 2023

’23 Foshan Invitational RC C/ship Chassis Focus Index

Last weekend saw the inaugural running of the Foshan Invitational RC Championship at the GDC Indoor Track in China’s central Guangdong Province. The biggest international race hosted in the country post Covid, FIRC attracted a number of international racers to the impressive indoor track with former World Champion Ronald Volker taking the win ahead of an impressive drive from Chinese racer Vening Zhuo with Japan’s Yugo Nagashima completing the podium. During our coverage of the event we featured 10 cars from 5 different manufacturers for our Chassis Focus including some of China’s top Modified Touring Car racers and we have compiled them all here in our latest Chassis Focus index.

View Chassis Focus Index here