Novak welcome World-Class driver and all-around nice guy Mike Truhe for another year on their factory team. Mike will be powering all his Factory Serpent 1/8th and 1/10th scale electric vehicles with Novak power and everyone at Novak is looking forward to another year working with Mike.
Source: Novak [teamnovak.com]
Xray has announced that the multiple Italian Champion Francesco Martini has re-signed with the Slovakian manufacturer for the 2015 season. Francesco is an extremely dedicated touring car racer and an important member of Xray’s R&D team as he was involved in the development of the T4 platform as well of the X1 formula car. Francesco says:
I am very happy and thankful to continue my collaboration with the Hudy family. In the last year I was able to work directly on a new X1 platform development and this has been for me the greatest RC experience. Being direct involved in the entire development process from design stage through very long and exhaustive prototype testing until final production has been a great journey that I have enjoyed and that allowed me to experience how passionate, professional and dedicated everyone at Xray is with Martin in the lead. With my involvement into R&D I am fully motivated to continue our work on the further development and I am very honored to be part of this great team. I am available to anyone with any questions concerning the X1 so do not hesitate to see me.
Click here to view Francesco’s Xray driver profile video
LRP has announced the signing of Davide Ongaro to their nitro team. The young Italian was already using LRP equipment for his 1/10th off-road campaigns and he now made the move to race with LRP’s nitro engines, exhausts and equipment also. After making the 1/4 finale at the 2014 IFMAR Buggy Worlds and having the speed to proceed to the 1/2 final, which bad luck denied him, Davide is looking forward to the 2015 season with his new equipment.
Source: LRP [lrp.cc]
Reedy, Tamiya America, and Scotty Ernst Productions announce that the Reedy International Touring Car Race of Champions will return to the Tamiya America circuit May 21-24, 2015. Entries open February 25th at Noon PST exclusively here. Due to time constraints and to maintain the world-class nature of the event, total entries are capped for the Open classes. Due to high demand, a 17.5 class will also be offered this year in addition to the traditional 13.5 and Modified classes. Open class entries are limited to 160 (110 combined 13.5 and 17.5, 50 Modified) with each driver limited to one entry. To allow everyone an opportunity to be a part of the 2015 edition race, a lottery drawing for the Open classes will be conducted on March 23rd, with those chosen securing a place in the event. More information and updates including (entry) rules, spec tires, hotels, and more will be posted soon on the dedicated event page here.
Team Shepherd has announces that multiple Brazilian National and South American champion Flavio Elias joins company’s factory racing team for the 2015 season. With the 2015 1/8th World Championship being held at his home track he was in search of the best performing 1/8th car and he finally choose the Velox V8 EC after various practise sessions. His focus for 2015 is on the 1/8th Worlds but he also plans to attend all nationals, the South American Championship, the Winternats and also selected 1/10th scale national event using Shepherd’s Velox V10 Pro. Flavio had the following to say:
I am very happy with Shepherd and for this world championship year at Brazil I had to choose what is the best for me. Nowadays I know that Shepherd has everything I need to be competitive in 1/8th and 1/10 scale. Thanks for the trust and we are going to do everything to have good races during the year.
Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]
LRP have announced the contract renewal with 2013 IFMAR 4WD Offroad World Champion Steven Hartson. The Team Associated driver will continue to use LRP’s full line of electronics including brushless motors, speed controller, batteries, chargers and accessories as well as LRP’s nitro off-road engines for his 1/8th offroad excursions. Steven has the following to say about the deal:
I’ve trusted LRP equipment for 8 years now and I’m very happy to be continuing with LRP in 2015. LRP products have provided me awesome power throughout my career and I know there is more “Blue is Better” technology coming soon, starting with an entirely new battery line in April 2015. I look forward to using this new technology to defend my 4WD IFMAR World Championship at Yatabe Arena in Japan this year.
Source: LRP [lrp.cc]
Alphaform Reds JQRacing have announced the signing of Bradley Baird to their factory team. “THE Flying Irishman” has been in the JQRacing team for some years and he now secured a full factory deal to run Reds Racing engines, LRP electronics, AKA tyres, Savöx servos, GHEA Accessories and Maugrafix stickers in the year to come.
Source: JQRacing [jqracing.com]
Ryan Maifield has won the big one at this year’s 16th running of the Dirt Nitro Challenge. The TLR driver would claim his 2nd buggy title at the Fear Farm but more significantly his first big nitro win for his new manufacturer when on the penultimate lap of the exciting 45-minute A-Main he got ahead of former team-mate Ryan Cavalieri. A race that saw four different leaders, Maifield went to the front ahead of defending champion Ty Tessmann 4-minutes in until a mistake at the 10-minute mark would drop him to third. His challenge then looked to be over as he fell further down the order to sixth. A driver famed for his late charges, the Arizona ace never gave up and as a gusting wind added to the challenges of the tough track conditions in the closing stages, Maifield was there to capitalise to take his second major title of the new season having last month claimed his first ever Reedy Race of Champions win. Unfortunately for the stars of last night’s epic Truggy final Tessmann and new champion David Ronnefalk their races would hit trouble. Holding a comfortable lead with just 8-minutes to go Tessmann would suffer a problem with his battery connector and losing over a minute in the pits fixing it the World Champion would be leaving with no titles this year finishing up 7th overall. Trying to recover from a frantic start, Ronnefalk would twice run out of fuel after communication issues with his pit crew. With Maifield and Cavalieri separated by just 0.684, joining them on the podium would be the other of America’s offroad establishment trio Jared Tebo. Leading a total of close on 1/3 of the race, Dakotah Phend would just miss out the podium by half a second, the wind being the downfall to the 18-year-old’s quest for a first DNC title.
Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.
