Red RC » International

August 7, 2013

JQ wins 2013 Nordic Championships

The annual 1/8th off-road Nordic Championships were held in sunny and hot Finland. This year the race was more international than normal with drivers from Finland and Sweden, but also Estonia, France, Italy and Germany. The race was incredibly close, with the fastest drivers being Joseph Quagraine, Ari Heinonen and Teemu Leino. In qualifying all but one round was decided with mere tenths of a second, often with all three drivers separated with less than 1 second after the 5 minute qualifying rounds. In the end Joseph Quagraine managed to TQ from Ari in 2nd and Teemu in 3rd. Throughout qualifying the top Swedish drivers, Christoffer Svensson and Andreas Edvinsson found their speed, and were looking stronger for the mains.

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August 6, 2013

Michael Orlowski wins Junior European TC title

On last weekend‘s EFRA European Electric Touring Car championship Team Durango’s Michael Orlowski won the Junior European title by finishing 7th in the B final. The young Polish driver, who also is a successful competitor in the Euro Offroad Series, used a prototype of Team Durango’s forthcoming DETC410 touring car as did Michal’s team mate Elliott Harper who finished third overall.

Source: Durango [team-durango.com]

August 5, 2013

Ronald Volker claims 2013 European TC title

The EFRA 1/10th scale touring car European Championships was held this week in Portugal attracting 60 drivers. Qualifying started and it all looked familiar at the top with Yokomo driver Ronald Volker dominating the first two Heats as he TQ’d both, but on Saturday morning Alexander Hagberg showed that somehow Team Xray has found the way to reduce the gap from Ronald’s pace and took the 3rd round. Now all was to be decided until the last round, since Hagberg had the best 21 Laps time. In the end Ronald didn’t fail and TQ’d the last 2 heats and was declared the TQ of the race. Looking at the timesheets, the expectation for some very tight racing in the finals surrounded the pits.

Continue reading the report here

July 31, 2013

Carsten Keller wins EFRA GP in Bischofsheim

The well-known Rhein-Main-Circuit in Bischofsheim played host for the German EFRA 1/8th nitro buggy GP. The race was set as a pre-warm-up for the club and the German RC car association as the track will be the place of next year’s EFRA European Championship. Just before the meeting the track received some make-overs here and there in the form of a new pit exit and some updated curbs but overall the Rhein-Main-Circuit was well known for most of the driver that came from all over Europe including Finland, the UK, Switzerland, Austria and of course Germany. Friday was set a the practice day and most of the drivers made good use of the chance to adopt their cars, engines and tyres to the scorching hot temperatures. Saturday saw the qualifiers and at the end it was JQ Products’ own Joseph Quagraine who took TQ in front of Kyosho’s Martin Hansen who had Simon Esser (Xray) and Carsten Keller (Kyosho) in tow.

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July 28, 2013

Groskamp wins 2013 1/8th European Championships

Jilles Groskamp has become the 2013 1/8th Track European Champion here in Halifax after a thrilling final saw him take the win after a race long battle with Brit Kyle Branson, Dario Balestri completed the podium. The finals day in Halifax began with a dry track, something that hadn’t happened many times during the week. Hot temperatures began the day but by the time the semi finals were out on track, it had cooled slightly. In the first semi final, Dario Balestri took a dominating win ahead of his Capricorn team mate Daniele Ielasi and Simon Kurzbuch’s Shepherd. Balestri finished on 78 laps in 1208.48 seconds with Ielasi on 77 laps in 1205.55 seconds with Kurzbuch just .91 seconds behind. Adrian Bertin took the final definite place with the new KM prototype car but Patrick Schafer would have to wait and see if he had made the final. The second semi final proved to be a much closer affair with Mark Green taking the win just .32 seconds ahead of the Shepherd of Groskamp. 3rd and 4th in the Semi A, to definitely book their place in the final, were Motonica’s Robin D’Hondt and Mugen’s Kyle Branson. A noticeable person missing from the final would be Robert Pietsch with the German taking his Novarossi powered Mugen to 8th position. Green’s run of 78 laps in 1201.95 seconds proved to be a whole 7 seconds faster than Dario’s winning time in the Semi B, putting Mark on pole for the 45 minute main final.

Continue reading the report here

July 27, 2013

Martin Bayer wins 2013 4wd Euros

The 1/10th EFRA European Electric Offroad Championships took place in Spain last week and Martin Bayer wrote this report. ‘Immediately following a successful week of 1/8 off-road racing, I traveled with my teammate Reno Savoya to Spain for the European Electric Off-road Championships. The race program started with the 2WD class. We were using a 2WD prototype buggy based on the XB4 1/10 4WD offroad buggy. The car felt very good, but the track proved difficult with many low traction areas. I worked diligently during my free time to continuously improve my set up. After qualifying was completed, I was sitting in 8th position. I was quite pleased with this result considering it was my first race using this prototype on clay.

Continue reading the report here

July 26, 2013

Mark Green is 1/8th Euro A top qualifier

Mark Green is the top qualifier at the 2013 1/8th European A Championships in Halifax. The Serpent driver pulled everything he had out of the bag in the last round of qualifying to take the TQ by 0.14 seconds from Capricorn’s Dario Balestri who held the accolade after the first 4 rounds. With Balestri fastest in the first qualifier, Jilles Groskamp topped the 2nd round with a run of 21 laps in 313.00 seconds ahead of Balestri and Green. With the clock approaching 12:00 at the time of the run, the track proved to be too slow. In the 3rd round, Mark Green took his serpent to the fastest time ahead of Capricorn’s Daniele Ielasi and Mugen’s Kyle Branson. Posting a time of 21 laps in 314.18 seconds, Green again proved that the track was too slow. After the lunch break Round 4 commenced and again Groskamp posted the fastest time to improve by around a second ahead of Dario Balestri and Mark Green hinting ever so slightly that the track was picking up pace as the sun started to go down. With almost every heat prior to the top heat going faster in the final round, the stage was set for something special to come. Dario Balestri would lead for the majority of the heat only for Mark Green to close him down and take the round on the last lap to the joy of the crowd. The stage is set for an exciting set of finals tomorrow.

View the final qualifying results here

July 26, 2013

Hara, Kanai & Vejrak confirmed for FEMCA Champs

2013 FEMCA Championships - Announcement

The organisers of this year’s FEMCA Championships for 1/8th buggy and 1/10th ISTC in Beijing, China, which take place from the to the 18th to the 28th of August, have been in contact to tell us that they have confirmed entries from 3 World Champions. Firstly former World 1/8th Offroad World Champions Atsushi Hara along with Yuichi Kanai will be in attendance, while current 1/10th scale World Champion Meen Vejrak will also attend. The offroad event will be held on a new permanent facility and Red RC will be attending the offroad portion of the event to cover it live. Entries are still open and you can find out more information here.