Yannick Aigoin pulled off a clean sweep of Day 2 of the 2011 Astra Nitro Cross as he put his Losi 8ight at the top of the time sheets in all six rounds of qualifying. Having wrapped up the overall TQ honours for the Czech event in the fourth round of heats, watched on by Losi president Bill Jeric, the French star did not let off and completed the perfect day for TLR with Martin Bayer completing a 1-2 for the team.
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Last weekend the first European Nitro Challenge was held at the permanent RC track of the RC Team Hockenheim located at the world famous Hockenheim Ring Formula 1 circuit. More than 70 drivers entered the different classes, among them many international top racers like Robert Pietsch, Daniele Ielasi, Ronald Völker and Michael Salven. Different from other events the three fastest consecutive laps were taken for the qualifying ranking while the 4 fastest drivers qualified directly for the final. In the 1/10th Hobby Cup class it was Alex Kempe driving the 3 fastest laps followed by Marcus May, Klaus Lechner and Markus Spaniol. The 1/8th scale Hobby Cup class saw Thilo Tödtmann taking the pole-position in front of Luigi Pili, Norbert Mayrhofer and Benny Endres.
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Yannick Aigoin has set the pace in the opening round of qualifying at the Astra Nitro Cross in the Czech Republic, the TLR driver topping the time sheets ahead of Xray pairing Ales Bayer and Jiri Mara. Defending champion Martin Bayer failed to start his heat after the screw on his steering servo horn came out during the warm-up laps.
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TLR’s Yannick Aigoin has topped the opening day’s action at the 2011 Astra Nitro Cross in the Czech Republic after setting the fastest time in the fourth and final round of practice to get the better of early pace setter and team-mate Martin Bayer. The final practice run saw few drivers improve with the only other front runner to make an improvement being Xray’s Jiri Mara who ended the day with the sixth best time.
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Martin Bayer is setting the early pace at his own race, heading a Losi 1-2 in practice for the 2011 Astra Nitro Cross. The Czech ace topped all three practice rounds but set the fastest three consecutive laps in the second run to topping the similar nVision powered 8ight of Yannick Aigoin. Describing the track conditions as being very similar to that experienced at the Warm-up race for the up coming European Championships, Bayer said he has been using the track time to try a few new ideas in terms of set-up and is pleased with the response.
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Last weekend saw the famous Eden Park Raceway club host the inaugural TLR Super Cup race meeting. Set to run over the weekend with 2WD, SCT and 4WD Buggy classes, the Super Cup format added a subtle twist to the normal race format with all classes running simultaneously over the two days with controlled practice and three rounds of qualifying on the Saturday and two round of qualifying a 3-leg finals for everyone on the Sunday. After a rather wet and slippery start on the Saturday the second race day saw rising temperatures and the usual suspects continued on good form with Ellis Stafford and Danny McGee battling for the overall TQ position in 2WD and 4WD whilst Chris Brooke looked to have sewn up the SCT qualifying after his performance on the Saturday ahead of Nathan Ralls and team mate Andy Carter.
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World Champion Cody King traveled to France and Germany over the last two weeks, and picked up a couple electric 1/8 scale titles in the process. In France, Cody attended the Kyosho Masters event in Sucy-en-Brie just outside of Paris. After a rough qualifying and trouble in A1, Cody won A2 to force a final battle in A3. Linus Thern was leading, but with just a few minutes to go, Cody would take the lead and cruise to victory with his Team Orion powered MP9e. In Germany, the turn out was impressive, with near 40 entries for the electric 1/8 buggy class. Qualifying was better for Cody, taking the TQ honors. The electric format here was a semi and a main, so everything came down to the last run of the day. With Sweden’s David Ronnefalk in hot pursuit, Cody would grab the lead and set a blistering pace to take the win. This would give Cody two electric titles in two weeks on European soil.
The first annual IRCC (International RC Car Championship) took place at the meeting room of Chubu international airport (Centrair) with the race held on a specially made carpet track. A lot of top level Japanese drivers were there including current 1/12th electric world champion Naoto Mastukura, the ‘Legend’ Masami Hirosaka and many national champions. Masami announced his retirement in 2009 but he drove a Yokomo GT500 car and 1/10th touring as a guest driver. Although the organizer wanted the event to attract more international drivers, there was only one American driver present, mainly because of the earthquake in March and the current economic condition that makes the Japanese Yen very expensive. The famous Scotty Ernst, who is well known race announcer and director, entered as a competitor in the FWD class and he finished in 3rd position in the final. He also announced all A-finals except FWD class in which he drove the car. Seven categories of races were held, the biggest one is 1/12th scale which attracted 33 drivers. Naoto Matsukura won the race after a hard battle with Hideo Kitazawa. Masami won the 17.5T touring class, beating 2010 Japanese National champion Daisuke Yoshioka. This year’s IRCC was successful and the organizer promised to having the same event next summer on the same place. Foreign drivers (Asia, USA, Europe and more) are always welcomed.
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