Red RC » International

August 17, 2009

5 Days of Practice complete in Switzerland, Pietsch on top

So five days of practice have been completed here in Switzerland at the 16th running of the IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championships and its Robert Pietsch who sits at the top of the time sheets despite failing to improve his time in the final practice. The factory Mugen driver completed 29 laps in 10:07.493 in the morning practice and after making a mistake early in the evening session decided to use the run to practice his pit stops.

View our full event coverage here.

August 15, 2009

Marc Rheinard takes European 4wd buggy title

Current Touring car World Champion Marc Rheinard has taken his first major off road title today after winning the 4wd class in Bilbao, Spain. Making the final in the 2wd class earlier in the week, the German faired better with the Tamiya TRF511X by taking the TQ spot after winning the final 3 qualifiers to start ahead of Neil Cragg in 2nd, with Tamiya team mate Viktor Wilck starting 3rd. In the finals Marc would easily win leg 1 ahead of Wilck, who would be later DQ’d for a technical infringement and so it would be Hupo Honigl taking 2nd and Neil Cragg 3rd. Leg 2 went the way of Associated racer Cragg, who finished 4 seconds clear of team mate Lee Martin in 2nd, with Marc Rheinard in 3rd, leaving both he and Cragg on equal points going into the final leg. The 3rd leg saw Rheinard win in the fastest time of the 3 legs, ahead of Wilck in 2nd and Cragg 3rd, giving Marc the overall title, ahead of Cragg in 2nd, with Hupo Honigl backing up his 2wd title earlier in the week with 3rd overall.

Check out the full oOple report here.

Source: oOple [oople.com]

August 12, 2009

Hupo Honigl wins 2wd European title

Austrian driver Hupo Honigl has added another European title to his CV after winning the 2wd event today in Bilbao, Spain. Having qualified 2nd behind multiple British Champion Ellis Stafford, the pairing had an intense battle in the 2nd leg after a mistake in the leg 1 by the X-Factory driver gifted Honigl the round win. With the overall on the line, the race to the flag in leg 2 went down to the wire, but Hupo could hold on and take his 2nd leg win and take the European title, with Stafford eventually ending up in 2nd, while Lee Martin took the final podium spot after a win in the 3rd leg.

Check out oOple’s awesome report here.

Source: oOple [oople.com]

August 2, 2009

Groskamp is European Champion

‘I have been second so many times, finally I am first’, was how your new European Electric Touring Car Champion Jilles Groskamp summed up his victory here in Luxembourg. Having been a Top Qualifier on two previous occasions at the EFRA Championships, the factory Tamiya/Speedpassion driver made it third time lucky, converting his pole position into victory with wins in Leg 2 & 3. Starting the third leg, with four drivers still in contention for the 2009 title, the Dutch ace lead from start to finish but said another bad set of tyres had made his car loose. Still managing to set the fastest lap of the race, Groskamp believes he would have had his work cut out if outgoing champion Marc Rheinard and 2007 Champion Ronald Volker had not controversially come together on lap 6.

Read the full report on our event site here.

August 2, 2009

Groskamp takes Euros Leg 2 with ease

After his dramas in the opening leg Top Qualifier Jilles Groskamp made it look easy in the second to take the win over Ronald Volker. The Tamiya Racing Factory driver lead from start to finish on the dry track with the only challenge coming from his teammate Wilck but that ended when the Swede hit tyre problems. There was a few tense moments for Groskamp after the race when scruntineers found one of the four tyres on his TRF416WE was registered to title rival Volker. Under the rules this would have meant exclusion for the Dutch driver but the Team Yokomo team came to the rescue and produced all of the tyres registered to the star driver proving Groskamp had done no wrong and the error was down to the incorrect marking of the tyres by officials.

View our full event coverage here.

August 2, 2009

Interesting proposals for IFMAR AGM

IFMAR, the body responsible for governing r/c racing’s six different World Championships, will hold its AGM at the up coming 1:8 On Road World Championships in Lostallo, Switzerland, and Red RC have received copies of two interesing proposal’s that will come up for discussion. The European Federation of Radio-Operated Model Automobiles (EFRA) has put forward a proposal that the use of Lithium based batteries (LiPo) be included in the World Championship for 1:10 ISTC Electric On-Road (touring car) and 1:10 Electric Off-Road. The prosposal from EFRA goes into full technical and labelling details for the 2 cell 7.4V packs and recommends a maximum capacity of 5500maH. On the grounds of safety they also outline requirements for charging including only the use of CC/CV (Constant Current/Constant Voltage) charge profile and the pack being charged to a maximum output voltage of 8.40 volts.

August 1, 2009

Groskamp on pole for 2009 Euros

Jilles Groskamp is the 2009 EFRA Electric Touring Car European Championship Top Qualifier after a dramatic final round of qualifying that saw the big surprise of this event, Lucas Urbain (17/5:18.436), TQ the final round of heats. With 30 seconds to run on the clock it looked as though Viktor Wilck (16/5:01.046) was going to claim his first ever Euros pole position but on the final lap the Swede lost the rear of his Tamiya. With his teammate Groskamp, who he passed during the run, right on his bumper the pair made contact allowing Ronald Volker (16/5:00.335) to win the top heat. Luckily for the Tamiya team, Urbain’s time from the previous group was faster than that of Volker allowing Groskamp to retain the top spot on the qualification ranking.

View our full event coverage here.

August 1, 2009

Wilck heads Tamiya domination of penultimate Euros Qualifier

The penultimate round of qualifying for the 2009 EFRA 1:10 Electric Touring European Championships was an all Tamiya affair as their drivers set the Top 5 fastest times with Viktor Wilck (17/5:17.016) claiming the TQ even after flipping his TRF416WE. Despite the warmer track condition the Swede was on target to beat his teammate Marc Rheinard’s Round 3 time, currently the fastest run of qualifying, but once again made a mistake at the hairpin flipping his car. Luckily it landed rubber side down but the incident cost him over a second and a half, time that would have moved him in to the overall provisional TQ spot.

View our full event coverage here.