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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.

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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

December 21, 2023

2024 MIBO International registration opens

Following the hugely successful inaugural running of the MIBO International Race in the Czech Republic in March of this year, the race is back for 2024 with registration now open for the February 16-18 event. Organised by former international touring car racer Michal Bok the race brings together both electric onroad and offroad racing on two tracks build side by side by the team from Mibosport. A long time dream of Bok to host his own major international event in Hrotovice, the first edition of MIBO International saw Mugen’s Ronald Volker crowned the inaugural Touring Car Champion and Xray’s Bruno Coelho take double buggy honours at the Sport V Hotel venue. With everything from the track, restaurant, bowling alley and hotel rooms all under one roof, the venue was a hit with racers who travelled from 13 different countries. With a capped entry limit the relaxed schedule also meant plenty of time in the evening to wind down and socialise over dinner after each day’s racing. On the onroad track, the racing action will again cater for Modified, Stock & FWD Touring cars plus Formula. The Offroad track will cater for 2WD and 4WD Buggy as well an open class of ‘Offroad Kids’ that will give the future stars of racing an opportunity to be a part of this international event. Red RC is looking forward to making the return trip to Czech Republic for the 2nd edition of the race which will kick off our 2024 race coverage.

Source: MIBO [mibosport.com]

December 19, 2023

Cavalieri departs WIRC after just one season

It was a surprise announcement when it was made this time last year, but after just one season since joining WIRC Racing, Ryan Cavalieri has announced his departure from running for the Italian manufacturer. The multiple electric 1:10 Offroad World Champion, who races for Schumacher in that category, looks set to announce imminently a new 1:8 offroad chassis sponsor having just last week joined Nova Engines. On his social media, Cavalieri stated he was ‘really excited about the next chapter’ implying a new sponsor is already in place. He posted, ‘With 2023 coming to an end so does my time with WRC. I want to thank Matt Kennedy from send it rc, Chris Marrant and Franco for the opportunity they gave me. With that being said Im Really excited for this next chapter to begin and look forward to 2024 racing season.

Source: Ryan Cavalieri [Facebook]

December 18, 2023

2023 PN World Cup – Report

The 17th running of the PN World Cup was held recently at RCHQ in San Antonio, Texas, USA, with the event selling out in a very rapid 19-minutes. Hosting 114 drivers from 11 countries, they would compete for the honours in Stock, F1, Super Stock, AWD Mod, GT 2WD Mod, and Pan Car 2WD Mod classes. In the modified classes, Michael Maldonado from Pueblo, Colorado, took the victories in Pan Car and GT, and Mathieu De Rocha from France successfully defended his world title from Bangkok 2022 in AWD. Maldonado would also go on to win the Super Stock title, and Ethan Martinez from San Antonio completed the double wins in Stock and F1.

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December 17, 2023

Volker wins hugely successful inaugural FIRC

Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker has won the hugely successful inaugural Foshan Invitational RC Championship in China. One of a number of international drivers to make the trip to the new GDC Indoor track in the central Guangdong Province, Volker completed the perfect weekend taking the TQ honours before converting that in the overall win with victory in A2. The biggest challenger to the former World Champion would come in the form of Chinese driver Vening Zhuo who was justly rewarded for his impressive showing with second overall. Highly complimentary of Zhuo talents, Volker only discovered during the event that the driver keeping him honest all weekend was the very same person he had been offering racing advice too after he had reached out to the professional racer through social media. An event created to give Chinese racers experience of international competition, it would be Japanese visitor and Xpress team driver Yugo Nagashima who would complete the podium for what race organiser Gavin Kwok is aiming to establish into one of Asia’s major annual international touring car races.

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December 17, 2023

Volker takes A1 at FIRC

Ronald Volker has taken the opening A-Main at the inaugural Foshan Invitational RC Championship in China, the Mugen Seiki driver kept honest over the 5-minutes by the Awesomatix of Chinese driver Vening Zhuo as chaos broke out behind. With race organiser Gavin Kwok’s goal of hosting the race at his GDC Indoor track to highlight the international level to local racers, Volker put on the perfect display as he lead the field away from the TQ. Only Zhuo would be able to hang with the former World Champion as the pair quickly pulled away and gapped the other 8 starters. Behind all the attention was on the battle for 3rd with the pack building up behind a struggling Marco Ma who had Xray team Jerry Dai all over his back bumper. Six laps in as they came on to the straight Ma got out of shape setting a chain of crashes with Xpress’ Yugo Nagashima coming out the best of it in 3rd having found him push out of position and down to ninth on the opening lap. With Volker and Zhuo quickly in traffic the both navigated it well to with Nagashima holding position to complete the Top 3 ahead of the recovering Dai.

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