Teemu Leino has surprised his rivals in Thailand by recording the fastest time in controlled practice as day one of the 1:12 scale World Championships comes to a close. The flying Finn is debuting Xray’s new XII and was the only driver to record 39 laps over 8 minutes with his closest rival being CRC driver Jilles Groskamp who just missed out on 39 laps recording 38 in a time of 8:00.644.
Read the full coverage on our event site here.
EFRA have published the minutes from last weekends AGM that took place in Lyon, France. Contained within is the Calendar for 2009 that sees the introduction of a new indoor 1/12th and 1/10th scale electric European Championship which will take place in Collegno, Italy in January. Other events of note are the 1/8th scale on road World Championships in Lostallo, Switzerland that will be held from the 15th to 23rd of August. Due to the 1/8th scale Worlds taking place in Europe next year, there will be no European A Championships for this class. Next years outdoor Touring car Euros will be run in Luxembourg at the beginning of August, the 1/10th 200mm European A Championships is in Gubbio, Italy at the end of July and the World Championships for EP buggy will be in the beginning of October. It looks as if we will be extremely busy in 2009.
The full EFRA AGM minutes can be viewed here.
View the full 2009 Calendar here (PDF).
So the stage is set for the 2008 IFMAR Electric Onroad World Championship here at the Radio Control Speedway in Bangkok, Thailand where there is great anticipation for what should be two thrilling World title battles. The first title up for grabs is 1:12th which kicks off tomorrow (Sunday) with free practice. One thing for certain is no matter what the outcome there will be a brand new champion of the world as defending Champion David Spashett has not made the trip to Asia to defend his title and although five times World Champion Masami Hirosaka is here, he will not race, opting to fully focus his attention on trying to lift his first ever 1:10 Touring Car title later in the week.
Read the full coverage on our event site here.
Our half sister Neo Buggy is pleased to announce the return of the Neo race in 2009 (“Neo09”). After the success of Neo08 in March this year, the event will once again be hosted at the Harper Adams facility, with DXR as the organizers. Using a similar timetable as Neo08 with some tweaks, the event will have an entry limit of 180 1/8 buggy drivers. A special ‘invite only’ 1/8 Electric Buggy class will also be run alongside the main class. The date of the event is 10-13 April 2009; 4 days over Easter, with 1 day of practice, 2 days of qualifying, and finals on Monday.
Further details will be published on the official event site here.
The organisers of the Largest RC race in the World, the Snowbird Nationals have been in touch to announce that the 2009 Speed Week schedule is posted on the event website. Along with the schedule, racers can also read about all the great news so far leading up to the annual event, which is being held Jan 27th-Feb 1st 2009 in Orlando, Florida. Vintage Trans Ams, SK Cars, the Thunder 600, the initial Sponsor lineup, FastLaps practice machine, and more, already announced.
Visit the event website here.
The 2008 Reedy Truck Race of Champions was held last week at Hot Rod Hobbies in Saugus, California. Temperatures reached the mid to upper 90’s all week long putting motors and batteries to the test in these extreme conditions. On Thursday there was a buzz going around the pits with last years defending Reedy Truck Race Champion and current World Champion Jared Tebo arrived to the track, but had a few less stickers on his truck. Jared was recently released from his motor/battery sponsor a few short weeks ago and didn’t have a power sponsor. A closer look at his truck showed he had a Team Orion Vortex Brushless Motor and a Team Orion 3800 LiPo Battery in his truck.
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The organizers of the 2009 DHI Cup have once more been in touch to remind everyone that entry for this fantastic event will begin at 20:00 GMT (21:00 CET) on the 22nd of October (tomorrow). Taking place on the 9th to 11th of January in the same venue as last year, the Sport Arena in Odense, Denmark, this race is a must for all serious electric racers. This year modified class drivers will get 2 sets of controlled tires, while in Super Stock the drivers get 1 set of control tires and a handout GM brushless 9.5T motor. The control tire is Sorex28A with JB Foam inserts mounted on GM wheels. The Super Stock class has a limit of 100 drivers while in Modified it is 120 drivers, so be sure to get your entry in early to avoid disappointment.
Event site can be found here, while the entry page is here.
With the IFMAR 1:10 Electric Onroad World Championships less than a month away many of the leading manufacturers have been conducting private testing at the RCS track in Thailand as they make final preparations for the bi-annual event. At last weekend’s Euro Touring Series race in German we spoke with former European Champion Ronald Volker who had just returned from a successful test in Bangkok while Pre-Worlds winner Viktor Wilck and team-mates Jilles Groskamp & Marc Rheinard told us they had just a few days to get ready before flying out to Asia together with Tamiya’s engineers to test new parts for the TRF416. The other big title challenger, Xray, was also in Bangkok this week but appeared to want to keep their WC challenger out of the public eye. Our sources in Thailand have told us that both Teemu Leino and Alex Hagberg’s cars were fitted with a number of new prototype parts which we understand are for a new car which is rumoured to be released by the Slovakian company ahead of the 2009 season. Juraj Hudy, who is the creative genius behind all Xray cars, together with Martin Hudy were on hand to support Leino & Hagberg at the test and according to our source they did not want the new parts (car?) to be seen with both drivers keeping their cars well covered up at all time. Red RC will be travelling to Thailand to bring you full coverage of the World Championships where a certain Mr. Hara could make history by adding to the 1:8 Buggy World title he won last month in the US.
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