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February 24, 2007

Dirt Nitro Challenge – Qualifying

Dirt Nitro Challenge

This weekend also sees the running of the Dirt Nitro Challenge in the Dirt racing facility in Phoenix, Arizona. Attracting an incredible entry of 390 racers in 3 classes this race is one of the premier off road races in the United States. The track looks awesone but was flooded in recent rains and this disrupted the practice schedule for all racers, but they got it sorted and got straight into the racing. Qualifying for the trucks took place on Thursday and that was led by Losi racer Travis Amezcua with his team mate Mike Truhe close behind in 2nd. Taylor James is next up in 3rd, the Futaba Nitro Challenge winner placing ahead of 4th place Cody King racing a Kyosho.

The buggy qualifying took place yesterday, Friday, and that was once more dominated by the Losi 8ight, this time in the hands of Mike Truhe who got the better of his well known and extremely fast team mate Adam Drake who ended up 2nd. Taylor James once more ending up 3rd fastest with his Jammin buggy just in front of his team mate Chad Bradley. European Champion Yannick Aigoin is also at the event, racing both classes with his Xray, but despite making the A-main in the truggy class, he is struggling in buggy and lines up in the B-main hoping to be able to bump up and take part in the main event. Also of note is that Team Associated have placed two of the RC8 buggies in the A-main with Ryan Maifield in 6th and Ryan Cavalieri in 9th while O’Donnell, whose buggy we showed you pictures off this week, is struggling in the hands of the 1/10th truck pole man Jared Tebo and will only start in the B-main in 1/8th buggy.

Finals starts Saturday but you can check out the top qualifiers here… content

February 24, 2007

2007 TITC – Saturday qualifying

2007 TITC

Andy Moore has topped the qualifying sheets at the 2007 TITC, showing the top form that saw him become World Champion last year. Driving his Hot Bodies Cyclone, Moore managed to put in a blistering pace in the fastest last round to be the only driver to make it into the 21 lap range to take the top spot by over 4 seconds from Tamiya driver Hupo Hoenigl who moved up from nowhere before the final qualifying round to line up in 2nd. In 3rd position is DHI cup winner Ronald Voelker with the HB Cyclone who takes his place ahead of 4th and 5th place racers Jilles Groskamp and Atsushi Hara, racing Xray and HB respectively. The fact that 2nd – 6th positions are covered by 2 tenths of a second shows the tight competition at this event as well as showing the amazing pace of Moore who is so far up front.

Click more to see the top 10 qualifiers… content

February 23, 2007

2007 TITC – Friday Controlled Practice

TITC

Yesterday we told you all about this years TITC in Thailand and today the event got underway with controlled practice for all the assembled drivers. In crazy heat once more it was Atsushi Hara with his Team Checkpoint powered Hot Bodies Cyclone that set the pace with Hido Kitazawa driving a Tamiya only 2 seconds behind. In 3rd was HB cyclone racer Surikarn C. while it was yet another HB racer in 4th with Olly Jeffries from the UK doing a great job. Andy Moore was on a fast run in the faster 2nd run but crashed out while Ronald Voelker broke a belt in his tire, ending his run. Qualifying starts tomorrow and we hope to bring you the results at the end of the day.

For pictures from the event until now, you can go here, here and here.

Click more to see the top 10 fastest… content

February 22, 2007

2007 Thailand International Touring Car Champs

TITC Marc Rheinard

This weekend sees the RC circus make their way to Thailand, fresh from the Snowbirds & Winternats in the case of Jilles Groskamp, to race the Thailand International Touring Car Championships, or TITC for short. This years event takes place at the Radio Control Speedway in Jadujag, Thailand and is sure to be a tough race for all involved as it has attracted all 4 IFMAR ITC World Champions as well as some of the best Asian and European racers (see entry lists here). Last years Mod race was won by Marc Rheinard and he is certain to be a favourite this year along with local favourite and winner of last years Stock class Surikarn C, but they first have to get their cars dialed in on the rubber tires and in the 40 degree C heat that is beating down on the track in practice.

Expect the heat to play a major role in who can win this event, as the track temperature is in the mid 50’s celcius, and when you consider that modern machinery is already struggling to get rid of the heat while racing indoors in cooler conditions you can expect to some heat related failures throughout proceedings. Qualfiying will start on Saturday, with the finals on Sunday and we hope to bring you some end of day updates as we get them.

For pictures from the event until now, you can go here, here and here.

Image: TITC [titc.in.th]

February 21, 2007

Toni Rheinard confirmed to Hot Bodies

A short while back we wrote a piece about the fact that Toni ‘brother of Marc’ Rheinard may be upping and leaving Kyosho, a company that he had only raced with for a short time, well that is now confirmed. In pictures from this weeks TITC race in Thailand we can see that Toni is now racing for Hot Bodies, which is a good move for both parties, with Toni hopefully able to get the exposure and success that being a HB driver brings, and HB getting a very talented racer. ~~Hopefully somebody will stand him against a wall and get a picture of him in his HB gear but in the meantime we’ll have to make do with my dodgy compilation shots above~~.

UPDATE: Someone called his name and took his picture.

Images: Team Novi [teamnovi.blog.drecom.jp/]

February 21, 2007

Xray on their NT1 debut

Xray on the NT1 debut

Although we already covered the Winternats I thought it was interesting to get an insight on how the Xray team felt they had performed, considering the hype surrounding the event and the debut of their new 200mm racer, the NT1. While the car definitely performed, it suffered from some off track problems when it mattered most such as poor pit stops as well as the problem that got Jilles Groskamp disqualified after the B-main, but they showed some good speed in the A-main but suffered major tyre wear problems as the track conditions on the finals day changed.

Despite using the harder tire compounds the tires were wearing more than expected and with only a few minutes remaining the rear tires on both Martin and Ralph’s cars wore down almost to the rims making the car more difficult to handle; in the last laps, both lost their 2nd and 3rd position respectively.

You can read the full report here.

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]

February 20, 2007

Snowbird A-main Videos now online

[youtube]ID5rBBE9oCQ[/youtube]

Thanks to the wonder that is YouTube and the enthusiasm of some great spectators with a video camera we can bring you all the important A-mains from the Worlds biggest race, the Snowbirds. This is far better than the webcam as you can actually now see the far corner of the track, those who watched it live online will know what im talking about. The first one is above and is from the Touring Mod final that was won by Jilles Groskamp, the others are below.

Check out the other Videos here… content

February 19, 2007

Martin Pater wins Czech Kyosho Masters

Czech Kyosho Masters

Xray have a report on their site about last weekends Kyosho Masters race in the Czech Republic. The event attract around 100 racers from all around Europe and included many top international racers like former World Champion Daniel Reckward. In qualifying it was Michael Jonsson that got the fastest time ahead of Thomas Passmann and Martin Pater. After the semi finals were run it was on to the main final were Martin Pater was able to pull out a lead and keep it to the end despite heavy pressure throughout the race.

Martin was able to get a good lead which allowed him to take one extra fueling to keep a safe run. Despite having World Champion Daniel Recward pushing hard and trying to catch the leader, Martin stayed calm the whole race and was able to bring the XRAY XB8EC to the final win of this prestigious race.

Read the full event report here.