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April 25, 2024

Connolly wins Irish 1:8 GT National opener

The opening round of the Irish National GT Championship took place in the beautiful St Anne’s Track located in the centre of Dublin last weekend where Genius Racing’s Clive Connolly took the win. Hosted by ORCA Ireland, in qualifying it was Connolly taking TQ honours followed by Graeme Lougheed, the top 2 automatically into the Main Final leaving the rest to battle in the Semi Finals for the remaining final positions. The 30min Main was a close affair with battles throughout the field. Jason Noonan and Graeme Lougheed both driving Genius cars would fight for 18 minutes until finally Graeme would retire with a technical failure allowing Bruno Barbosa driving a strong race with his OS powered Xray to move up a position. Out in front it was multiple Irish Champion Connolly driving his Mantis Tuned powered GTC8.23 on SP Rubber that would take the victory with a trouble free run from start to finish.

Image: ORCA Ireland [Facebook]

April 23, 2024

Rivkin makes it 3 in a row with ROAR Nationals double

Team Associated’s Spencer Rivkin made it three consecutive years of being crowned 1:10 Offroad ROAR National Champion with a buggy double at the 2024 Championships held at the Beach RC & Hobbies track in South Carolina. A relatively small entry by US race standards, 93 drivers making for a total of 201 entries, all the major contenders where there for the Mod 2WD and 4WD titles. In qualifying it would be former World Champion Rivkin with the 2WD TQ ahead of the similar buggy of Aydin Horne and the TLR of Dakotah Phend. 4WD would see the Top 2 order reversed with Horne the Top Qualifier from Rivkin with Schumacher’s Broc Champlin 3rd. With Horne getting passed Rivkin to take A1 and Rivkin then taking A2 it went to A3. While Horne laid down the fastest lap, he couldn’t get by Rivkin who eventually took the win by 9/10ths of a second and with it the overall title with Phend completing the podium. In 4WD, Rivkin got by Horne in the first two encounters to seal the deal early. Winning A3, Horne took the runners up spot with 2WD World Champion Tater Sontag completing the podium for TLR. Horne wouldn’t go home empty handed however taking Stadium Truck title ahead of Rivkin and the Xray of Tom Rinderknect.

Image: Team Associated [Facebook]

April 16, 2024

Thurston wins 1:8 Onroad British Nationals opener

Alex Thurston enjoyed the perfect debut with his new Mugen Seiki MRX6 at the opening round of the BRCA 1:8 Onroad British National Championship taking the TQ and setting a new lap record on the way to victory over reigning Champion Tim Wood. Over the four rounds of qualifying Thurston was the only driver to run 18-laps, securing the overall TQ ahead of the Shepherd of Wood and Vice-Champion Karl Dransfield. In the half hour final an opening lap incident involving hitting a pitman delayed Thurston but worse for Dransfield resulted in the end of his race. This allowed Wood to go to the front but losing 8-seconds with a slow first pitstop, he dropped back to second as Thurston took over a lead. Once out front Thurston held station winning by 11-seconds from Wood with the Shepherd of fourth place qualifier John Carr completing the podium. While a great day for Thurston, unfortunately after 20-years racing at the Cotswolds track this was to be the last race before it is permanently closed down due to the site being developed for commercial use.

Image: Alex Thurston [Facebook]

April 15, 2024

2024 Speed King Tour Rd1 – Report

The opening round of the Speed King Tour 2024 was held recently at Super RC Omiya indoor tarmac track in Saitama prefecture Japan with Infinity driver Jin Sawada taking the main win from Axon’s Hayato Ishioka. The popular and competitive electric touring car series is now in its 11th year sand consisting of six rounds travels to circuits across Japan. Host of Round 1, the Super RC Omiya track is known for its high bite and the Speed King Tour specific rules specify controlled tyres and prohibit the use of tyre warmer, which are highly favoured by racers in Japan. A major boost for the series was the participation of RC legend Atsushi Hara at the controls of soon to be release limiteds edition Xpress Execute XQ11 Hara Edition.

Continue reading report here

April 15, 2024

Cragg & Hall win at British Championship opener

Chasing his 28th British National Championship title, reigning BRCA 1:10 2WD Offoad Champion Neil Cragg made the perfect start to his quest with victory at the season opener held at Robin Hood Raceway. In 4WD it was reigning Champion and Team Associated team-mate Tommy Hall who took the win for the perfect start to the 6 round championship. In 2WD qualifying it was Schumacher’s Josh Holdsworth who secured the TQ from Hall, both drivers topping 2 round each, while behind Cragg secured P3 on the grid ahead of Schumacher’s Lee Martin. While Holdsworth took A1 from Cragg, the rest of his day didn’t fair well and he ended up 5th overall. A2 saw a win for Cragg while Hall led them home in A3 but with a 1st & P2 it was Cragg with the overall win from Martin with a pair of second places while Hall’s win and P4 from A1 saw him complete the podium. Switching to 4WD, it was former European Champion Hall who secured the TQ from Martin, both drivers posting two TQ runs each with Cragg again lining up P3 ahead of Ben Smith. Despite Martin’s best efforts in A1, Hall took the first two encounters to wrap up the win with Martin get the A3 win to finish runner-up ahead of Cragg.

Image: Schumacher [racing-cars.com]

April 15, 2024

Ment & Bakla win NSW State Titles

Boasting one of the largest entries for a state titles event in Australia, the 1:10 Offroad NSW State titles took place over the weekend at 2025 IFMAR Offroad World Championship host track Hills Off Road RC Car Club where Team Associated’s Jarod Ment (2WD) and Xray’s Ari Bakla (4WD) took the two big titles up for grabs. A low/med grip level track using molasses to bind the surface to maintain consistency throughout the day whilst reducing the need for water/blowing of the track, the State Titles attracted in excess of 220 entries with 60+ Mod drivers spread over the 3 day event. In Saturday’s 4WD action it was Bakla who secured the TQ ahead of the Q1 topping Team Associated of Lachlan Donnelly after he took the remaining 3 of the four rounds as Ment completed the Top 3. In the triple finals Bakla maintained that form to secure the title in A2 with the rest of the podium order ending up the same as how they qualified. Switching to 2WD on Sunday, qualifying saw three different drivers TQ a round but with his Q4 it was again Bakla on pole followed by Donnelly and Ment. In the finals however A1 would Donnelly force a pass in the final 30-second to snatch the win from the Top Qualifier. A2 would see the Top 2 again go at it but contact would drop them both down the order with Ment taking late win. With all on the line in A3, Bakla would make some early mistakes dropping down the field and releasing the 3 young talents of Donnelly, Ment and Jordan Isergin. With just over a minute remaining Ment would pull off one of the best passes of the weekend finding a line up the inside after the doubles. Donnelly would hassle Ment for the position right until the final lap where a small mistake would allow Jordan Isergin to take second. The result gave Ment the title ahead of Donnelly and Bakla.

Source: Mitch on the Mic [Facebook]

April 9, 2024

Guerra & Giorgio win at FORGASS finale

The fifth & final round of the Florida Onroad Gas State Series was held at Greg Esser’s Nuggets Ranch Raceway in Arcadia, Florida where it was reigning series Champion Jerry Guerra who took the 200mm Sedan win while Gianni Giorgio took the victory in 1:8. Having raced only twice since retiring 8-years old, José Castellanos made an impressive return to action securing the TQ by 1.1 seconds with his Infinity and showing no signs of rust as he prepares for the 200mm IFMAR World Championships in Costa Rica later this year. Behind, it would be Guerra who secured 2nd with David Larry completing the Top 3 after the four rounds of qualifying. In the half hour final, Guerra who will also travel to the World Championships made a strong start managing to get by Castellanos at the second corner and once his Infinity IF15 was in front was able to eek out a gap crossing the finish half a lap up on Castellanos who would post the fastest lap of the race. Peter Breton, who started from P5, would complete the podium with his Shepherd. In 1:8, Giorgio completed a clean sweep by taking the TQ and a comfortable win in the final over Alex Esser.

Image: Jerry Guerra

April 8, 2024

Hebert & Hagberg win at Canadian Onroad Nationals

Keven Hebert and Xray team-mate Alexander Hagberg took the main wins at this year’s Canadian Onroad Nationals which took place over the weekend at Rose City Speedway in Ontario. In Touring Car, reigning Champion Hebert would secure the TQ with the fastest time in the fourth & final round of qualifying. Behind the Awesomatix of Douglas Shewfelt secured second with his Q3 time ahead of international visitor Alexander Hagberg. In 1:12 qualifying it was the Swede who claimed the TQ from Shewfelt with Hebert lining up P3 for his title defence. With the 13th edition of the event attracting a very healthy 349 entries, in the single A-Main encounters it was Hebert who took the Mod Touring Car win by 2.4-seconds over Shewfelt and Hagberg while the former 1:12 World Champion converted his TQ into a 1-lap winning margin over the 8-minutes from Hebert with Shewfelt completing the podium.

Image: Keven Hebert [Facebook]