The opening round of the Danish 1/8th off road Nationals took place this weekend with nice sunny weather in Hillerød on the challenging NXC track north of Copenhagen. Peter Harder with his Novarossi powered Xray 808 took a strong victory leading from early on to win by 3 laps from Losi driver Silas Høgholt Pedersen, with HongNor driver Tim Culmsee completing the top 3.
Click here to see the final results
This past weekend saw Rd1 of the RC Pro South Division take place in Austin, TX. The field was full of quality drivers from all over the state and even some from other divisions, such as Ryan Lopez, who made the trip over for the 250+ entry event. Team Pro-Line driver Kyle Skidmore put on a show in Pro Buggy by TQ’ing 3 of 4 rounds and he would also take the win ahead of Ryan Lopez in 2nd and Mike Battaile in 3rd. In Pro Arena Truck Jason Branham matched Kyle’s performance by also TQ’ing 3 of 4 rounds and going on to take the win ahead of Mike Battaile and Ryan Lopez in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Source: Pro-Line [prolineracing.com]
West Coast R/C Raceway and Hobby Garage in La Mirada, CA have announced their first race dedicated entirely to the Short Course truck genre. The two day event, which takes place on the 22nd and 23rd of May, includes 3 rounds of qualifying on Saturday with a final round on Sunday as well as the main events. Qualifying will be based on a point format, with drivers receiving points based on their finish in each round with their best two rounds going towards their qualifying score. Triple A-Mains will be utilized in all classes to maximize the battles in each division. The Short Course Race is about more than just stiff competition, it’s also about family fun and friendly competition for drivers of all skill levels. A quick glance at the entry form shows classes ranging from Beginner and Sportsman Spec, where drivers are required to use the majority of the low cost RTR parts and electronics, up to their Expert West Coast Unlimited division in which top tier drivers will battle with heavily modded machines to determine who is top dog with an electric trophy truck.
Rules and regulations as well as the entry form can be found here.
The opening round of the Irish 1:8 Off Road National championship took place last weekend with a 40 strong entry descending on the all astro turf Navan Nitro Nuts track, which plays host to two of the rounds that make up this year’s expanded six round championship. In qualifying it was defending Champion Michael Todd who took top honours with his Losi 8ight over 2008 Champion Mark Harron’s Hot Bodies D8 while Xray’s Barkley Abernethy, winner of the championship finale at NNN last year, secured third on the grid. In the 45-minute final it was a super close racing throughout between Todd and Harron with the latter eventually coming out on top with the pair seperated by just 2.8 seconds at the finish. After terrible luck in qualifying which saw him qualify for the B final, Hobao driver Andrew White bumped up to the A where he put in a great drive to completed the podium. In the Truggy class it was an all Losi podium with Top Qualifier Arron Vance taking the win from Rodger Skelly, while Oisin O’Briain took third.
The opening round of the Dutch 1/10th scale 200mm National Championship got underway at the Groningen track in the north of the country. Nice sunny weather greeted the racers and using a new qualifying system that saw the drivers 3 best laps count towards your start position it was last year’s champion Pedro Rombouts that took the pole position ahead of Daan Jacobs, Jurgen Geerligs, Ricardo van Dam and Remy Moller, with a new system seeing the top 5 now qualifying directly into the main final. In the 30 minute main final Daan Jacobs was the first to retire, an accident on the 2nd lap ending his race. A lot of errors throughout the field on the bumpy track kept things interesting but up front Rombouts steamed ahead to win the race by 3 laps ahead of Ricardo van Dam in 2nd and Ruud Schuitmaker in 3rd, the only driver to do a tire stop in the final. In the Nomac class Arne Schober took the win ahead of pole man Marcel Haenen, with Rob Kreijssen in 3rd. Finally in the 1/8th promo class it was Peter van Dijk on pole position but problems in the final meant he dropped out of contention allowing Marc Meijer to take the win from Mario Gerssen in 2nd and Robert Krens in 3rd.
Last weekend in Pucioasa, Romania was the first round of the indoor touring car and micro rc national championships and it saw a very intense competition in three classes, 1:10 touring modified, stock and micro 1:18 scale. All important brands where present as well as the top pilots from Romania, but after 2 days it was to be only one driver to emerge on top. In the modified, 13.5 stock and micro seniors class, FX Modells driver Cristian Faur took the wins from pole position using his Serpent S400 powered by Team Tekin speed controller and Abec35 bearings.
He did it again, Rene Puepke has won the first of four races of the 2010 Western German Championship in the 1/10th nitro class just as he did one year ago. At the unforgiving 267 meter track at Dormagen, before the gates of Cologne, the Mugen team driver finished first with a two lap advantage over Serpent racer Tobias Hepp and another lap in front of Mugen fellow Daniel Thiele.
Continue reading the report here
As has become the norm in recent years, the Frankley Model Car Club played host to the opening round of the BRCA 1/8th Off-Road series. The main reason for having the astro turf tracks at the beginning of the championship is to guard against inclement weather, however this year the sun was out and it was T-shirt and shorts weather, which is pretty rare in April. Qualifying got underway with last year’s Champion Neil Cragg starting where he left off, by taking the first round win of the new season in convincing style with his Reedy/Byron powered RC8B. The new ST Reedy engine looking particularly strong at this fast track where power is a factor. Team mate Craig Drescher backed Neil up in second with his sister car and with Dave Bailey’s RB powered RC8B in fourth the Associated team were fast out of the blocks.
Continue reading the report here
