A brief report from the 2nd round of the French Classique Nationals for 1/8th scale flat pan chassis’ that was held at the MACN circuit in Nantes. The race was won by DXF racer Gilles Garrigou ahead of the current French National Champion Bruno Petiot in 2nd also with a DXF, while in the 3rd spot was the DXF designer Marc Dellunto rounding out the podium in 3rd.
More National Championships starting up over the weekend, this time it was the turn of the Belgian 1/8th scale series to get started. Running at the narrow and technical Houthalen curcuit, the racers had dry weather on Saturday for testing, but rain on Sunday meant that everyone had to waterpoof their cars and put on their rain tires and after qualifying it was Kyosho driver Gunther Van Staey that took the pole from Serpent driver D’Hondt in 2nd. In the final, Robin could get into the lead just after the start and thanks to saving his wet weather tyres during qualifying he had the grip to pull out a lead of 4 laps by the end of the 30 minute race from Van Staey in 2nd and Mugen driver Michel Bourgeois in 3rd.
Source: Serpent [serpent.com]
Last weekend saw the second round of the French 1/10th scale Nationals run at the technical circuit of Vichy. Qualifying for the National class saw Maxime Favrelle take the pole position from Yannick Lesserteur in 2nd and Romain Jaureguy in 3rd while in the Elite Class it was Thomas Eytard that was quickest followed by Thomas Desmarie and Renaud Monin in 2nd and 3rd. The National class main final saw a close race long battle between the pole man Favrelle and Frederic Bourrillon and Yannick Lesserteur, but unfortunately for Yannick he had problems very close the end and fell back to 5th and this allowed J-Philippe Michel into 3rd at the end behind winner Maxime Favrelle and runner up Frederic Bourrillon. In the Elite final, after a restart because of timing problems, it was Mickael Pontal into the early lead from Basile Concialdi, but problems mid way through the race for the front running group allowed Xray driver Arnaud Chaussard through into the lead from where he took control and went onto win from Concialdi in 2nd and Renaud Monin in 3rd.
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Last weekend saw the 3rd round of the West German Championship take place at the Motodrom Rhein-Ahr track. Practice on Saturday was run under good weather conditions and temperatures between 14°C and 16°C and from the beginning it was clear that Christian Wurst with his JP-powered Velox was the man to beat. After 4 qualifying heats on Sunday he had taken the pole-postion by 4 seconds from Serpent SDD driver Tobias Hepp in 2nd. After the qualifying it started to rain so the lunch break was extended to race the semi-finals under dry conditions, but after the semi-finals it started to rain heavily again so the race was abandoned and the results were called, which gave Wirst the win from Hepp, with Karl Heinz Meister in 3rd.
Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]
The second round of the French 1/8th scale on road Nationals was run last weekend in Avignon in the very south of the country. In Saturday’s qualifying for the Elite class it was round 1 winner Richard Volta that claimed the TQ spot from Stéphane Bouche and Richard Zatla, while in the National class the quickest driver during the heats was Serpent driver Mickaël Tequi, placing ahead of Romain Baehrel and Jérémy Becht. Following the Semi Finals the National class main final was run and it was a race long battle between Tequi and Baehrel, but a last minute pitstop meant the win went to Tequi, from Baehrel in 2nd and Arnaud Mathieu in 3rd. In the Elite class final Volta got straight into the lead but was hassled for the first half of the race by the chasing pair of Nicolas Guillot and Jérôme Papaconstantinos. Volta, driving a Shepherd Velox, eventually managed to pull out a gap and take the win, and following problems for Guillot, the Kyosho pairing of Papaconstantinos and Adrien Siefried finished in 2nd and 3rd.
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The opening round of the AMSCI Italian 1/8th scale Nationals for F1 level drivers was run at the weekend in Bologna. Qualifying for the race was headed up by ATS shod Serpent racer Giordano Agostinelli with team mate Alberto Tadeshi in 2nd, and young Shepherd Velox driver Stefano Pregnolato in 3rd. In the race, Agostinelli was able to get straight into the lead but was to have some very tough battles but eventually dropped back to finish 4th while Pregnolato managed to work his way to the front thanks to some good driving, fast pit stops and some problems for the guys ahead. Near the end of the race, while still leading, the Velox driver developed some brake problems and this caused some frantic action by his pitman in his last stop which resulted in a stop and go for the young driver which lost him the lead to Serpent driver Domenico Calce, who took the lead and soon after, the win, with Pregnolato only 2 seconds back in 2nd and Alberto Tedeschi in 3rd.
Source: Automodellismo [automodellismo.net]
The first 1/8th scale BRCA National was held at the weekend at the very wet and muddy track in Ware, Herts. Qualifying saw Losi racer Darren Bloomfield take pole from last years Champion, and Associated team, driver Neil Cragg in 2nd, while Graham Alsop placed his Hyper 8.5 3rd on the grid. The main final was run in very wet conditions and quickly became a two horse race between Graham Alsop and Neil Cragg, the two swapping the lead for the first 25 minutes until Neil suffered a sliced tyre which cut the battle short. This left Graham to cruise to an unchallenged victory as Neil nursed his car home to 2nd and Bruce Thompson in 3rd, 2 laps back on the leading pair.
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Last weekend saw the second round of the Portuguese 1/10th EP Touring car Nationals take place at the Monsanto track, home of this year’s 1/10th 200mm Nitro Touring Worlds and the track provided all the racers present with very good grip thanks to the rubber layed down by the nitro cars at the recent Worlds Warm-Up. The Modified class was won by Xray driver Nuno Gancho, finishing in front of Hot Bodies driver Francisco Henrique in 2nd, while the 3rd spot went to Daniel Ferreira driving a Serpent. The stock class saw another win for Xray, with Pedro Pita winning from Schumacher driver João Miguel in 2nd and Robitronics racer Gonçalo Alves in 3rd.
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