November 10, 2023

ACI Sport 2024 RC Car Racing Calendar – Announcement

ACI Sport, the Italian Motorsport Federation and member of the FIA, has announced the 2024 National Sporting calendar for RC Car Racing. The sporting activity that will ultimately assign the official titles of 2024 Italian Champion will unfold across three blocks of EP classes: Touring EP (Modified, Stock 17,5T, FWD and GT 21,5T), LMP (1/12 OPEN, GT12) and finally Endurance, which represents a newly introduced sanctioned event for Factory and Private Teams. The 2024 sanctioned racing activity will kick off on 17-18 February with the “Italian Indoor Championships” to be held in RC Landia (Scandiano) for TOURING EP and LMP classes. Racing will then move to springtime when “Italian Cups” across three Divisions (Northern – Central – Southern Italy) will take place from April to June in both Touring EP classes and Endurance. Italian Cups will act as qualifying events for drivers/teams aiming for a spot to race in the “Italian Championships” which will be held in Fontanellato (Minicar Fontanellato) for Endurance on 31 August – 1 September and in Riccione (Road Race Riccione) for Touring EP on 21-22 September. Finally, the “Italian National Trophy” will be held in Lucca (Minicar Lucca) on 6-7 July and will cater Touring EP classes.

View full ACI Sport calendar here


November 7, 2023

Martin dominates Round 2 of EssexCarpetClash

Round 2 of the popular EssexCarpetClash series took place at the end of October, where drivers had a mix of both an open and tight track. The grip seemed a little lower than the first round, so a little tweak to setup was needed, but this didn’t effect any of the fast and close racing throughout the day. In 2WD it was the mega quick Lee Martin that set the timing sheets alight taking top spot in all his qualifying runs with his Schumacher LD3. Ed Kerry had a great start to the day with some great early qualifying runs, putting his Serpent 2nd on the grid ahead of Will Venables in 3rd.Harley Eldridge would have a consistent qualifying and would line up 4th ahead of Demetri Panayides. The pole man Martin, would continue his dominance and never look back in the finals, and would make it a perfect 3 leg finals taking all leg wins and the meeting overall. With a few errors and mix ups in the field all finals, it would be Eldridge that would make the most of things and constantly finish in the top spots and getting her 2nd overall for the day with her Xray. Venables would keep his grid position and finish 3rd overall.
Continue reading here


October 31, 2023

Indonesia Year End Race 2023 – Report

The annual Indonesia Year End Race 2023 was held at East RC Speedway last week, attracted a total of 88 racers from Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand joined in.  All drivers welcomed by the very hot weather during the race week, made it much tricky for each one to find the best tuned for their car.  The event support the primary Expert Modified Class, Expert GT Class, GT Class and Touring Blinky Class.  Bowie Ginting took the overnight TQ at Modified Expert Class as he snatched Q2 and Q3 win, while Nicholas Lee won the Q1 and Q4, means the tie breaker rules handed Nicholas the overall TQ by the fastest time. Ethan Cheng rounded up 3rd for the triple A Main Final.  It was a close run between these three racer, Bowie would able to capitalise the win in A1 and A2 which awarded him the title. As Nicholas and Ethan battled it out for 2nd overall in A3 after some close racing which seen the pole sitter grab the 2nd ahead of his fellow countryman.  Wee Yuan from Malaysia was all over the contention in Blinky Class. Secured the TQ and overall win in the first two legs. Indonesian’ Dede Supriyatna would made the highest move as he started from 10th and ended up 2nd ahead of Wuzi Sevta who takes 3rd.

View results & podium images here


October 30, 2023

Bernadzik is Australian Champion

Alex Bernadzik is the new Australian 1:8 Nitro Buggy National Champion.  Racing at the MORBC track, the venue of the 2018 1:8 Buggy World Championship, the Team Associated driver took the RCRA title with victory in the 1-hour final of the SpeedyRC supported championship.  In qualifying it would be Kyle Ward-McBride who secured the TQ after he went fastest in 3 of the 5 rounds at the same track where he did his National Championship double in 2015.  With one TQ run a piece, Bernadzik and Aaron Dexter completed the Top 3 in the qualification ranking, 74 drivers taking part in this year’s Nationals.  While Ward-McBride would win his Semi from Dexter, an unlucky run for Bernadzik would see him finish 5th putting him 12th on the 15 car grid for the final.  Coming from the back it wouldn’t take Bernadzik long to get to the front and with Ward-McBride retiring after 12-minutes, he cruised to the win by a comfortable 4-lap margin over the Tekno of Caleb Noble and Sworkz of Christian Wolhuter.  In eBuggy, Noble would reverse that result taking the title from the Queensland driver with Jayden Edmunds’ Team Associated third.

Source: RC Race Media [Facebook]


October 28, 2023

ROAR removes Trinity Slot Machine from approved list

ROAR, the sanctioning body for RC racing in the United States & Canada, has removed Trinity Slot Machine motors from its approved motor list.  In a statement it said, ‘ROAR and Horizon Hobby have jointly agreed to remove the Trinity Slot Machine motors from ROAR’s list of approved motors.  This decision will take effect on November 10, 2023 and applies to all versions of the Slot Machine motors (i.e.,13.5T, 17.5T, 21.5T and 25.5T). ROAR routinely purchases and re-inspects previously approved motors to ensure that the final production version does not differ from those that were originally submitted for certification.  Following one such check, ROAR recently discovered that significant changes had been made to the internal design of the Slot Machine motor after they had already been inspected and approved by ROAR’s technical staff.

Continue reading statement here


October 26, 2023

British GT12 Nationals RD2 Tamworth – Report

Last Sunday was Round 2 of the BRCA GT12 National Championship held in Tamworth by the TRRAC club.  The track was a nice flowing layout, with a couple of technical sections and a high grip level.  A big thanks to the TRRAC club for their incredible effort put into hosting this national event.  In qualifying, Adam Mackman managed to take the overall TQ with an impressive 11.87 fastest lap in the final round, with Sam Coult in 2nd and Aidan Ripley in 3rd.  Mark Jewitt followed closely behind in 4th, whilst there was a total of 4 seconds separating 5th to 8th place completing the A Final. A special mention to 12 year old Chase Mackman for qualifying 6th for his first ever national A Final!  In the Mini Supercup class, Matthew Smithson TQ’d with a fast 21 lap qualifying run, followed by Paul Frewin in 2nd and James Kemp in 3rd.  As the A Final started the top 3 started to grow a gap from the rest of the drivers, with Adam, Sam and Aidan racing for the number 1 spot.  A small error from Aidan allowed Mark Jewitt to catch up and take the 3rd place spot.  Chase Mackman managed to gain a position and move into 5th overall. Whilst 3rd and 4th were battling for position, this allowed Adam and Sam to form a 4 second lead.  With a full 6 minutes of clean racing between Adam and Sam, Adam managed to hold onto 1st and take the overall win with a gap of 0.2s to Sam in 2nd.

View Podium results/photos here


October 23, 2023

Landén doubles in Swedish National Cup – Report

Over the weekend the second & final round of the 1:10 Buggy Swedish National Cup was held in Borås where it was Team Associated driver Alexander Landén who completed the series double.  The largest indoor event for a long time in Sweden, the race attracted 63 2WD and 43 4WD drivers who arrived Saturday morning to a freshly built layout for the series decider.  In 2WD, right from the start it was quite clear that Landén seemed to be the one to beat this time.  Locking out all four qualifying rounds we also had the opportunity to test some new ideas on the setup during the fourth round, which improved the car even more for the finals. Behind Alexander, Xray drivers Hampus Berg and David Ronnefalk would line up 2nd and 3rd on the grid. Alexander secured the win by taking the first two rounds with relative comfort, being the only driver scoring 19 lap runs.  Hampus Berg won the final leg and by that securing second and third place went to Otto Ausfelt (AE) tied on points with Ronnefalk.  This also meant that Landén was crowned the overall Series Champion.

Continue reading here


October 23, 2023

Phend is 2023 Masters of Dirt Master

The ninth annual Masters of Dirt took place at BeachRC in South Carolina over the weekend where Dakotah Phend was crowned the overall Master of the event for his combined results in 2WD & 4WD Buggy and Stadium Truck.  Attracting over 450 entries, qualifying for 4WD saw three different drivers post TQ runs with TLR’s Brennan Schimmel the overall Top Qualifier on tie break from team-mate Phend with Team Associated’s Aydin Horne securing P3.  In 2WD, Phend secured pole having TQ’d Q2 & 3 from new World Champion Tater Sontag whose TLR topped the opening round.  Rivkin’s Associated completing the Top 3.  With single 10-minute A-Mains, Phend led 2WD from start to finish as Schumacher’s Broc Champlin came through from P5 to finish just ahead of Rivkin.  With the event concluding with the 4WD A-Main, it was Rivkin who came through for the win over 3-seconds up on Ryan Maifield and Phend with both Schimmel and Sontag non finishers.  In Stadium Truck, Phend took both the TQ and win with Rivkin and Horne completing the podium.

Image: Masters of Dirt [Facebook]