Korean company Highest have announced the signing of Swedish frontrunner David Ronnefalk to their factory team. The former European Champion joins prominent team mates such as Robert Batlle and Reno Savoya and he will use the company’s servo line from now on. It is understood that his first official outing for his new sponsors will be the forthcoming The Dirt Nitro Challenge.
Source: Highest [highestrc.com]
The 2016 Eastern States Indoor On-Road Championship was recently held at RC Car World in Willingboro, New Jersey, attracting over 90 entries. Races were held for a variety of classes including Vintage, 17.5 Touring, USGT, F1 Rubber, F1 Foam, Mini, and 1/12, with 17.5 Touring being the most popular. The story of the weekend was the dominant performance of Patrick Clark (Team Associated) in this respective class. With a first round TQ run of 35 6:00 five racers were within a few seconds of the TQ lap pace. In round two several drivers began to close the gap and apply pressure on Pat. Come round 3 and Pat erased all doubt of who would end the day holding TQ, with his most dominate run of the event of a 37 6:09. Patrick was the only driver of the event to break into the 37 lap mark. With his strangle hold on TQ attention shifted to the remaining nine spots in the A-main. When the dust had settled only eight seconds separated the remaining top 8 drivers. The grid was for an exciting A-main and as expected, Pat’s dominance continued as he took a tone to tone victory from Quin Moon (VBC) in second and Courtney Townend (Xray) in third.
South Africa will soon host their first 1/8 GT Cup Endurance event as part of a new annual series, after recently including the growing 1/8 GT discipline to its National calendar. The first event is a 3-hour endurance race between teams of three to four drivers and it will take place on the 20th of February at the TRAP RC Venue in Pretoria. The race has already received over 10 teams onto its entry list and more information about the event and the series can be found here.
The recent FinTrack Tour II was organised by KyPak and it attracted a good amount of drivers to compete in several electric on-road classes including Touring Cars and Formula. In the Formula category it was Aapo Koro who dominated the qualifiers to take the TQ and with it the pole position for the triple A-mains. A1 then saw Aapo rolling in the fast chicane, promoting Riku Teräväinen into the lead that he would hold until the end. In A2 Aapo had learned his lesson and he took an easy win, meaning the third and final A-main would decide over the win. In the high-grip conditions of A3 Riku was not able to match Aapo’s pace and this allowed Aapo Koro to take the win and with it the overall victory. Riku Teräväinen ended the day on the runner-up spot in front of Ilpo Koivisto.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
Creation Model have officially announced Finnish pro Teemu Leino as one of their Factory Infinity team drivers. The former European ISTC Champion and multiple World finalist in almost all categories, brings with him, his skills, competence and experience which will be a great addition to this new company’s future projects. Teemu, who had up until the end of last season driven for HPI/HB had the following to say:
After my old contract runs to the end I decided to have new venture on my R/C career. Creation Model Ltd has some interesting projects coming up and I feel could help them with my know-how from R/C many ways on and off the tracks. Will race with Infinity cars from now on. I look forward to spend next years with them and develop some great products with them. See you at the race tracks.
Source: Creation Model [cm-infinity.com]
Following the recent announcement of Andy Moore and Hiroyuki Kasuya leaving HPI/HB, another high-class driver has declared his contract termination by mutual consent with the Japanese company. Germany’s Freddy Südhoff joined the team back in December 2014 and his departure will only fuel speculations about the current state of HB mother brand HPI. Freddy states:
I would like to take the opportunity to let you know that I have by mutual consent ended my contract with HPI/ HB inc. Sometimes, things change faster then expected and even it was a short time, I truly enjoyed this and it was great to work with some of the biggest names in RC business together. Thanks to the whole HPI crew around the world. You guys taught me a lot! I wish you all the best for the future.
Last weekend’s British Winter Open Championship held at the Silverstone club was the opening event to the forthcoming yearlong season. A good measure one could say to how the new rides and the teams are doing. By the time February comes round many of the drivers have competed on all sorts of indoor events on all sorts of tracks and are ready for this event. Well everyone was ready apart from the overwhelming record breaking entries that flew in when the on-line booking in system opened up just before the Christmas period. An unprecedented 249 individual entries were received within hours.
Continue reading the report here
The penultimate round 4 of the 2015/16 Rug Racers series again attracted a good amount of racers to attend in the four classes of Touring Modified, Touring Stock, 1/10th Pan Car and GT12. In the Touring Modified qualifying Chris Grainger took two of the rounds, being the only driver to break into 27 laps, with Scott Booth, Paul Pinkney and Matthew White a little further back but close enough to cause concern later on in the finals.
Continue reading the report here
