This year’s JMRCA All-Japan 1/8th Nitro Off-road Championships were held in the Chiba prefecture over the weekend. Kyosho’s Naoto Matsukura would take the TQ spot after the qualifiers in front of team mate Kazuya Tanaka. In the final Kazuya would then hold the upper hand, adding another national championship to his belt following his nationals win in 2012. TQ holder Naoto would end the main on the runner-up spot.
Source: Kyosho [kyosho.com]
Following last weekend’s EFRA AGM, the European governing body has announced the (provisional) dates for next year’s European Championships. The season kicks off in April with the 1/12th scale Euros that are again being held in Trencin, Slovakia while the Summer season starts with the 1/8th On-road and 1/8th Off-road B Euros in May and June respectively. The Nitro Buggy Euros A in July starts a month of a total of seven European Championships including the Electric Touring Car, 1/10th Electric Buggy and 1/8th On-road A while the 1/8th E-Buggy and 40+ Euros round out the calendar in September. Several classes also saw clarifications or additions of existing rules with the EFRA now clarified on the status of EFRA A and B licences and the allowed drivers for the respective Euros. The 1/8th E-Buggy class saw an amendment of the existing bodyshell rules with the bodies now have “to have a real car shape” and they have “to be able to carry the EFRA Numbers at the front and both sides as high as possible”. As for the electric on-road side of things EFRA has added a 1/10th 21.5T Formula class that will be part of the European Championship and that is run with “open” 21.5T motors and blinky speed controllers. Full AGM details can be found here.
Click here to view the provisional race calendar
Multiple World and National Champion, Atsushi Hara has announced his departure from off-road chassis sponsor SWorkz. Having joined Speedmaster Hobby Company, parent brand of SWorkz, at the beginning of 2014 and having a three year contract, Atsushi has terminated the contract effectively of October 31st. The reasons remain in the darkness and Hara so far left open what his next move will be. Atsushi states:
I have to announcement about terminate contract for SWorkz in between myself on 31st October 2015. I’d like to thank SWorkz owner Scott Yang and SWorkz USA team manager Marty Korn. It was great opportunities to start build for new brand SWorkz with them. I have such a great time to working with them and I had a lot of experience for many things. I never forget over my life those are great time for me. Also, Thanks to all of SWorkz distributors and SWorkz fans are great support! It will make me a big motivation for all time.
For the first time the Western Australia titles were held outside the metropolitan area in Kalgoorlie, some 580km from the Capital, Perth. In the Nitro Buggy Kyle Francis took the win in the main final after an eventful 45 minutes. Coming from the 3 spot on the grid, Kyle got caught up in someone else’s crash, dropping him to 11th. Slowly the comeback started and he began gaining positions and the gap to the first placed driver was 18 seconds. A few laps later and it was back to 15, then 12. Kyle had the fastest car out there, it was just a case of keeping it on four wheels and having enough time to reel in the leader. Another 10 minutes passed and the gap was down to 6 seconds, then 3 seconds. The race commentator was getting excited.
Racing RC cars is something we all love. There are many great things about it. Today I want to take up one thing which is essential but many times overlooked. Going to races and experience many different places at the same time. During my time as RC professional and the last years promoting my own brand I have visited a wide range of tracks, locations, countries to go racing. Thanks to RC I have seen the world. Maybe not so much sightseeing done but still seen a lot. Me and my dad started to go to races within Sweden first of course and after some years we went to Norway and Denmark neighbour countries of Sweden. As I got better the more I traveled to get to bigger races, making a name of myself and having fun racing and experiencing things no longer possible only in Sweden. We started to go to further.
Continue reading the column here
The season finale of the 2015 South African On-Road Gas National Championship took place at RC Zone in Middleburg, about two hours away from Tshwane, Pretoria. A favourite among the 200mm drivers for its technical layout, the track is fast and unforgiving with a brick wall barrier on the outside of the fast “horseshoe” section, which means that one small mistake would send the cars into the wall. The track offered a very high grip level all weekend, with some drivers complaining about too much grip later in the late afternoon. With the national series running a concurrent separate championship called the “Sprint” championship, which is based on qualifying results, first decisions in the championship would made when qualifiers kicked off on Saturday morning. This time the event had attracted more 200mm entries than 1/8 scale, which was not the norm for a national event and only four entries for the 235mm class means this class will likely not be run in the future. Mike Meyers would again dominate over Derrick Plank, Peter Plint and Tony George to take the TQ and seal his spot as Sprint champion for 2015.
Continue reading the report here
Infinity and parent brand Creation Model have announced the official signing of 9-times record World Champion Lamberto Collari to their team following a recent period of unofficial collaboration between the Italian veteran racer and the Japanese company. His skills, experience, dedication and hard work for sure will be a great asset to the young Infinity brand and Lamberto has the following to say about the deal:
Once again it’s time to renew my challenge. I’m grateful to Creation Model and Infinity team to think at me like a resource to develop their brand new platform. I meet a wonderful team of people really dedicated and friendly. Can’t wait to attend next World’s with my new team mates. See you in Brazil!
Source: Infinity [cm-infinity.com]
Xray have announced the signing of young and talented Czech off-road driver Max Götzl to their junior team. Max is a long time Xray supporter and a regular winner of the junior categories at national off-road events. Max says:
I’m very happy to be part of the team Xray. I have started with racing in 2009. During this time Xray have been producing the best products for us. With Xray’s cars I was able to grab several junior titles in different categories as well as finishing on podium among the best Czech drivers. I am very happy to be given this opportunity and hope this will help me to improve myself even more. I will race all the main races in Czech Republic including the XWS Czech Republic as well as some international events including EOS, Euros, etc.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
