The Yokomo Euro Touring Series has arrived in Poland for round 4 of the 2010/11 Series and setting the early pace in the impressive new Arena Legionwo building is Team Xray’s Alexander Hagberg. With three rounds of free practice complete, the 21-year-old Swede heads championship leader Ronald Volker by an impressive margin of over 1/10th of a second while the next three drivers are separated by just 2/1000ths.
View our complete event coverage here.
The 2011 Cactus Classic is taking place this weekend at the Scottsdale RC Speedway in Arizona, USA. This annual electric race attracts top drivers from around the world and this, its 25th year, is no exception with top Europeans such as Lee Martin, Hupo Honigl, Joern Neumann, Marc Rheinard and Viktor Wilck joining the top US stars to battle it out for this year’s titles in 4wd, 2wd, SC and Truck. With 430 entries, making 48 heats it is making for a long day for everyone and the blazing heat is also taking its toll. Open practice has been underway since Wednesday and the drivers are closing in on their final race setups ahead of Friday’s first 2 rounds of qualifying. Red RC will be reporting from the event throughout qualifying through to Sunday’s A-mains so stay tuned.
View Thursday’s image gallery and Short Course video here
Schumacher are pleased to announce the re-signing of current British Touring Car Champion Chris Grainger. Chris has won two BRCA National titles since joining Schumacher two years ago and has an important part to play in the development of their Touring Cars along with their experienced engineering team. The new agreement see’s Chris with us for a further two years and he had the following to say about the deal:
I am very happy to re-sign with Schumacher racing for the 2011 and 2012 seasons. I have enjoyed the last two years with Schumacher very much, working with the team at the factory and race track. The design team impress me with their ideas and dedication to lead, not follow in design! I look forward to the next seasons with great expectation.
Source: Schumacher [racing-cars.com]
This past weekend Southern California racers gathered at Hot Rod Hobbies for the first round of the 2011 JBRL Electric Series and Losi sent us this report. As always, round 1 has a large turnout and this year was no different with 280 entries spread throughout the various classes. With TLR being the headline sponsor for this year’s series, many local team drivers were in attendance. In qualifying Losi Project Manager Keith Whisler set the TQ’s in both Sportsman Stock Buggy and Sportsman Stock Truck. In Modified Buggy, TLR Team Driver and Project Manager Frank Root took the TQ over a field of world class drivers. Root was running the new TLR 22 in mid motor configuration in preparation for the upcoming Cactus Classic. In the Sportsman mains Whisler took advantage of both his TQ positions and completed the sweep of both classes. To take the wins, Whisler used Xcelorin ESC’s and batteries, the Spektrum DX3R, and Losi tires in his TLR vehicles. In Pro 2, Losi finished with 3 XXX-SCT’s in the top five. In a very close race with several position changes, TLR Team Driver Casper finished with 3rd place, TLR Team Manager Kevin Gahan in 4th and Losi Project Manager Ryan Dunford rounding out the top five. In Pro 4, TLR Team Driver Mike Truhe finished 2nd driving the new Losi TEN-SCTE. Fellow Team Driver Aaron Lane fought hard through the entire race to finish 4th with his TEN-SCTE. Round 2 of the TLR sponsored JBRL will be at OC/RC on April 2nd, 2011.
Source: TLR [tlracing.com]
Xray Germany have announced the signing of young German star Tobias Hepp to race for their on road team in 2011. The former Serpent driver will race the brand new Xray RX8 with Orcan GT7MH-Power, Orcan fuel 25+ and ATS-Tires. Tobias will race the Nitro-West Masters and the West German Championships, Luxembourg EFRA GP and the European Championship in Hildesheim, Germany (200mm) and Luxembourg (1/8th). He had this to say:
After 3 successful years with Serpent I’m happy for the new partnership with the Xray-Gemany/Orcan Team in 2011/2012. I’m looking forward to successful future.
Source: SMI [smi-motorsport.de]
The first round of the French 1/8th scale on road championship took place in Toulouse last weekend. During qualifying the track was wet and making the best of those conditions was Motonica/Vox driver Sebastien Zatla who took TQ in front of Shepherd/GiMar driver Richard Volta and Motonica/Max driver Stéphane Bouche. In the final Richard Volta took the lead in the first laps, but after a few minutes it was young talented driver Arnaud Mathieu who took the lead only to run out of fuel. One minute before the end of the the race, it was Volta in the lead by 2 seconds from Stephane Bouche with his Motonica team mate Jerome Papaconstantinos in third. All drivers were pushing hard after 44 minutes of racing when Volta made a mistake at the end of the straight allowing Stephane Bouche to the front and take the win on his debut race with the new Motonica P81 RS. Richard Volta recovered to take 2nd and Jerome Papaconstantinos took 3rd.
Source: Andelle Competition [sasandelle.free.fr]
Xray have announced the re-signing of 2002 ISTC World Champion Surikarn Chaidajsuriya. The Thai driver is a great all round driver taking wins in both on road and offroad and will run the Slovakian company’s T3’11, NT1 and 808 cars this season. Surikarn had this to say:
I’m very happy that I have extended my contract with Xray. I will continue to race and test with Team Xray in the 2011 season, as well as continue using great Hudy products. I would like to thank Xray Slovakia and Asia Model Company (Xray and Hudy Thailand Distributor) for their great support. We had some very good results in 2010, and I will try to get even better results in the 2011 season.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
Two time World Champion Ryan Cavalieri is to contest the ‘Euro Offroad Series’ pilot race with Team Associated confirming that one of the biggest names in off road racing will travel to Sweden for the April 1-3 event. The 24-year-old reigning 4WD US National Champion will team up with former European Champion Peter Pinisch and Petit RC Race winner Paul Bradby as part of the Team Associated challenge in Tomelilla where they will go head to head with official team entries from Losi, Tamiya and Team Durango. Last week Team Losi Racing confirmed 2011 Reedy International Race of Champions winner Dustin Evans will make the trip from Colorado to contest the indoor clay event. Commenting on the latest big name driver announcement, EOS Race Director Scotty Ernst said:
We are so excited that Team Associated are sending Cavalieri to our pilot event and together with Losi confirming Dustin Evans’ entry it is a massive endorsement for the EOS and what we are trying to create for 1:10 Off Road in Europe. The quality of the entry is going to make for great racing and with most of the top guys also doing Short Course Truck I think we can really showcase this class which back in the US has done great things for our hobby.
