Teemu Leino has surprised his rivals in Thailand by recording the fastest time in controlled practice as day one of the 1:12 scale World Championships comes to a close. The flying Finn is debuting Xray’s new XII and was the only driver to record 39 laps over 8 minutes with his closest rival being CRC driver Jilles Groskamp who just missed out on 39 laps recording 38 in a time of 8:00.644.
Read the full coverage on our event site here.
EFRA have published the minutes from last weekends AGM that took place in Lyon, France. Contained within is the Calendar for 2009 that sees the introduction of a new indoor 1/12th and 1/10th scale electric European Championship which will take place in Collegno, Italy in January. Other events of note are the 1/8th scale on road World Championships in Lostallo, Switzerland that will be held from the 15th to 23rd of August. Due to the 1/8th scale Worlds taking place in Europe next year, there will be no European A Championships for this class. Next years outdoor Touring car Euros will be run in Luxembourg at the beginning of August, the 1/10th 200mm European A Championships is in Gubbio, Italy at the end of July and the World Championships for EP buggy will be in the beginning of October. It looks as if we will be extremely busy in 2009.
The full EFRA AGM minutes can be viewed here.
View the full 2009 Calendar here (PDF).
So the stage is set for the 2008 IFMAR Electric Onroad World Championship here at the Radio Control Speedway in Bangkok, Thailand where there is great anticipation for what should be two thrilling World title battles. The first title up for grabs is 1:12th which kicks off tomorrow (Sunday) with free practice. One thing for certain is no matter what the outcome there will be a brand new champion of the world as defending Champion David Spashett has not made the trip to Asia to defend his title and although five times World Champion Masami Hirosaka is here, he will not race, opting to fully focus his attention on trying to lift his first ever 1:10 Touring Car title later in the week.
Read the full coverage on our event site here.
The JMRCA 1/8th scale Japanese On road Nationals took place last weekend in Keitune. Qualifying saw Mugen racer Keisuke Fukuda take pole position from Yasushi Takashi with Yuya Sahashi 3rd. The 45 minute final however saw problems for the pole man, who retired after 11 minutes giving Kyosho team driver Takaaki Shimo the lead which he extended to 1 lap over Yasushi Takashi by the end to take the title for the new M3.
Source: Kyosho [kyosho.com]
FTR have been touch to announce that former World Champion Chris Doseck has joined the Full Throttle Team. Chris will be in charge of the continued development of the FTR line of pan cars along with the development of the new CD super power line of performance products, including blue printed brushless motors and hand matched nickel metals for 1/12 and lipos for touring.
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Round 3 of the BRCA Micro National series took place at the WRCC track recently and it attracted the biggest ever entry at a Micro Nationals event. The finals were run over 2 mains, both of which counted, with any ties on scores decided by fastest single race time of either final. Mark Styles with the LRP Shark-18 took the win in the 1st final with Chris Doughty in 2nd place, while at the end of the 2nd action packed final Chris Doughty found himself in 2nd position again but this time with Mark Styles in 3rd place and this meant that both Chris Doughty and Mark Styles had same total points. In the end a tie had to decide the winner and thanks to a very quick 2nd main, Chris Doughty took the win with Mark Styles in 2nd place, while Chris Bottle took 3rd.
Source: LRP [lrp.cc]
This past weekend Bending Corners Raceway in Orange County, California played host to the Team Orion Invitational race which would use the Reedy Race type heads up format for the Invitational drivers. The race format used the drivers 4 best points out of the 5 rounds of racing allowing 1 round to be thrown out. Team Orion Factory Driver Josh Numan looked very fast in practice on Saturday laying down very impressive lap times especially considering it was the first time he would run LiPo power in his TC. On Sunday morning the races were set to get underway at 10:00am but unfortunately light rain showers in the morning delayed the start until 12:00pm. After all 5 rounds of racing were complete, it was Numan that took home the championship, with 3 wins and 1 second place finish for a total of 5 points, Steve Weiss took 2nd with 6 points and Lex Tyler rounded out the top 3 with 8 points.
Source: Team Orion [teamorion.com]
The first Picco Cup Asia was held last weekend at the ACO track in Hong Kong with racing for both 1/10th & 1/8th on road. The event attracted over 170 drivers from all around Asia as well as 1/10th scale World Champion Daniele Ielasi, Alberto Picco and Patrick Schaefer from Europe. After 4 rounds of qualifying it was Meen Vejrak from Thailand that took the TQ in 1/10th scale, while in 1/8th scale it was Shepherd driver Ielasi that came out on top. After 45 minutes of intense final action Daniele took the win in 1/8th scale, finishing only 5 seconds ahead of fellow countryman Alberto Picco, with Team C driver Hung in 3rd. In 1/10th scale Meen Vejrak took his Xray to victory ahead of 2nd placed Serpent driver Ts Kai Leung, while the final podium step went to Hung Cheung Hang.
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