July 24, 2025

2025 Asian Buggy Championships Rd 3, Australia – Chassis Focus Index

Last weekend Australia played host to the third round of the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships, with the Pine Pills Dirt Racing club in Brisbane welcoming its biggest international entry yet.  The third year the oil treated dirt track has been a stop on the Asian Buggy Championship calendar, the race would see Infinity’s Kouki Kato make his eBuggy debut with the Japanese manufacturer’s new prototype electric buggy and win, while in a rain shortened Nitro Buggy final Alex Bernadzik took his Team Associated to victory.  Unfortunately we were unable to photograph the winning Electric and Nitro Buggies – Kato’s eBuggy still at prototype stage and Bernadzik’s RC8 B4.1 featuring special rear hubs that the US manufacturer was not yet ready to show to the public.  Red RC’s first time to visit the highly praised Pine Pills Dirt Racing track, which is locate in very nice setting of the James Drysdale Sporting Complex, during our coverage of the race we did still get the opportunity to photograph 8 buggies from 6 different manufacturers.  In case you missed any of the Chassis Focus’ during our coverage ‘Down Under’, we have compiled them all here in our latest Chassis Focus index.

View Chassis Focus Index here

July 24, 2025

Ielasi Tuned ‘Pista’ .21 Onroad Engine

Having announced their new 2025 engine range earlier this weekend, Ielasi Tuned has unveiled specific details about the new ‘Pista’ .21 Onroad engine.  This engine is the result of over a years work with their entire team, and which culminated with victory on its debut, securing P1 and P2 in qualifying, and P1 and P2 again in the final at the recent ENS race with team drivers Simon Kurzbuch and Toni Gruber.  Starting with the name, Ielasi Tuned decided to discontinue the “GP9” series that existed since the beginning of this collaboration with O.S. Engines to send a strong signal of a new beginning.  Produced entirely by O.S. Engines but now 90% from Daniele Ielasi’s designs and directives, only the crankcase and the carburetor body are in common with O.S. – everything else about the engine is exclusive to Ielasi Tuned.  The new Pista engine differs from the previous GP9R24 in many details.  The top needle/holder on the carburetor is entirely produced by in-house, no longer by O.S., as they have decided to go their own way, focusing heavily on ease and precision in engine carburetion.  A new bottom needle produced by O.S. greatly optimises acceleration at low revs.  The Pista gets a new exclusive Ielasi Tuned underhead by O.S. as well as a crankshaft optimised with Ielasi Tuned timing.  New 2025 version piston and cylinder gets a new inhouse finishing process using a new technique that has improved ease of break-in, almost minimising the problem of scratches while maintaining a coupling and compression hardness that lasts over time which is a major improvement on the past.  In addition option parts include a new Ielasi Tuned connecting rod and a Swiss made WIB Ceramic Bearing.

View ‘Pista’ engine parts here

July 22, 2025

Harper wins BRCA Round 4 at Colchester

Schumacher’s reigning British Electric Touring National Champion Elliott Harper added another win to his 2025 tally as he took victory at the round 4 of the Championship at Colchester.  Winner of the previous two rounds at Stafford and Adur, Harper kicked off the event by locking in the TQ after topping 3 of the 5 rounds of qualifying.  Fastest in Q5 Matthieu Dambrine secured P2 ahead of the Xray of Harley Eldridge.  Over the triple finals Harper took the first encounter ahead of Eldridge before winning A2 ahead of Chris Grainger to wrap up the overall win.  Despite winning A3, Dambrine would miss out on the podium, Eldridge the runner-up and Grainger 3rd.  In the 17.5 class it was Billy Fletcher who took the TQ & win with James Hart and Ben Moorey joining him on the podium.

Image: Schumacher [Facebook]

July 22, 2025

Catanzani crowned new Italian 1:8 GT Champion

Andrea Catanzani is the new AMSCI Italian 1:8 GT National Champion, the factory Serpent driver compete a clean championship sweep with victory at the third & final round of the championship.  Racing at the Miniautodromo Stradivari in Cremona, qualifying would see Catanzani secure the TQ honours with his Gimar powered SRX8 GT ahead of the Capricorn of 2023 Champion Alex D’angelo, 2024 European Champion Natanaele Senesi.  Offroad racer Burak Kilic completed the Top 4 ahead of defending Champion Giaimo Rosario.  It was a tough quali for newly crowned European Champion Filippo Beretta, the Genius Racing driver qualifying P9 but lining up 5th on the starting grid after winning his Semi Final.  In the 45-minute final Catanzani would complete the perfect campaign winning taking win number 3 by over 2-laps from Beretta with Valente Leonardo completing the podium ahead of D’angelo. Unfortunately for Kilic, who opened the season with a podium in Sicily, would retire 1/3 the way into the race.

Image: Andrea Catanzani [Facebook]

July 21, 2025

Kurzbuch wins ENS Aigen

Mugen Seiki’s Simon Kurzbuch has won the second round of the Euro Nitro Series at the Aigen track in Austria.  The reigning ENS Champion dominated qualifying with his MRX7 prototype topping all four rounds to secure the TQ ahead of Round 1 winner Toni Gruber.  Former ENS 1:10 Champion Teemu Leino completed the Top 3 for Infinity with the Shepherd of last year’s race winner Lars Hoppe lining up P4 for the 45-minute final.   In the final, Kurzbuch would be the only one to break into the 14-second lap times as he took the win by over 12-seconds from 1:8 GT World Champion Gruber – both drivers running the new ‘Piste’ engine from Ielasi Tuned.  2-laps down, Leino took the final step on the podium ahead of his team-mate Francesco Tironi with the ARC of Silvio Hachler completing the Top 5.  In 1:10 Nitro Touring Car, Poland’s Jakub Rozycki made it two from two as he took the win from the TQ spot with Quentin Leroux and Christoph Rohrmoser joining him on the podium.

Image: Ielasi Tuned [Facebook]

July 21, 2025

Martin wins 1:8 Buggy 40+ European Championship

17-years after he won the EFRA European B Championship title in France as one of the upcoming stars of offroad racing, Lee Martin has won the 1:8 Buggy 40+ European Championship title at Herts Nitro Model Club in England.  The Xray driver secured the TQ at the rain effected event topping 3 of the 4 rounds of qualifying with another of England’s top international racers Neil Cragg securing P2.  Winning his Semi final from France’s Jerome Sartel, Martin however would start 2nd n the final as good friend Cragg won his Semi from Graham Alsop in a faster time.  The duo continued their battle in the 45-minute Main, and completing 63-laps it was Martin who took the win by just 1.9 seconds over Cragg.  Two laps down 2022 Champion Alsop completed the podium ahead of Sartel.

Image: EFRA [Facebook]

July 20, 2025

Bernadzik reigns as rain halts Asian Buggy Championships Australia

Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik converted TQ honours at the Australian round of the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships into the win but unfortunately Mother Nature put an early halt to what was building into an epic battle in Brisbane.  Having TQ’d all three hostings of the Asian Buggy Championships at the Pine Hill Dirt Racing track, Bernadzik led away the race’s most stacked international field yet for what was original scheduled to be a 1-hour final.  While the intimidating dark clouds started to gather in the distance, racing got underway in the sunshine and the early pace was hot but all the time the darkening skies were moving in.  Unfortunately for Kouki Kato and Tyler Jones, the latter got into the eBuggy winner Kato on the opening lap sending the Infinity and Sparko drivers dropping to the back of the field.  The American did show great sportsmanship in waiting after the contact with the talented Japanese driver.  Up front it was Bernadzik who led from Pekko Iivonen, but 6-laps in, the home favourite made a mistake allowing the fourth place starting Finn to take over at the front.  From there he looked very strong as he led the field into the first round of pit stops just after the 7-minute mark.  While touching the wall on the tight pit lane entry, once the first & only stops were completed, it was still Iivonen who was in charge.  Coming up on 10-minutes however a mistake would hand the lead back to Bernadzik with Kato, who briefly took over the lead during the fuel stops and was now firmly back in the game, also going through for second.  Locked into their intense battle, Jones having worked his way up to fifth behind 2024 winner Caleb Noble, little did the drivers know they had less than 3-minute left to play things out.  A track that drew huge compliments from drivers for both it surface and size, unfortunately one of the downsides of its oiled dirt surface is that oil & water don’t mix!  As soon as the lightest of drops started falling the effect on the cars was immediate forcing Race Director Scotty Ernst to call the race just shy of 13-minutes – the heavens opening up shortly after.  While the disappointment of having their entertainment cut short clear on everyone’s face, including Bernadzik, a result is a result and Bernadzik goes down as the third different winner of the 2025 Asian Buggy Championships season.  Less than a second back Kouki had to settle for second while Iivonen completed the Round 3 podium.

Continue reading here

July 20, 2025

Kato takes eBuggy at Asian Buggy C/ships Australia

Infinity’s Kouki Kato has won eBuggy at the Australian round of the Team Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships.  Armed with a prototype of Infinity’s upcoming 1:8 eBuggy kit release, the Japanese driver qualified second to Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik at the Pine Hills Dirt Racing track in Brisbane but after taking the win in Saturday’s A1 was able to secure his first Championship eBuggy win with another win in A3.  The winner of the previous two rounds of Asian Buggy Championships in Nitro Buggy, the 19-year-old emulated that nitro success of winning first time out.  Making his ABC debut at the season finale in Indonesia last last year and winning, making his electric buggy debut ‘Down Under’ this weekend he also delivered the win.  Having won A2 with ease, Bernadzik looked in control of A3 but a mistake dropped the Aussie back to third leaving Sparko’s Tyler Jones to try to chase down Kato.  Despite putting in the fastest lap, the American couldn’t do anything to get passed, a late error giving Kato the chance to breath and bring home the win.  With a second from A1 and the win in A2, Bernadzik secured second overall with Jones, having two P2 finishes, completing the podium ahead of Mayako’s Pekko Iivonen.

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