Juan Carlos Canas wins Spanish Nitro Buggy Nats Rd3
The third round of the Spanish Nitro Buggy National Championship was held at the Valladolid track this past weekend. Mugen’s Robert Batlle was in control of things on the slippery track with the Kyosho duo of Brian Baldo and Joao Figueiredo coming in 2nd and 3rd respectively after the qualifiers. Mugen’s Juan Carlos Canas, who had a troublefull qualifier, would start the A-main from the pole position and he would also bring home the win in the 45-minute A-main from Robert Batlle on the 2 spot, a lap down. Robert felt less comfortable in the main compared to the previous days and he opted to just bring home the runner-up spot and thus valuable points for the championship. Another lap down it was Oscar Baldo who would round out the podium result for Kyosho, also suffering minor issues.
Simon Kurzbuch will defend his Euro Nitro Series title tomorrow at the Season Finale in Italy from pole position. The Shepherd driver made it a clean sweep of qualifying for the 2018 season as he wrapped up his fourth TQ from the championship’s four races. Having suffered a broken front belt in Q3 and title rival Dario Balestri getting the TQ for that round, Kurzbuch had to wait until the final round to bag himself the extra championship point which could prove vital at the end of tomorrow’s 45-minute final. He took the final qualifier ahead of Robert Pietsch and Toni Gruber after a hard pushing Balestri had a mistake in the second half of the qualifier. The Italian will start 2nd with Pietsch third while Andrea Pirani makes it four different manufacturers at the head of the grid. Kurzbuch’s TQ today eliminates Gruber from the title fight, the WRC driver at best being able to equal the leaders points tally with a win but losing out on the tie break. Between himself and Balestri, however, if the Italian wins he must be sure to finish on the podium with a 3rd place giving him his 3rd consecutive title on tie break with the only driver who has previously denied him becoming champion.
