Continuing a busy few weeks of driver announcements, Team Yokomo has added Stock Touring Car Specialist Kenichi Shimizu to its factory team. The Japanese driver is a leading competitor in the class and as well as racing the brands cars he has been recruit by team in a technical role given his well-known for his technical knowledge. In this role, Shimizu will be assisting and providing customer support in Japan.
Source: Yokomo [teamyokomo.com]
To celebrate the 6th anniversary of the establishment of the brand, servo manufacturer AGFRC has released a series of colourful case servo called 2023 Specific Edition Servo. Not just a striking and colourful casing, they have also undergone a new technical treatment process continuing the premium quality and performance of the servos. Each servo has a full aluminium CNC case and structure, combined with metal ball bearings and gear chain. All six servos in the 2023 Specific Edition include an aluminium horn in the package box. Among the range is the A62BHL 20KG 0.07Sec Super Torque Brushless servo for touring car racing, the A81BHMW 45KG Monster Torque 0.085s High Speed Magnetic Waterproof servo, the A11CLS V3 JST 1.4kg-cm 0.050Sec Coreless servo for 1:24 scale cars and the 1:5 specific A280BHMW 2S-2023 Aluminium Case Steel Gears Programmable HV 78KG 0.082Sec Superb Torque Brushless WP Servo.
The 2nd season of the Heroes Winter Cup just ended, a championship of 5 outdoor races that takes place in the middle of the freezing winter on the GAMES track in Segrate near Milan, Italy. Rain, ice, cold, fog weren’t enough to stop the passion and desire to race of a large group of enthusiasts who defied any adverse weather conditions in order to participate. The rules are very simple, the same combo for everyone (Robitronic Razer 3000kV), fixed Ratio 6.0, Porsche bodyshell and plastic chassis with shaft drive (Rally Legend, Carten T410, Tamiya TT02, Yokomo SD Sport and many others). The very soft compound tires (Team Power 26R) did the rest.
Ielasi Tuned has released a new 1:8 GT engine, the GP5GTR’23. An O.S. based engine, Daniele Ielasi has extensively worked the engine components for GT making it totally different from the OS version. The key features are a new carburettor (21J), new underhead with OR, on-road crankshaft with tungsten weights, new engine backplate, new coupling and new LCG head with 2023 graphics, make the new GP5GTR’23 no longer a tuned version of the basic version OS, but rather an Ielasi Tuned exclusive engine for the cardan GT category.
The opening round of the Swiss Nitro Onroad Nationals took place at Lostallo with Mattia Pesenti and Patrick Fankhauser coming away with the wins. In 1:8 it would be the ARC of Silvio Hächler who would top qualifying ahead of the Mugens of former World Champion Simon and Remy Hasler with Pesenti’s Xray fourth. In 1:10, Fankhauser’s Infinity was the Top Qualifier ahead of the Xray’s of Philipp Bühler and Traugott Schär. With a 2023 rule change meaning no direct qualifiers for the Main, the semi finals would see the demise of Kurzbuch. In the 45-minute final, Hächler would experience gearbox issues allowing Pesenti to take the win ahead of the pole sitter with the Infinity of Luca Martinelli completing the podium. In 1:10, it was a dominant performance from Fankhauser who secured the Round 1 victory ahead of Schär and the Xray of Stefan Wütrich. Round 2 of the National Championship will take place in Aigle on May 5-6.
Yokomo has announced that top Asian racer Charlee Phutiyotin is back as part of its international touring car team. The Thai driver joins fellow countryman Meen Vejrak at the Japanese manufacturer after the pair both briefly raced for Serpent before returning to Yokomo. Commenting on the announcement Phutiyotin said, “It feels good to be coming back “home”. I’m thankful for the opportunity and more motivated than ever. See you guys at the track.”
Source: Yokomo [teamyokomo.com]
World Champion 1:12 manufacturer Roche has released a new Steel Rear Solid Axle for their Rapide P12 1:12 chassis and Rapide F1 1:10 chassis. The hollow steel axle improves drivability and offer more durability than the kit’s carbon axle.
Source: Roche [rocherc.com]
The Mile High Indoor Champs at 5280 Raceway in Colorado saw Keven Hebert take the win in Modified Touring after the title came down to a three way tie breaker at the end of the triple finals. In qualifying for the annual event which was first held in 2012, it was the Awesomatix of Kemp Anderson who took the overall TQ from Sam Isaacs with the fastest time in the fourth & final round of qualifying while Hebert’s Xray secured the third spot on the grid. In the finals, Isaacs took the win from Hebert with Anderson dropping to third. In A2 it was Hebert’s turn to get by the pole sitter winning from by 1-second. In the final encounter Anderson would get the win but with each driver also having a P2 it all came down to combined times with ROAR Champion Hebert getting the overall win by less than a second from Isaacs with Anderson completing the podium.
Image: Keven Hebert [Facebook]
