VP Pro have announced the signing of 2-times European Champion Davide Tortorici to their factory squad for the 2012 season. The Mugen/Bliss racer was top qualifier at last weekend’s Italian National season opener and won the rain shortened Euros warmup in Fehring Austria in late April.
Source: VP Pro [vp-racing.com]
The Electroliege club has put on their Grand Prix for several years now in Liege, Belgium, and this year they spent much time and effort improving the track and putting in a challenging new lay-out for the annual race. The dirt track featured several good sized jump sections this year. Practice was Sunday April 29, and the race was Tuesday May 1, a holiday in Belgium. It rained Monday night and the track was super-slippery as Tuesday dawned. Morning practice was non-existent, and there was just one qualifier. In these conditions, the slightest mistake was truly costly, and X Factory’s Bruno ‘Elvo’ Heremans drove carefully to second on the grid, just three seconds behind the X-6 Squared of privateer and TQ Martin Vierin, but 5 seconds clear of third. The track began to dry as the triple-A mains began, but was still quite slippery. Elvo pulled easily away from the field right from the start to take a 9 second win in A-1. Same story in A-2 as Heremans sealed up the Grand Prix trophy with another 9-sec win. Elvo also won A-3 to complete a dominating X Factory performance, TQ and all three mains.
Source: X-Factory [xfactoryrc.com]
Last weekend saw the first of 3 legs that makes up the 2012 Austrian nationals for 1:8 Offroad and it was held at the A-Team Graz race track attracting 110 entries. Mugen/Novarossi driver Dominic Bauer was the man of the weekend, winning all practice heats, 3 of 4 qualifier, the Semi final and most importantly the final. For second place there was a very close fight between Hupo Honigl, Martin Wollanka and Thomas Mayr which was finally decided by the better fuel mileage of Hupo in front of Martin and Thomas.
Source: Hoeco [hoeco.at]
Tim Marx, driving the X-6 Squared, won stock buggy last weekend in round 2 of the Summer Series at the Omaha, Nebraska HobbyTown Hobby Plex. The HobbyPlex outdoor track was the scene of the 2009 ROAR off-road Nationals, and in September 2011 they opened a brand new and quite massive indoor clear-span facility for off-road racing. Especially for drivers in the stock class, this weekend’s lay-out was challenging, featuring several large jumps and a rhythm section. Tim qualified 6th for the race, but moved steadily through the field to take the 2WD buggy stock motor win.
Source: X-Factory [xfactoryrc.com]
The 1st qualification (West) for the German Nationals 8th Buggy were held in Oberhausen last weekend. On Saturday it rained all day, so the organizers cancelled the day. Luckily it stopped raining during the night and racing was possible on Sunday. The schedule was 2 Rounds of qualifying and then finals. Jörn Neumann finished 2nd in Round 1 and TQ’ed Round 2. This gave Jörn overall TQ. For the semi final it started to rain, but not as much as the day before. Jörn was able to win his semi final to start 1st for the main final. After a short brake the 20 minute final was under way, Jörn made a mistake in the first corner, this cost him to fall back several positions. A couple corners later Jörn tried to pass another driver, but got caught up and needed another marshall. Jörn was dead last after the first lap. Jörn pushed really hard and fought his way back to third after the first fuel stop. The second place was not far away and Jörn closed in lap after lap. Jörn passed him for 2nd place and now was 7-8 seconds behind the leader. the leader made a mistake and Jörn closed the gap more and more. After the 2nd fuel stop 1st and 2nd were just 2 corners from each other. A few laps later the leader had to stop with a fuel tank issue. Now, Jörn was in the lead and could bring it home under the muddy conditions.
Source: JConcepts [jconcepts.net]
The opening round of the Italian offroad season took place last weekend in Sacile. Qualifying saw Davide Tortorici, driving a Bliss powered Mugen, take the top spot ahead of Kyosho pairing Davide Ongaro and Fabrizio Teghesi with Carlo Jacopini and Riccardo Perin completing the top 5. In the final it was Agama driver Perin who came through to win the 45 minute encounter just less than a lap ahead of Teghesi in 2nd with reigning Champion Riccardo Rabitti, driving a prototype Crono, completing the podium. Pole man Tortorici hit problems in the final breaking his car on pit exit and ended the race in 6th.
Source: Just Buggy [justbuggy.net]
JQ Products have introduced THECar ‘Yellow Edition’ the follow up to their popular first buggy release. During the end of last year JQ was hard at work testing a lot of new ideas and able to improve the handling enough they felt they had to release a new car, the Yellow Edition. The changes have mostly been made in an effort to make THECar both faster, and easier to drive and include a new narrower more flexible chassis, new body shell, improved shocks and will come supplied with a number of extra tuning parts.
Xceed have released a new blend of racing fuel with 16% & 25% onroad fuel and 25% nitro for offroad cars/engines called Pro XF. Made using a mix of high quality methanol, nitromethane, mainly mineral oil and a percentage of some types of synthetic oil. The castor oil will protect the engine and creates a very thin black film which creates a better seal inside the engine. The fuel is supplied in handy nylon containers in 2 and 5 liters.
Source: Xceed [xceedrc.com]
