Red RC » R Off Road

July 21, 2009

Ryan Maifield defends ROAR Truggy title

Utilizing his Factory Team RC8T and recently released Reedy 121 VR engine, Ryan Maifield dominated the competition at Leisure Hours Raceway in Joliet, IL at the ROAR 1/8 Truggy Nationals. In qualifying, Maifield lead the field each round by beating the best in the country time after time. Even after securing the top qualifying spot by round three, Maifield chose to run round four to test a chassis adjustment. Starting from the pole position for the main event, Maifield got off to a good clean start and never looked back. By going over nine minutes between pit stops his RC8T/Reedy 121 VR combination never missed a beat and lapped the field up to second place and set the single fastest lap time. By the conclusion of the 45-minute main event, Maifield had built a 13+ second lead over second place Jared Tebo, with Josh Wheeler in 3rd, and was the only driver to make 83 laps.

Source: Associated [rc10.com]

July 20, 2009

Renaud Savoya talks Euros with RB Products

Following his dominant performance at the recent European Championships, double European Champion Renaud Savoya sat down with RB products at their headquarters in Fracne to talk about the event and get his thoughts on the event from practice to the final.

When I arrived in Austria, I was quite pessimistic considering the weather forecast for the week. The preparation during and following the warm-up would have been useless if the weather had been different. For the practice on Tuesday, the track was still wet and I made my first session in the sawdust. At this time, I wanted to see the evolution of the track and decided to change nothing on the car.

Read the full interview here.

Source: RB Products [rbproducts.com]

July 14, 2009

JConcepts dominate 2009 FSORS

Florida has always been one of the toughest places to race and home to some of the best drivers on the east coast. The Florida State Series has been in existence since 1992 and has always provided one of the most competitive fields of racers in the south east. JR Mitch continued his Florida winning ways in the 1/8th buggy and truck class in the FSORS 2009 series. With JConcepts providing the tires, bodies, wheels and accessories JR dominated from the start, winning the series from JConcepts team mates Nick Angelidas 2nd, JP Tirronen 3rd, Jason Ruona 4th and Nathan Wincek in 5th. In the 1/8th truck division, JR once again took the win in front of Nathan Wincek in 2nd position, while Josh Talmadge, a relative newcomer to R/C, made a big splash onto the scene in 2009 by winning the 1/8th buggy sportsman class with just a year’s worth of R/C racing experience.

Source: JConcepts [jconcepts.net]

July 14, 2009

Adam Drake does the Double at NSS Rd1

The opening round of the 2009 Novarossi Summer Series was held at Revelation Raceway last Saturday and attracted 10 heats of drivers from Southern CA. The Pro buggy class turned out to be a bit of a warm-up for this weeks ROAR 1/8th Nationals for many drivers and saw Losi / Novarossi driver Adam Drake TQ both rounds of qualifying ahead of Kyosho / Team Orion’s Cody King. At the start of the 25 min final Cody was able to stay close to Drake for a few laps, but as the race progressed Adam was able to power away and take the victory by two laps over Cody with Losi team mate Matt Schreffler taking 3rd. In the 1/8th truck class Adam was again able to take the TQ and win in front of Robert Wickhan who was also driving a Losi 8ight T 2.0, while Mugen driver Colin Herzig took 3rd.

July 13, 2009

Jared Tebo wins Hot Rod Hobbies Shootout

Kyosho are reporting on the 12th Annual running of the Hot Rod Hobbies Shootout in Saugus, California. The Shootout is known as one of the biggest electric races of the year bringing in the top drivers from around the country. This year World Champion’s Hayato Matsuzaki and Naota Matsukura made the trip over from Japan as well as a drivers from Australia making it once again an international field. Like always at Hot Rod in the summer, the temperatures were hot…reaching up into the upper 90’s. The track layout was very technical and proved to be challenging for even the World’s best drivers.

Continue reading the report

July 11, 2009

Savoya is European Champion

Renaud Savoya is the 2009 EFRA 1:8 European Champion after successfully defending his 2008 title in a thrilling race here in Austria. The Mugen driver beat fellow countryman Yannick Aigoin to become the first back to back champion since 2005. Third was promising Czech driver Martin Bayer.

Read our full report which is now on our Event site here.

July 11, 2009

Savoya on pole for Main Final

He was the top Qualifier here in Austria and now thanks to victory in his Semi, with the faster time of the two, defending Champion Renaud Savoya will start from pole position over Spain’s Robert Batlle. Setting the fastest lap of the Semis, the French ace cruised to the win and despite one mistake finished four seconds clear of Batlle and now the pair will line up in the same 1-2 order as in Crete last year. Afterwards Savoya said the race went to plan except for his roll in the last two minutes. Batlle felt his Associated, which had a problem in the 10 minute warm-up, was not so bad but now plans to change to a heavier oil in the shocks for the 45-minute final.

Follow our lap by lap coverage of the Main final on our event site here.

July 11, 2009

The Big day arrives in Austria

For Europe’s top buggy racers today is the culmination of months of testing and preparation and in just over seven hours from now one of them will be crowned the 2009 EFRA 1:8 Off Road European Champion here in Wolbling, Austria. While weather was the big talking point at the start of the week, the sun is now beating down on the track for the big day. Currently the lower finals are underway with our coverage, which is supported by Team Orion, Mugen Seiki, LRP and Kyosho, getting underway with a round-up of the 1/4 Finals. For the Semi Finals and Main we will be bringing you live lap by lap updates as Top Qualifier Renaud Savoya looks to defend his title.

View our full event coverage here.