Red RC » R Off Road

December 13, 2024

Polito tops seeding at SIGP in China

Sworkz’s Mattia Polito is the top seed at the SIGP Offroad Race in Xiamen, the Italian fastest in both Nitro and Electric Buggy on the return of China’s biggest annual offroad race after a 5-year break. Over 3-consecutive laps of the challenging 3-Circles track, overnight repairs making for improved conditions for today’s two seeding rounds, Polito would go fastest in both ahead of Xray’s Bruno Coelho. It was however the first round that was the fastest for the 21-year-old who had 1.6-seconds on Coelho. With Coelho’s fastest time coming from CP2, the margin on that occasion was down to 2/10ths of a second as Polito’s best was 7/10ths slower than his earlier attempt. Behind Davide Ronnefalk took his Xray to the 3rd fastest time with his CP1 time ahead of Davide Ongaro, the reigning World Champion improving by over a 1-second in CP2. WIRC’s Gabriel Astorino and Mayako’s Joseph Quaqraine completed the Top 6.

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December 12, 2024

SIGP favourites expect challenging race in Xiamen

With 2024 marking the return of the SIGP Offroad Race with its highest profile international entry yet, the three leader contenders for the race’s major cash prize have all predicted a challenging weekend ahead in Xiamen. Organised by Sunpadow Batteries, the entry for this year’s edition of the race is led by Team Associated ‘s 3-in-a-row World Champion Davide Ongaro. The first time the Italian has been to the former IFMAR 1:10 Offroad World Championship track, on paper his biggest rivalry should come from Xray pairing David Ronnefalk and Bruno Coelho but talking to all 3 at the end of Thursday’s free practice they all believe it’s the track surface that is going to be their biggest challenger. The dirt offroad track, which together with an onroad track and 200m long driver stand!, is located on the grounds of the almost 500 strong workforce 3 Circles factory that manufacturers batteries, has not seen race action since the last running of the SIGP in 2019. Joern Neumann was the winner on that occasion, but having lay idle for 5-years the track had to undergo some significant preparation to clean it up with Max Lim, who put on the World Championships here in 2017, tasked with the track preparation over the last three weeks. Getting the track back to looking like an active one, it is the surface bumps that are going to challenge man & machine with buggies being very unpredictable to drive.

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December 10, 2024

Baruffolo confirmed at Kyosho

In no way breaking news, Marco Baruffolo has officially confirmed his move to Kyosho. The Italian who moves to the Japanese manufacturer after a short 14-month stint with a small Italian brand WIRC Racing, where he joins fellow countryman Riccardo Berton who returns to the brand after 4-years with developing the IFB8 at Infinity. One making the news official Baruffolo posted, ‘As many of you already know, I will join Kyosho Corporation for the next years! I am extremely grateful for this opportunity and I will do my best on and off track.’

Source: Marco Baruffolo [Facebook]

December 10, 2024

Xray announces 1:10 Offroad progam with Martin

Xray has announced that the multiple EFRA European Champion Lee Martin has joined their factory team to represent the brand in 1:10 offroad. The very experienced British race who spent the last 2-years with Schumacher in 1:10, will have a program with hte Slovakian brand that includes BRCA Masters, MKGP & EOS, EFRA Euros and BRCA Nationals. Competing on his new signing the Multiple British National Champion, who will continue with Agama in 1:8 Offroad, said, ‘I am very pleased to be joining Xray for the foreseeable future. The quality of these luxury products and Xray’s constant pursuit for racing perfection is inspiring and hugely motivating. I can’t wait to get started.’

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]

December 9, 2024

Schumacher support young offroad star Ben Mohamed

Schumacher Racing has announced they are to support the career of young French offroad racer Noha Ben Mohamed. At just 15 years old, Ben Mohamed has already amassed an impressive CV that already includes results such as being a 3 time French Elite Champion, an EFRA European Championship podium finish and being an EOS Finalist. On joining the British manufacturer for his 1:10 program having raced previously with Xray, Ben Mohamed said, ‘It is with immense honour and great pride that I join the prestigious Schumacher Team family. I am ready to take on challenges and excel together in this promising collaboration.’

Source: Schumacher [racing-cars.com]

December 9, 2024

Schimmel & LeMieux win at U.S. Carpet Offroad C/ships

Recent TLR departee Brennan Schimmel and Xray’s Chase LeMieux where the Modified winners at the U.S. Carpet Offroad Championships held in Cleveland over the weekend. A week after the same venue hosted the 44th running of the U.S. Indoor Champs, which is the world’s longest running RC race, it was the turn of Scotty Ernst to call some 1:10 offroad racing action. In qualifying it was Schimmel, with a car he borrowed for the event, who took the 2WD TQ ahead of Aydin Horne having topped 2 of the 3 rounds. Fastest in Q1 Brandon Foote would qualify third. In the final the World Championship finalist would wrap up the overall victory with wins in A1 & 2. Qualifying down in 6th, LeMieux would win A3 to secure the runner-up spot ahead of Davey Batta. While Schimmel would take Q1 in 4WD Buggy, LeMieux took the next to secure the overall TQ. Just as it looked like he was going to walk away with it after his A1 win, a series of misfortunes would knock LeMieux to the back of the pack in the A2 final. It would all come down to A3 for the overall win. LeMieux would show exactly why he was the TQ as he would have a super clean run and fend off the hard charging Schimmel and Batta and that was how they would like up on the podium.

Image: US Carpet Off Road Championships [Facebook]

December 6, 2024

Caretti announced as Yokomo Team Manager

Following the news earlier this week that long time driver Nicolas Lee is no longer with their team, Team Yokomo has announced Antoni Caretti as the new Team Manager for Asia and Australia. A long time Yokomo driver in touring car and buggy, Australian Caretti will oversee the Asian/Australian market and be available for technical support at races and online. On the announcement he said, ‘I am super exited to step up into a team manager position for Team Yokomo! I want to thank Taguchi, Naoya and Christopher for making this happen and I’m already looking forward to 2025 and beyond. When I started racing in 2007 my first race car was a Yokomo BD, so becoming a team driver and now team manager for such a prestigious brand is truly an amazing feeling!’

Source: Yokomo [teamyokomo.com]

December 5, 2024

Gonzales joins Team EAM

Team EAM has announced the addition of US Offroad racer Matthew Gonzales to its race team. The 2-time ROAR Spec National Champion and Modified A-Main finalist will use their batteries in all his vehicles for the upcoming events. The former double winner of the annual Kinwald Klassic will be present at most of the 1:10 Offroad events for technical support of the Hobbywing team as well as he will squeezing in racing as much as possible. Better known as “Matty G”, he is a specialist for horsepower in stock classes, with EAM stating they are very proud to have him on board and to have him choose to use their batteries.

Source: Team EAM [teameamotorsports.com]