The 2018 O.S. Off-road Challenge was held at the Yoshino-Works track in Shiojiri, Japan this past weekend. In the Pro Nitro Buggy class it was Mugen driver Atsushi Hara with the win from Kyosho’s Yusuke Sugiura on the runner-up spot as Mugen’s Kenji Tsuruta took the final podium spot.
Source: Mugen [mugenseiki.com]
The 2018 EFRA 1/8th Nitro Buggy European Championship was held in Portugal this past week. Qualifying at the Radiomodelismo de Freixedas track was dominated by Davide Ongaro as the Italian phenomenon swept all five rounds of qualifying to put a vice like grip on this 1/8th IC Off Road European Championship. Reigning European Champions Robert Batlle qualified 2nd, and was Davide’s closet challenger though never getting within five seconds of his time. Bruno Coelho was a surprise 3rd overall the versatile Portuguese eliciting the help of Ty and Gord Tessman over from Canada to help set up and run his car, with instant results as when left to just do the stick work there are few Bruno’s equal. Reigning world champion David Ronnefalk had a torrid time in qualification with poor tyre choices and failures leaving him to scrape into 4th overall, still without a decent set-up. Juan Carlos Canas was our 5th qualifier, and left rueing what might have been when a miscommunication in round 2 saw him come in to the pits when he still had another lap to complete, those lost points would have put him 3rd. The one factor none of the drivers could avoid was the oppressive heat, with 38°C all thru Friday and the chance that the finals would be even hotter.
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The 2018 King of Kings race was held at Stateline R/C Raceway in Fremont, Indiana. In the Pro Nitro Buggy class Team Associated’s Cole Tollard came back from a flameout halfway through the final and ended up winning the class by almost a full lap from HB Racing’s Spencer Heckert 2nd and Team Associated’s Austin Horne 3rd.
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The fourth round of the BRCA Truggy and E8 Buggy Nationals was held at Herts Model Car Club. Jamie Clancy (Team Associated) would bring home the win in the half-hour long Nitro Truggy A-main, some narrow three seconds in front of AE teammate, Lewis Jones. Agama’s John Hazlewood would round out the 40-laps club in 3rd, another 26 seconds down.
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Round 5 of the 2018 JBRL Electric Off-road Series was held at Hot Rod Hobbies in Saugus, California last weekend. In the premier class of 2WD Open Buggy it was Tekno RC’s Carlos Arredondo with the win from Team Associated driver, Nick Miller. Shawn Blackwell Sr. would round out the podium for TLR.
The 8th round of the Chilean National IC Track Championship attracted a good number of entries, making for some competitive racing throughout the day. After the qualifications, Tomás Ramirez (IGT8/Novarossi) took the pole position for the 30-minutes long A-main encounter while also scoring the fastest lap with a 25.110. At the start of the 3-minutes warm-up time a servo failure already ended the race of Tomás who wasn’t allowed to start in the final. This was the opportunity for his teammate, Alvaro Jara (IGT8/Novarossi), to snatch valuable points in the championship to chase Tomás in the ranking. But Felipe Lyon (Serpent/Novarossi), using the new GQ-Soft Compound tyres and after missing the 7th round of the championship, pushed so hard, that he was able to beat Alvaro Jara to take the win. An interesting battle for the 3rd step on the podium was between Raimundo Puelma (Ofna/Picco), Alvaro Jara Jr. (IGT8/Novarossi) and Benjamín Ramirez (IGT8/GO Engines). Benjamín, with solid driver skills, continued pushing until five minutes before the end of the race, allowing him to get past both drivers to take the 3rd place overall.
This past weekend Thornhill Racing Circuit hosted the 2018 Pro-Line Shootout. The annual Pro-Line spec tire event had 200 entries and Mugen’s Adam Drake would be the top qualifier in Nitro Buggy, Nitro Truck, and Electric Buggy. In the 40-minute Nitro Buggy final, Adam Drake would lead from the start and ended up taking the victory followed by Team Associated’s Jake Dellinger and Tekno RC’s Tyler Hooks.
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The 1/8th Nitro Buggy season in Israel has come to an end with the recent round 8 of the championship. Held at the Negev Speed Racing track it was a super hot affair with temperatures reaching up to 34 degrees Celsius. After the four qualifying rounds Yaniv Sivan took the TQ honours and he also got the hole shot at the start of the A-main. Yaniv was closely followed by Aviv Maymon in 2nd and when Sivan made a small mistake it promoted Maymon into the lead. What followed was a forth and back for several times until Aviv suffered a flameout which cost him a position that was taken by Or Balulu who in turn also suffered engine issues. This promoted Tal Siles to 2nd and Dvir Hirak to 3rd. From there the top 3 positions remains the same until the checkered flag. As Ofir Avitan had checked out in the championship the race for the runner-up spot was on between Tal Siles and Yaniv Sivan. Going into the final round Yaniv had a 2-points lead and with the 2nd place finish at round 8 he cemented the vice-championship from Tal Siles 3rd.
