Round five of the BRCA Truggy and E8 Nationals was held at Remote World in Slough this past weekend. Agama’s Darren Bloomfield would make a clean sweep and take the TQ in E-Buggy and also in Nitro Truggy, a class he barely runs. The 12-minute E8 A-main then again saw Darren excel as he took the win some four seconds in front of Kyosho’s Elliott Boots with Jamie Clancy (Team Associated) coming in a distant 3rd, a lap down on the two frontrunners.
Ongoing speculation about the destiny of the formerly very popular Team Durango brand has ended following a somewhat hidden statement on social media this week. In the past month Team Durango drivers had to cope with parts shortages and diminishing support, something that sort of found its beginning with the cancellation of all team activities for the 2015 season. Hobbico states that their ARRMA RTR brand, whose 1/8th electric buggies and trucks were the platform for Team Durango’s last generation of competition kits, is still alive and kicking with more to await from the proactive brand. Hobbico’s “official” statements reads like this:
Due to market conditions, the Team Durango product line has been discontinued and we will receive no further product shipments. (We do have some parts inventory remaining and available for a limited time.) We thank all Team Durango customers and team members for their dedication to Team Durango.
Source: Track13News [facebook.com]
The 2017 ROAR 1:10 Electric Off-Road Nationals were held at The Track in Gaithersburg, Maryland, just outside of Washington D.C. last weekend. As a facility that doesn’t have a signature event, most of the competitors had never been there before. With an evolving surface and unknown preparation, it was a new challenge each day. In the up-and-coming and very competitive class of 13.5 4WD Buggy, Team Associated supported driver Dreighton Stoub started on pole. After a rough A1 from Stoub that saw privateer Jackson Brunson, also driving a Team Associated buggy, take the win, the race was on. In A2 it was another AE privateer, Will Cushing who got the win while Stoub finished second. This set the stage for a winner-take-all scenario in A3 among the three drivers. After the dust settled and the times were posted, it was a three-way tie for the win. Utilising the ROAR tiebreaker system of combined laps and times of the two best points, Stoub won the National Championship by just four seconds over Cushing, who beat Brunson by just a second while Team Associated’s AJ Maasco finishing fourth.
Source: Team Associated [teamassociated.com]
The Noeux le Mines track in France played host to the “The Nocturne” 1/8th off-road night race recently. The race format would see two practice and three qualifying rounds followed by three finals for each main with the event kicking off on Saturday afternoon and ending on Sunday afternoon. Classes run were 1/8th Nitro Buggy and 1/8th E-Buggy and both categories were swept by Xray’s Jean-Pierrick Sartel who took the Nitro win from TLR’s Jerome Sartel while Felix Kogler (TLR) rounded out the podium in 3rd.
The Calgary Stampede Race was held at RC Gears in Calgary, Alberta recently. The track layout was more narrow and tighter than the last few years, something the drivers had to adapt to. In the 1/8th E-Buggy class Jordan Huzel was the man to beat as he TQ’d the first and third qualifier for the overall TQ and he also won A1 and A3 to take the day’s win from Carter H. in 2nd and Byron Mackenzie 3rd. Robert Bowers and Patrick Erickson rounded out the top 5 result.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
Round 5 of the JBRL Nitro Series was held at Thunder Alley R/C Raceway in Beaumont, California. In the Intermediate Buggy class Eddie Laret would take the win from 2nd placed Marcus Garret while Cole Jenson rounded out the podium result in 3rd. The Rookie Buggy category saw John Martin walking away with the win while Ryan Fleefisch and Glenn Wolfgang completed the podium in 2nd and 3rd respectively. Finally in Sportsman Truggy it was Kevin Knight with the win from David Delgardo and Louis Fernandez.
View the Rookie Buggy & Sportsman Truggy podiums here
This past weekend round 2 of the DTR Track Challenge was held at Dialed in RC Raceway in Victorville, California. Qualifying did not go the way Cody King wanted it to, so he would start 4th on the grid. At the start of the 20 minute final Cody would get past 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the first corner. He saw that as his chance to push it and get away and that’s what he did as the HB Racing driver got about a 15-second lead that he would hold onto the entire race to take the win in the Expert Buggy class from Mugen’s Adam Drake and Kyosho’s Anthony Westergaard.
Source: Cody King [facenbook.com]
Round 7 of the Czech Open Series was held in Kolin this past weekend. The event started off on a wet track that would dry slowly but ultimately the weather made for good racing conditions with the 1/8th Nitro Buggy main being won by Fanda Kalenda (Serpent) in front of Milan Mudra (Xray) who suffered some problems in the final. The podium was rounded out by Kyosho driver Tomáš Kapička in 3rd.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
