The Silverstone Winter Series kicked off with a great day’s racing at Moulton College in Northampton, UK. The main 2WD class featured 100 drivers. With brand new EOS style carpet and with Schumacher Minipin 1 or Minipin 2 control tyres there was plenty of grip and negligible tyre wear.
Veteran racer Ellis Stafford took the 2WD win with his TLR buggy, closely followed by Schumacher drivers Greg Williams and Charlie Ware.
Ty Tessmann is on pole position for the 1:8 Offroad World Championship decider. The reigning World Champion will start his title defence from the front of the grid after a time penalty dropped Semi Final winner Ryan Cavalieri to second. The Associated driver looked to have snatched the top spot on the grid after a thrilling win over Ty Tessmann in the second and faster of the Semi Finals. The 2014 Runner up driver took the win on the last corner by a margin of 4/10ths of a second but contact with Tessmann would later result in the American being demoted to second which promoted Tessmann to the win and pole for the 16th running of the World Championships. Winning the first of the Semis ahead of young star David Ongaro, David Ronnefalk will start 3rd with the very impressive Ongaro next up. For Top Qualifier Jared Tebo, his quest for a first nitro World title will begin from 6th on the grid after he finished 3rd in the same Semi as Ronnefalk, him giving away the race lead on the first lap with a mistake. The same Semi would also bring an end to 2010 World Champion Cody King’s run of World Final appearances since his title, the Kyosho driver finishing 8th.
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Spencer Rivkin has booked his place in the Semis, the reigning US National Champion driver winning the first of the 1/4 Finals at RC Tracks of Las Vegas to bump into the same race as Top Qualifier Jared Tebo where he will be the sole Team Associated driver on the 12-car grid. Behind, Dylan Rodriguez would continue to recover from his disappointing qualifying to bump up for a second time today at what is very much a home race for the Las Vegas driver. Also progressing from race would be TLR’s Renaud Savoya, the Frenchman a podium finisher the last time the US played host to the 1:8 Offroad World Championships, and Mugen driver Cole Ogden. Having bumped up from the 1/8 Final one notable driver whose event would come to an end was 2014 Finalist Alex Zanchettin, the TLR driver finishing 8th. In the second 1/4 encounter, Kyle McBride went through easily for Team Associated winning comfortably from Mike Truhe with Tanner Stees and Joe Bornhorst taking the final to bump ups. Unfortunately Serpent’s Billy Easton couldn’t progress for a fourth time, finishing 7th.
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There was a huge cheer for the winner of the opening race to the final day of the 1:8 Offroad World Championship, as Las Vegas’ own Dylan Rodriguez booked his spot in the 1/4 Finals. The HB Racing driver would win the 30-minute encounter by 7-seconds from Joseph Quagraine and young Associated driver Alex Kosciuszek. The last bump spot from the 1/8 Odd Final would go to 2014 Finalist Alex Zanchettin, the Italian benefiting from the bad luck of Xray’s Martin Bayer. Suffering a flame out as he pitted for fuel as the race leader, the Czech driver was still looking good to progress holding fourth with a lap to go but again his car would stop handing Zanchettin the spot in the 1/4 final. Another high profile European to have his campaign end in the 1/8 was Lee Martin, the British driver having had to qualify for the event through last Friday’s ‘Race In’. In the 1/8 Even, Billy Easton took the win continuing his bump up form, this being his 3rd time to bump up after a difficult qualifying. Behind the Serpent driver was Darren Bloomfield, the Agama driver another of last night’s successful 1/16 Finalist. There would be a great closing battle for the other two spots which eventually went to Cole Tollard and Marco Natale after a last last lap error from 3rd placed Jerome Aigoin. The race would mark the end of 2008 World Champion Atsushi Hara as he could only manage 6th having started from 8th.
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The 1:8 Offroad World Championships has been whittled down from its biggest ever entry to the final 56 drivers who will get a chance to race for the sport’s biggest prize in Las Vegas tomorrow. A day of lower finals at RC Tracks of Las Vegas, the day concluded with the running of the 1/16 finals to decide the 8 drivers who would progress to Saturday’s showdown. In the end the 1/16 finals would produce contrasting winners with World Championship Rookie Colin Herzig winning the first encounter while veteran Billy Easton booked his place with victory of a 20-minute encounter that would end in a driver scuffle between Tanner Denney and Brian Baldo. Convinced Denney had taken him out of second place with 1-minute to go as the pair ran side by side coming onto the main straight, both IFMAR president Dallas Mathiesen and Darren Bloomfield would have to intervene to keep the Spaniard separated from the American.
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The penultimate round of the 2016 Belgium SCT Cup was hosted by the Buggy Club Seraing. After losing their previous track as the rental contract was not renewed, the club set up a great temporary track including rostrum, catering and a really nice layout. Unfortunately, as in far too many occasions this year, the weather is not with the organizers and drivers and the day would start under rain. Thankfully the wet stuff stopped before the qualifiers but came back in time for the finals, making the race really challenging for both men and machines. The opening qualifier of the Pro2 class saw Géry Ledocq (Kyosho) and Nicolas Evens (TLR) having a close run, separated by one tenth of a second at the end of the 6 minutes race. Stéphane Vanyper (Team Associated) was already 10 seconds behind. For the second round Géry found lots of pace and he took a clear win ahead of Nicolas and fast newcomer Didier Delférière (Kyosho). In last round, the scenario up front was pretty much the same while youngster Guillaume Laffut (TeamC) took a brilliant third place to line up third on the grid behind Géry and Nicolas.
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Having dominated the first day of qualifying with two TQ runs but then had issues mostly involving traffic, Elliott Boots bounced back to take the final qualifier at the 1:8 Offroad World Championships in Las Vegas. The Kyosho driver would top the round by almost 4-seconds from David Ronnefalk secure pole for the second of the Semi Finals, team-mate Jared Tebo having already wrapped up the overall TQ by taking the previous round of qualifying. After struggling since opening qualifying with a P3, Ryan Maifield would complete the Top 3 for the sixth & final qualifier with the young find of the 16th running of the Worlds Davide Ongaro booking a Semi Final spot with a P4. Needing to be marshalled twice, Tebo would conclude qualifying with a P8 but the round was always a testing opportunity for the American.
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The fifth round of the Swiss Electric Off-road Nationals was held at the MRCP club’s carpet track in Obernau. The track was wet the whole time and thus very slippery and not easy drive. In the 4WD class Nico Schmid set the pace to take the overall TQ from his brother Florian. In the mains Nico continued to dominate, taking the overall win from Philipp Jeisy in second and Florian Schmid in third. With the fourth win in a row, Nico Schmid (Xray) was crowned the Swiss 4WD champion from Patrick Hofer (Team Associated) in second and Fabian Luca Schmid (Yokomo) in third.
