Round three of the Portuguese Buggy National Championship was held this past weekend and in the 45-minute main final it was Serpent’s Carlos Duraes who took the win 1 lap ahead of former European Champion, Miguel Matias. Ricardo Monteiro (TLR) completed the top 3 another three laps down. The next and final round will now decide the overall championship.
Source: Serpent [serpent.com]
The Herts Nitro Model Club held the British GP over the August Bank Holiday. In the built-up to the event the question arose whether to oil or not to oil the surface but ultimately the club decided to prepare the surface in order to make it last and be weather proof. Saturday practice and Simon Reeves and Kevin Brunsden headed Nitro Buggy with Simon and Mitchell Booth E-Buggy and Darren Hayden-Ball heading the Truggy class. Qualifying would be dominated by Jamie Clancy closely followed by Lewis Jones, Simon Reeves and Callum Niblett in Nitro Buggy and in E-Buggy it was Jack Embling of Simon Reeves and Mitchell Booth. Darren Hayden-Ball spearheaded the Truggy class.
Round three of the Austrian 1/8th Nitro Buggy National Championship was held at the Kirchschlag track. The race started on Saturday with free practice and also the opening qualifiers in which Xray’s Martin Wollanka came out fastest. Martin would continue to dominate on Sunday as he took wins in two more qualifiers but the final two would went to Dominic Bauer (Mugen) and the pair would also make for entertaining semi finals but ultimately Martin would walk away with faster run in his semi. The opening stages of the main final then saw close fights between Martin and Dominic but at around the 15 minute mark Martin suffered a flame out due to running out of fuel after pushing too much. With Dominic up and away Martin now focussed on bringing home a second place which would win him the overall title, and so he had to find a way past second placed Michael Nalulowy (Kyosho) and with both pushing hard it was Michael who made a mistake that allowed Martin by and to take the overall second place but not without another moment he had to overcome due to having one fuel stop more than Michael. Ultimately Dominic brought home the win from a lucky Martin with Michael taking a third place finish.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
The finale of the 2016 LRP-Offroad-Challenge was held on the astroturf track of the MSC Gemünden in Germany. With over 120 entries for the five classes run the event exceeded last year’s turnout by about 20 percent it also marked a new milestone as beside the usual classes of 2WD Buggy, 4WD Buggy, Short Course and Rookie also the new-for-2016 1/8th E-Buggy class was held. Just in time for the weekend hot weather kicked in, making for a real test for man and machine and only a short rain shower on Sunday noon made for a bit of relief although it completely changed the track conditions for the final qualifier. For the main though the track dried up again, making for equal conditions for everyone.
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This past weekend the sixth and final round of the Swiss 1/8th Nitro Buggy National Championship was held in Gland on a grass track with lots of smooth jumps. Right from the start Patrick Hofer (Team Associated/Reedy) laid down some very quick laps, ending the practice rounds with the fastest lap but come the qualifiers things changed a bit as the track started to get more bumpy with the grass breaking up, revealing more and more dirt. The fight for the TQ spot was on between Jeremy Pittet (HB Racing/Team Orion) and Patrick with the better end for Jeremy who took the TQ after the four rounds of qualifying. The two semifinals again were and all-Jeremy-and-Patrick affair with the better end for Jeremy who would start from the pole position into the 30-minute A-main. Patrick though would take maximum profit of an ultra-fast refuelling during his first pitstop that would promote him into the lead that Hofer would hold onto until the chequered flag. Jeremy would end the race on the 2 spot from third placed Joachim Kallen (Xray/FX). With the win at round six Patrick secured himself his second 1/8th national title in a row.
Thanks to Patrick Hofer for the report.
Round five of this year’s Jimmy Babcock Racing League Nitro Off-road Series was held at R/C Tracks of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. The race marked the second time the otherwise SoCal-based series headed to Nevada and the round would be one of the biggest of the year as many drivers tried to get some more laps under their belts in preparation for the forthcoming IFMAR World Championships. In the premier Expert Buggy class HB Racing’s Ty Tessmann came out fastest from Mugen’s Adam Drake and Kyosho factory driver Cody King.
Thornhill Racing Circuit played host to last weekend’s 2016 Pro-Line Shootout. Qualifying in Nitro Buggy, Nitro Truggy and E-Buggy was dominated by the battle between the two teammates Ryan Lutz and Joe Bornhorst. In Nitro Buggy Joe swept all three round of the qualifying while in Nitro Truggy it was Ryan who won two rounds to take the overall TQ. Finally in 1/8th E-Buggy it was again Joe who made the triple after the qualifiers to take the overall TQ for the triple A-main events. Buggy was a battle between Joe and Ryan that were pacing each other, pretty much playing a game of chess waiting for the other one to make the first move. Joe made a couple mistakes at about the 25 minute mark allowing Ryan to get out to a comfortable lead. In the last fuel run, Joe tried to push hard to catch up but couldn’t quite do it allowing Ryan to grab the win and Joe came across about 10 seconds behind in second.
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Round three of the Southern Off-road Series was held at the Augusta RC Supercross track this past weekend. In the Nitro Buggy class, Griffin Hanna, coming from the 8 spot on the grid, would take over the lead on lap 3 and from that moment on he never looked back to take the win in the 20-minute encounter from Evan Vail in second and Grayson Thompson in third. In 1/8th E-Buggy Griffin would put his buggy on the TQ spot and he would finish the 10-minute race a lap ahead of runner-up, Dustin Loden while Coty Ingram completed the top 3.
Source: Serpent [serpent.com]
