The 2011 IFMAR Electric Buggy World Championships was officially opened this evening in Vaasa, Finland with a short ceremony at the Pitkamaki Motorsport Centre where over the next 7 days two World Champions will be crowned. Having had rain in the build up to the 14th running of the championships, which first ran in 1985, the arrival of sunshine today was perfectly timed to greet drivers and their teams.
View our event coverage here.
In a surprise move, reigning 1/8th scale offroad World Champion Cody King is trying his hands at Electric 1/10th offroad as he travels to Vaasa Finland for the IFMAR World Championships which takes place next week. Focusing on 1/8th offroad for the past number of years he has been putting in some intensive testing recently and was feeling really comfortable with both his Kyosho cars. Cody has been running electric exclusively since last Thursday and was running through the weekend, and just yesterday shook down his Worlds cars prior to his flight to Finland, where he will also receive his race bodies. You can follow his progress along with that of all the competitors live on Red RC next week with our coverage beginning in full on Monday.
This past weekend was the Georgia Champion Series Race and TLR posted more excellent results with team drivers Ryan Lopez, Shane Ogden and Cole Ogden. Taking the overall series win in the 1/8th Buggy class with his TLR 8ight 2.0 was Ryan Lopez who chose Losi Red Ultra Digits to last the long one hour main event. Rounding out the podium was Shane Ogden in 2nd and Cole Ogden in 3rd.
Source: TLR [tlracing.com]
The 4th annual International Race of Champions (IROC) was held by the MAC-Inzell and Hupo Hönigl put on a show as he carried away the top prize in every class with his DESC410R, DEX410 and DEX210 prototype. The 4WD Short Course class showed once again that the DESC410R is a force to be reckoned with as it dominated in the first 6 positions, and 7 cars in the final. Hupo Honigl had this report on the race:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnXjB3mRbIQ[/youtube]
Following our coverage of the 2011 Hot Rod Hobbies Shootout that took place last weekend, we have uploaded a video showing all the action from the 2wd Modified A-main which you can view above.
Last weekend saw the EFRA GP for 1/8 Buggy held in Oberbüren, Switzerland. As the drivers arrived on Friday morning, a very big tent awaited them with space for all the drivers and the restaurant area. It rained the night before and so the track was wet but in good condition. From 10am till 6pm the drivers could run four practice round to get familiar with the track. On Saturday morning the track was wet again but no rain for the last practice round, however just before the start of the first Qualifying round it began to rain. The rain stayed for the whole first round of qualifying and it was Dominique Gross (Serpent/Ninja/JConcepts) from Switzerland who was fasted, second was Roman Kummer (Agama/TechnoPower/VP-Pro) from Switzerland, 5 seconds behind, and third Hannes Käufler (TLR/nVision/Losi) from Germany.
Continue reading the report here
The 2nd Annual Novarossi Challenge was held at Controlfreakz track in Chaplin, Connecticut home of the 2011 ROAR Fuel On-road Nationals. With Desoto Racing and Novarossi World providing lots of prizes, turnout was very good with 100 racers taking part in three classes: 1/8th Scale, 1/10 Sedan and 1/8th GT. 1/8th scale had the biggest turnout and was an exciting battle for TQ and the race win. In qualifying Richie Siriano, Joaquin Desoto and Kenny Ives fought for TQ with Kenny Ives Jr taking the top spot in the last Qualifier. The race was wild at first with Siriano the early leader followed closely by Taskila, Desoto and Jackson. At the 15 minute mark, the battle for the win was down to Jackson and Desoto. Jackson was pitting at 4:30 while Desoto pitted every 4 minutes. The battle continued back and fourth until traffic and mistakes separated the two at about the 25 minute mark. With 10 minutes to go Jackson made a mistake that allowed Desoto to build a lead and cruise to victory. Taskila drove a consistent race to take 2nd and pole sitter Ives Jr recovered to take 3rd. In Sedan, It was Diatta Collymore taking the TQ and win, while in GT, John Q took the TQ spot but had problems in the main. The main saw Luis Mercado drive a clean race to take the win.
The 14th Annual Hot Rod Hobbies Shootout wrapped up today with some spectacular racing! The track was patched and prepped nicely for the mains by Jimmy Babcock and crew. Traction was unreal, competition was fierce, and the crowd was clearly entertained by their abundance of oohs and aahs. Pro-2 short course kicked off the day with the first round of the triple a-mains. From pole position, Jared Tebo lead the first lap and never looked back in A1. A2 followed suit with complete domination driving his Kyosho RB-5 SC to the victory and clinching the overall win. TLR teammates Mike Truhe and Frank Root had some pretty epic battles for 2nd place, swapping positions what seemed like every corner. Truhe and Root had a rough start in A3, but it didn’t take them long to work their way back to the front where the rivalry continued to entertain the spectators.
Continue reading the report here
