Yokomo team driver Ronald Volker (17/5:17.928) has TQ’d the opening qualifier here in Luxembourg after an extremely close first round. The 2008 Top Qualifier took the round on the final lap after pace setter for most of the run Viktor Wilck dumped on his 17th lap. Volker said his LRP powered BD5 suffered with understeer at the beginning but got easier to driver as the run progressed.
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Day 1 of the 2009 EFRA Electric Touring European Championships has been completed and it is the Tamiya team who top the time sheets. The final practice of the day saw defending Champion Marc Rheinard set a new fastest run as both he and Jilles Groskamp broke into the 17 laps. Having had a run time issue in the third practice, Rheinard switched to SpeedPassion’s new Competition 3.0 motor for the final outing of the day and now plans to stick with the motor after posting the 17/5:17.356 run with plenty of power left aferwards. The German will make a small change to the gearing but said overall he was confident that his run time shortfall was a one off. In terms of the car, the World Champion said it was a little loose but feels that is down to track conditions rather than set-up.
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With three rounds of free practice completed here in Luxembourg it is last year’s Top Qualifier Ronald Volker who is setting the pace from reigning champion Marc Rheinard. The Yokomo driver recorded the fastest run time (16/5:00.987) in the second outing, and has also laid down the fastest lap (18.364) around the large circuit. Topping the timesheets again in the third session, with a slower run of 16/5:03.894, the German ran different shocks on his BD5 but found they made the car feel unstable and he will revert to the shocks used earlier for today’s fourth and final practice.
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The opening round of the 2010 German regionals took place for the Southern group at the tricky Zollhausring track near Nürnberg. After the qualifications it was Maximilian Vogl (Novarossi/Velox) on pole, setting a time of 24 laps in 5:05,700, 1,2 seconds ahead of Christian Wimberger (Novarossi/Mugen), with Dominik Mayer (Novarossi/Velox) and Christoph Pietsch completing the Top 4. All drivers had a good start in the final race, but the young driver Maximilian Vogl couldn’t bring his qualifying pace into the final and fell back to 7th place. German 1/8th scale Junior Champion Christian Wimberger jumped straight into the lead from the first lap and opened up a gap, eventually taking the win ahead of Nicolai Bähr and Christoph Pietsch in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
The 2nd African Cup GP On Road event took place recently and combined with it the IFMAR Pre Worlds Large scale discipline. The event saw 2 Australian drivers make the trip over to the race, which created a lot more excitement for the 1/8th discipline on it’s own, as they hadn’t seen foreign drivers competing in a club event since 2002.
Sunday 19th July saw round 3 of the Action Model Centre supported 1/12th scale ‘Summer Shootout’ take place at Chesterfield, the home of 1/12th scale racing in the UK. The driver line up was one of high quality, despite the fact that 1/12th scale racing is relatively quiet over the summer in the UK. Pre-event favorites included the Hot Bodies pairing of Mick Farrell and Chris Smith, Corally’s Andy Sawyer and Serpent’s Peter Craig. Joining them in the hunt for victory was Mark Stiles, who has recently switched from Hot Bodies to the V-Dezign team. Mark immediately got off to a good start with his new chassis, being fastest in all 5 rounds of qualifying and took TQ by over a lap ahead of Mick Farrell and Chris Smith. Mark got a clean start in the A-final and went on to comfortably lap the entire field with an almost faultless run. Mick Farrell recovered from an early crash to finish 2nd, while Peter Craig improved on his 4th placed grid slot to complete the podium. With 3 of the 4 rounds completed, Mick Farrell heads the championship table by virtue of having competed in all of the rounds. However, a top three finish at the 4th and final round on 6th September would see Mark take the overall title.
Source: V-Dezign [v-dezign.net]
There was a dramatic outcome to the 2009 EFRA 1:10 200mm European Championships here in Gubbio, Italy this evening, with heartbreak for race dominator Dario Balestri and total joy for new Champion Dirk Wischnewski. Starting from pole Balestri’s Novarossi powered Team Magic was untouchable allowing the defending back to back Champion to lap the entire field, but in the final 10 minutes of the race the Italian suffered gearbox problems ending his quest for a hat trick of titles.
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The Semi Finals have been run and the 6 drivers who will join the four direct qualifiers has been decided. In the Semi B Manuel Huber took a relative easy win over Dirk Wischnewski but the Semi A was a far more dramatic affair. Serpent’s Michael Salven lead for over half of the 20 minutes encounter but with 7 minutes to go and with a healthy lead his engine cut. This handed Mugen’s Guiseppe D’angelo the lead but he too flamed out with less than 3 minutes to go. Having benefited from the demise of Mark Green’s out of control Serpent 733 to move in to second, Martin Hudy came through to take the win from Gerhard Kandelhart. The other two qualifiers based on the next two fastest race times from both Semi Finals were Alexander Hagberg and Giorgio De Felici who come from the Semi B.
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