While off road and electric on road seems to be flourishing in the USA, it seems that the gas on road classes are not as healthy, forcing the decision to not run 2 seperate nationals for sedan and 1/8th scale this year, but combine them into one event. ROAR President, Dawn Sanchez, together with the Executive Committee issued the following statement on the ROAR website regarding this matter.
RC America/Xray have announced that Venezuela driver Gianni Giorgio has joined their team. Gianni will be running the Xray NT1 for the 2009 season in Venezuela and America and they will be looking forward to great race results and great team support from Gianni who has been racing for many years. Gianni’s first race out with the NTI saw him win and break the track record in Venezuela. Gianni had the following to say about the deal:
I would like to thank R/C America and Xray for the opportunity they have given me to run the NT1 for the 2009 season and hope to help improve and promote the Xray/ MaxPower/Jaco to the best that I can, thank you ( Ralph Burch Jr. / Massimo Fantini / Jack Rimer).
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
Serpent driver Frank Schewiola took a well deserved win in the season opener of 1/8 nitro on road in Germany, which was already round three of the 2008/2009 Western German Championship at Dormagen near Cologne. At the demanding track with its unforgivable barriers from concrete and real guard rails you really had to finish first to finish first, following the English saying. Frank Schewiola with his Mega powered Serpent did so as well as Tom Scheffler (Mugen/Mega) on second position did. Frenchman Alain Levy, a regular starter in Western Germany, took the third spot on the podium with his Mega powered Serpent. Others like Michael Salven, Karl-Heinz Meister, Tobias Hepp and Chistian Wurst didn´t manage to come through the 30 minutes finale and hit the wall of shame on the same place.
The annual LRP Touring car masters race took place last weekend in Eppelheim, Germany and attracted some of the big names in the industry to compete in the 89 strong Masters class for modified drivers. Qualification saw reigning World Champion easily claim the TQ spot after 3 of 4 rounds to line up ahead of Tamiya/SpeedPassion team mate Jilles Groskamp in 2nd, with Hot Bodies/LRP racer, and Vice World Champion, Ronald Volker 3rd. In the finals it was pretty straight forward for Marc, who won A-main leg 1 by nearly 2 seconds in front of team mate Viktor Wilck in 2nd, Xray driver Freddy Südhoff taking 3rd and a recovering Volker in 4th. In A-main leg 2 Marc once again lead away with Groskamp following and Volker in 3rd, pushing the Dutch man the whole way. Despite intense pressure, this was how it ended and Marc was declared 2009 Champion with 1 leg left to run. In the final leg it didn’t go so well for the new Champion, who after only 2 laps made a mistake which dropped him down the order. This allowed Viktor, Jilles and Ronald to battle for the final leg win with Viktor leading the pack and the two behind battling it out for position. Ronald, after some big pressure, finally made a move and got passed the Dutch man, but trying to retake position the pair touched and Jilles regained 2nd, which was how it stayed giving Wilck, the new Swedish Champion, the overall runner up spot, with ETS Champion Jilles Groskamp taking 3rd, for a repeat of last year’s Tamiya/SpeedPassion lock out of the podium.
Click here to see the final standings
We already reported on the Modified classes from last weekend’s ROAR Carpet Nationals held at the Gate in Cleveland, but we have now received a report from the event’s largest class, the hotly contested 1/12th scale stock class. After four rounds of qualifying it was the Calandra Racing Concepts team that took the top 3 spots, with Tom Firsching taking the TQ spot position ahead of Max Kuenning and Dave Johnson, qualifying 2nd and 3rd. In the Triple A-main format, each driver had a great chance to win the event overall with Johnson won the first A-main (A1) from 3rd on the grid with Tom 2nd and Max 3rd, while in A2, Max took the win with Tom 3rd. The final leg saw a titanic battle between Tom and Max, with the lead swapping 2 or 3 times. While leading, neither driver could shake his rival as the 2 broke away from the pack. In the end Max was able to wrestle the win with Tom hot on his tail.
Source: CRC [teamcrc.com]
Taking place from the 4th to the 7th of June, the 1st annual BUMOD Grand Prix will take place in Bursa, Turkey. What is building up to be a great event, the race is open to both 1/8th scale and 1/10th scale 200mm on road classes and will be held at the BUMOD track, the country’s premiere facility 1.5 hours south from the country’s capital Istanbul. Entry is now open for this event and you are guaranteed a warm reception from the Turkish hosts, who will also arrange transport and help find the best accommodation. French EFRA GP winner Robert Pietsch is confirmed, along with European 200mm B Champion and German National Champion Dirk Wischnewski along with front running German racer Dirk Stammler, with more top racers to be announced in the coming weeks. Red RC will also be present throughout the event bringing live reports each day on our Events page.
For more information about the event visit the official site here.
The opening 1/8th scale EFRA GP of the year was held last weekend outside Paris in a town called Aulnay. The 81 drivers, split between 4wd Open and 2wd Classic, were presented with a fast smooth track and the weather, while cool, stayed dry. Qualifying for the 4wd class saw Mugen racer Robert Pietsch take the pole position in front of the Serpent pairing of World Vice Champion Andrea Cristiani and John Ermen, with another Mugen, that of Rick V. taking the final direct qualifying position in 4th. The 45 minute final started with Robert going straight into the lead, but a mistake behind from Cristiani saw him lose a lot of time in the pits to repair a broken crystal. Behind Pietsch the battle was between John and Rick, but then Ermen too had mechanical problems and had to join early retiree Walter Salemi in watching the race from the stands. With the top 2 positions locked out, the battle was for 3rd spot and this was between Shepherd main man Patrick Schaefer and French racer Louis Christophe with the German holding the 3rd spot, but a crash while passing a lapped car lost the Velox driver over a lap and allowed Louis into the 3rd spot to take the final podium place behind Rick V. in 2nd and Robert Pietsch in 1st, a lap clear up front.
Click here to see the final results
The 2009 ROAR Electric Carpet Nationals took place last week at the Gate in Cleveland Ohio and the race attracted 284 entrants. In the blue ribboned Modified classes it was Paul Lemieux that took the win from pole position with his Trinity powered Xray ahead of young Associated racer Keven Herbert in 2nd and Josh Cyrul, driving the self designed TOP Racing Photon, in 3rd spot. In 1/12th Modified it was Associated racer Mike Blackstock that won, in a close battle with CEFX designer Josh Cyrul who ended the day in 2nd, while Serpent racer Paul Ciccarello took 3rd spot.
Full final results can be found here.
Image: RC50 [rc50.com]
