Another day and another signing, this time its the announcement that fast US gas racer Scotty Gray has joined TeamXSpower and Shepherd Micro Racing for the 2009 season. Scotty, a former Winternats winner and Serpent team driver, will run an IDM powered Shepherd Velox next season at regional and National level.
Source: Team XS Power [teamxspower.com]
Front running Italian racer Michele Romagnoli has been confirmed as moving to Novarossi engines for 2009. The Serpent racer, and 2007 Italian EP National Champion, up until recently raced for Max Power, with some decent results in previous years in both 1/8th and 1/10th scale. With Max Power and Serpent importer Sprint RC working closely together in Italy its still to be seen if Romagnoli will also continue to drive Serpent range of cars?
Source: Novarossi [novarossi.com]
We received a brief report from the 6th round of the Sao Paulo Championships that took place at the Carrefour Track in Sao Paulo, Brazil, last weekend. Mugen factory driver Mike Swauger made his way to Brazil from the US for this race and proceeded to take the top qualifying spot. This series sees everyone run a semi final and Mike was easily able to place 1st, which would give him the pole position for the main final, however prior to this it started to rain and so the race was stopped and the results taking from the final starting order. This gave the win to Swauger, ahead of his team mate Henrique Winik in 2nd, with Serpent racer Flavio Elias in 3rd.
Thanks to Davi Antunes for the report.
Following his recent switch from Mega to Novarossi, former Spanish National Champion Oscar Cabezas has been confirmed as joining Motonica. The former Serpent SDD driver leaves behind a successful term at Serpent in which he won back to back Spanish titles in 2006 and 2007, as well as making the European 1/8th scale final in Valencia this year. Oscar will now be a leading force for Spanish distributor Rass Racing, who carry the Motonica & Novarossi brands, and will focus his attentions on the Spanish Nationals and World Championships, driving the 1/8th scale P8.1.
Source: JB TRC Racing [jbtrcracing.com]
The World famous MACH club in Holland is hosting a 1/12th scale race at their great winter indoor facility in Haarlem. Run from the 16th to 18th of January, the event will be held on the club’s technical blue carpet track, which is ideally sized for this class at 11m x 35m, with power and seating for over 100 people next to the track. The race is open to both modified and super stock classes and entry closes on the 13th of January.
You can enter here, and more information can be found here (PDF).
We received a report from the recent 3rd round of the South Swedish Indoor Cup (SSIC) that was arranged by Malmö Miniracing Club way down in the south of Sweden. Forty racers battled it out in three classes, 27T, 19T and Modified and in the modified class, which saw the biggest turnout with 20 entries, it was top Xray driver Niclas Nilsson who set the pace early in practice and had no problem taking TQ in all rounds. Tamiya racer Thomas Andersson took second spot on the grid but it was a close fight. Only a couple of seconds separated number 2 and 8 so the finals promised to be exciting. Niclas Nilsson continued his domination this day by taking all three finals, while behind him it was Christian Holmström with a Corally who moved up two spots from qualifying and claimed the 2nd spot in the overall standing with Thomas Andersson completing the podium.
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Team Shepherd Indonesia driver Ricardo Carnadi dominated the end of the year race at the Jakarta International Twin Circuit. With the help of his new Velox he TQ’d and won the race by 5 laps ahead of the 2nd placed finisher. During the 45 minute final he lead the race from the very beginning, only briefly giving up the lead, which he regained and went on to take the win. Ricardo will drive the Velox in 2009 as well as become an ambassador for Team Shepherd Indonesia where he will help all Indonesian drivers and mechanics with technical and setup questions about the car.
Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]
We received a report from the final race of the Paulista Modified Championships in Brazil, which saw a closely fought battle between Cris Careca and Marcos Mayer. The first 3 finals saw the win going to 3 different drivers Cris Careca, Cesar Salvadori and Felipe Franceschi. In the last final, Cris Careca and Felipe Franceschi opened up a gap from Cesar Salvadori and Marcos Mayer, and with the Championship still open, the tension among the pilots was visible. Felipe Franceschi had problems with his car and had to retire leaving Cris to hold on for the win despite having some technical problems, to also wrap up the Championship from Marcos Mayer.
Thanks to Adalberto Neri for the report.
