Red RC » R On Road

May 6, 2024

Orlowski wins 1up Racing West Coast Invitational

The inaugural 1up Racing West Coast Invitational took place at 2024 IFMAR World Championship host track Finishline RC Raceway where Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski took the win. A nod to the famed Reedy Race Race of Champions, which last ran in 2019, the Mike Reedy Memorial Invitational Touring Car class attracted some strong international entries to the Bakersfield, California, track for 12 rounds of heads up racing. With a field of 16 invitational drivers, Orlowski and Xray’s Bruno Coelho would go right to the wire for the title. Sharing a total of 6 wins each and both ending up on 16 points, and all tie break avenues exhausted, 2nd places, 3rd place etc. the fastest 3 run times combined would give the on form Pole the title over the current World Campion. With most of the major manufacturers using the event to get track time ahead of the ISTC World Championships, that take place in early November, it would the Axon of Japanes driver Akio Sobue who completed the podium. Also with four win Awesomatix’ Lucas Urbain finished 4th ahead of team-mate and best of the host nation representative Sam Isaacs. Yokomo’s Nicholas Lee rounded out the Top 6. Making it a double celebration for Schumacher, Italian Mattia Collina took the traditional race format Open Touring Car win from David Mayhew and Byrce Butterfield while Xray’s Jan Ratheisky won 17.5.

Image: 1up Racing [1upracing.com]

May 1, 2024

The Michal Orlowski Column – Edition No.2

You all loved his first column so we are delighted that Michal Orlowski has somehow found time in his busy schedule to give us another great column as an insight into his world as Schumacher’s star factory driver. Once again we’ll let Michal take it away and tell you in his own style what has been going on over the last two months….. ‘It has been a while since my last update here. We have been hard at work with the team to finish off the winter season on a high. We attended numerous events between February and April, which I will tell you all about, emphasising the struggles and how we could overcome them together. After attending the Mibosport Cup in early February, it was time to switch back to buggy mode. For the last few years, the MK GP event has been one of the mostly anticipated off-road races of the winter season with hundreds of drivers participating, but more importantly thousands of people coming to watch us race RC cars. The event is held in the MK shopping centre in Milton Keynes, UK, home to the Redbull F1 team. The event is organised by the Silverstone Club, who hosts weekly club races and a winter series at a smaller venue. This gave us the chance to test on the unique carpet the MK GP crew decided to use since 2023.

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April 30, 2024

Hobbywing Cup – Mächler, Sawada & Lee announced

The organisers of the Hobbywing Cup have announced a number of well known international drivers will make the trip to the Shanghai International Model Auto Racing Arena (SIMARA) in China for the May 30 – June 2 electric touring car event. 1:12 Spec World Champion Max Mächler will make the trip from Germany with his Awesomatix touring car, while Nicolas Lee travels from Singapore for the factory Yokomo team. Japanese driver Shin Sawada with represent Xray in the Open Brushless class at the 4-day event. The Hobbywing Cup will also see drivers battle it out around the 65m by 35m track in categories for Stock, Sports Class and Tamiya TT02.

Source: Hobbywing [hobbywing.com]

April 25, 2024

Connolly wins Irish 1:8 GT National opener

The opening round of the Irish National GT Championship took place in the beautiful St Anne’s Track located in the centre of Dublin last weekend where Genius Racing’s Clive Connolly took the win. Hosted by ORCA Ireland, in qualifying it was Connolly taking TQ honours followed by Graeme Lougheed, the top 2 automatically into the Main Final leaving the rest to battle in the Semi Finals for the remaining final positions. The 30min Main was a close affair with battles throughout the field. Jason Noonan and Graeme Lougheed both driving Genius cars would fight for 18 minutes until finally Graeme would retire with a technical failure allowing Bruno Barbosa driving a strong race with his OS powered Xray to move up a position. Out in front it was multiple Irish Champion Connolly driving his Mantis Tuned powered GTC8.23 on SP Rubber that would take the victory with a trouble free run from start to finish.

Image: ORCA Ireland [Facebook]

April 22, 2024

Balestri leads Infinity 1-2 at Italian Nationals

Dario Balestri led an Infinity 1-2 at the AMSCI 1:8 Onroad Italian National Championship, heading home Thomas Lorenzi by half a lap of the Pista di Leno track. While rain would effect qualifying, it was the World Champion who took his Max Power engined IF18 to the TQ ahead of the Capricorn of Mirko Salemi. With Carmine Raiola and Luca Romagnoli third & fourth, Lorenzi would line up P5. In the 30-minute final, while Balestri lead the entire race, Lorenzi worked his way through to second just before the half way distance. Despite setting the fastest lap of the race, Raiola would miss out on the podium with the 3rd step going to Salemi. In the Sport category, Mattia Perego also made it an Infinity 1-2 winning ahead of Cristian Boni with the Mugen Seiki of Alessio Forgnoli completing the Top 3.

Image: Infinity [Facebook]

April 18, 2024

eSIC 2024 – Announcement

After the successful inaugural running of the Electric Singapore International Challenge (eSIC) last year, the organisers have confirmed the dates for the 2024 edition of the electric touring car races will be 14-15th September. One week before the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, eSIC, which is headed up by Singapore’s top international touring car driver Nicolas Lee and JK Chhua, is organised by the Marine Parade Radio Control Modellers Club. With the aim of eSIC to bring back racing in style in Singapore with the creation of one big exciting weekend for the onroad racer, last year’s event saw the Mugen Seiki of former World Champion Ronald Volker take the win ahead of Nicholas Lee and multiple World Champion Naoto Matsukura. Following the success of the first eSIC race, with Jilles Groskamp, Viktor Wilck, Simon Nicholson and Gem Chavit among the 100 plus entries in 2023, the 2024 edition is expected to include an even stronger international field.

Source: eSIC [Facebook]

April 16, 2024

Thurston wins 1:8 Onroad British Nationals opener

Alex Thurston enjoyed the perfect debut with his new Mugen Seiki MRX6 at the opening round of the BRCA 1:8 Onroad British National Championship taking the TQ and setting a new lap record on the way to victory over reigning Champion Tim Wood. Over the four rounds of qualifying Thurston was the only driver to run 18-laps, securing the overall TQ ahead of the Shepherd of Wood and Vice-Champion Karl Dransfield. In the half hour final an opening lap incident involving hitting a pitman delayed Thurston but worse for Dransfield resulted in the end of his race. This allowed Wood to go to the front but losing 8-seconds with a slow first pitstop, he dropped back to second as Thurston took over a lead. Once out front Thurston held station winning by 11-seconds from Wood with the Shepherd of fourth place qualifier John Carr completing the podium. While a great day for Thurston, unfortunately after 20-years racing at the Cotswolds track this was to be the last race before it is permanently closed down due to the site being developed for commercial use.

Image: Alex Thurston [Facebook]

April 15, 2024

2024 Speed King Tour Rd1 – Report

The opening round of the Speed King Tour 2024 was held recently at Super RC Omiya indoor tarmac track in Saitama prefecture Japan with Infinity driver Jin Sawada taking the main win from Axon’s Hayato Ishioka. The popular and competitive electric touring car series is now in its 11th year sand consisting of six rounds travels to circuits across Japan. Host of Round 1, the Super RC Omiya track is known for its high bite and the Speed King Tour specific rules specify controlled tyres and prohibit the use of tyre warmer, which are highly favoured by racers in Japan. A major boost for the series was the participation of RC legend Atsushi Hara at the controls of soon to be release limiteds edition Xpress Execute XQ11 Hara Edition.

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