Red RC » R On Road

October 30, 2023

Payne defends double Masters of Foam titles

Ollie Payne has successfully defended both his Masters of Foam titles, making it back to back wins at the annual Belgian event in both Mod and 13.5 Stock. In Friday and Saturday’s qualifying the Schumacher driver claimed overall TQ honours for both classes and was able to carry that form into Sunday’s triple finals. With Xray’s Alexander Hagberg lining up P2 on the grid, Payne opened Mod with a win but A2 ended in a DNF with Hagberg taking the win to set the stage for an A3 showdown between the pair. From the front however Payne lead from start to finish to win by 2-seconds from Hagberg who claimed the second step on the overall podium. Second behind Hagberg in A2 and with a P4 in A3 it would give Stuart Cartwright third overall, the Schumacher driver winning out on a tie break with Markus Mobers. In 13.5 Payne produced a clean sweep winning all three A-Mains for the overall title ahead of the similar Eclipse of Morgan Williams with Max Machler’s Awesomatix completing the podium.

View 13.5 podium here

October 29, 2023

‘Without knowledge you can drive but you can’t win’ – Jilles Groskamp

It’s easy to think that the top drivers in the World have a special ability to just show up at an event and put their car on the track and be quick straight off the bat. While there are one or two exceptions who do possess this super power, for the most part the success comes from combining that natural talent with a lot of hard work, that mostly goes unnoticed, between races. Racing at the top level is relentless because when you are not putting in the work your rivals are, and they are making marginal gains that combined can be the difference between them winning or you not. One driver who has always stood out as one of the hardest working drivers in our sport is Jilles Groskamp. Even back in the dominant years of the Tamiya TRF team in electric touring car it was Jilles who was doing most of the ground work for the entire team. That effort was justly rewarded when he became the 2012 Electric Touring Car World Champion at his home track of Heemstede. Now at the age of 43, Jilles admitting himself ‘I’m not the youngest guy anymore’, putting in the work is even more vital than before and through that comes knowledge which he points out ‘without knowledge you can drive but you can’t win’.

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October 28, 2023

‘Every race we start from zero’ – Gruber

Two weeks ago Toni Gruber took the biggest prize of his racing career yet. Realising the ultimate dream, he clinched his first World Championship title with a very convincing victory at the 1:8 GT World Championship in Sydney, Australia. The victory didn’t really come as too much of a surprise however as the German is in the form of his life this season. However, despite claiming the 1:10 Nitro Onroad European Championship for a second time during the Summer, following that up a month later by becoming Top Qualifier at the 1:8 Euros where he finished on the podium, and then rounding out the European season with his first ENS title win, the sport’s newest World Champion goes into the 1:8 Onroad World Championship in Japan with the mindset ‘every race we start from zero’.

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October 27, 2023

TITC 2024 – Announcement

Having established itself as one of the biggest international races on the Electric Touring Car calendar outside of the World Championship, the TITC has announced that entries for the Bangkok based event will open on November 20th. Taking place at Infinity RC Addict track on February 29th – March 3rd, the 20th edition of the race will feature 5 classes – Modified Touring Car, Open Brushless, Non Boost, Porsche Thailand Cup (TTo2) and FWD. Mod and Open TC will use Sweep tyres while Non Boost with use Ride. This year saw the return of the Thailand International Touring Car Championship after an absence of two years due to Covid. Making a return to the event, having missed the 2019 edition, back to back World Champion Bruno Coelho took the win to become the legendary race’s second most successful driver behind Atsushi Hara who has won it four times.

Source: TITC [titc.in.th]

October 26, 2023

‘I think Dario was racing European Championships before I was born’ – meet Serpent’s 1:8 Onroad young gun Andrea Catanzani

The last time the 1:8 Onroad World Championship was held in Japan it was Serpent who came away with the title thanks to Japanese driver Tadahiko Sahashi. At the same time almost 10,000km away in Italy an 8-year-old was embarking on his journey into RC Racing. Inspired by his father, one of the country’s top Rally Game drivers (the precursor to what we now know as 1:8 GT), this driver started to master his skills driven by view of his father, ‘for me he was the best and I wanted to be like him’. Now a decade later, that up & coming talent is part of a small select factory Serpent team that will compete for the title at the 23rd running of IFMAR’s original World Championship at the Infinity International RC Speedway in Japan. That driver is recently turned 18-year-old Andrea Catanzani, who earlier this month marked his arrival on the international stage with some stunning displays of outright speed and hunger for success at the 1:8 GT World Championship in Sydney.

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October 26, 2023

British GT12 Nationals RD2 Tamworth – Report

Last Sunday was Round 2 of the BRCA GT12 National Championship held in Tamworth by the TRRAC club. The track was a nice flowing layout, with a couple of technical sections and a high grip level. A big thanks to the TRRAC club for their incredible effort put into hosting this national event. In qualifying, Adam Mackman managed to take the overall TQ with an impressive 11.87 fastest lap in the final round, with Sam Coult in 2nd and Aidan Ripley in 3rd. Mark Jewitt followed closely behind in 4th, whilst there was a total of 4 seconds separating 5th to 8th place completing the A Final. A special mention to 12 year old Chase Mackman for qualifying 6th for his first ever national A Final! In the Mini Supercup class, Matthew Smithson TQ’d with a fast 21 lap qualifying run, followed by Paul Frewin in 2nd and James Kemp in 3rd. As the A Final started the top 3 started to grow a gap from the rest of the drivers, with Adam, Sam and Aidan racing for the number 1 spot. A small error from Aidan allowed Mark Jewitt to catch up and take the 3rd place spot. Chase Mackman managed to gain a position and move into 5th overall. Whilst 3rd and 4th were battling for position, this allowed Adam and Sam to form a 4 second lead. With a full 6 minutes of clean racing between Adam and Sam, Adam managed to hold onto 1st and take the overall win with a gap of 0.2s to Sam in 2nd.

View Podium results/photos here

October 25, 2023

Ielasi Tuned ‘World Champion Edition’ GP5GTR23

In what has been a massive season for Daniele Ielasi’s Ielasi Tuned engine brand with it winning both its first World and European Championship titles, the Italian company has marked Toni Gruber’s 1:8 GT World Championship win in Australia with the release of the ‘World Champion Edition’ of the GP5GTR23 engine. This version differs from the previous model with 2 small changes on the timing through work on the crankshaft and cylinder. In Sydney, and like everywhere, it was important to go fast in performance but runtime was also vital and with this configuration they were always able to manage the 7-minute runtime comfortably in each qualifying heat without ever losing performance in our engine. As a finishing touch the engine head graphic have also been redesigned to mark the occasion and the new special edition engine.

View more images here

October 24, 2023

2023 Foshan International Invitational RC Championship – Announcement

The new GDC Indoor Race Club track in Guangdong, China, is pleased to announcement its first international race event with the hosting of the Foshan International Invitational RC Championship on December 15-17. Located in the centre of Foshan City, the brand new facility was officially opened in May of this year and at 800 square metres is the largest professional indoor onroad track in China. Founded by the international athlete Mr. Kwok Yiu-wai, GDC Remote Control Racing Club hope by hosting this major international electric onroad race that they can boost the level of competition among young local racers. It is also hoped the event will become an annual highlight of the international touring car race calendar. Commenting on the inaugural running of the event the organisers said, ‘The purpose is to let local drivers see the level of international races and drivers, and to allow our teenagers to have close contact with world champions and top drivers to improve their level. We hope to held this event annually from this year.’ With a number of international team drivers expected to be announced in the coming weeks, the schedule for the Foshan International Invitational RC Championship will be made up of 5 categories – Modified Touring Car, 13.5T Handout Touring Car, Modified 1:12, 17.5T Handout FWD Touring and 21.5T Handout 1:10 F1.

View track images here