November 18, 2013

2013 Nordic Championships – Report

The Nordic Championships for 1/12 Modified and 1/10 Touring Car classes were held at the permanent indoor track of Swedish Xray distributors Minicars, in Enköping, Sweden. The track was rebuild for the weekend with a fast and fluent layout. Practice for the 50 drivers from four countries started on Friday. Qualifying saw Xray’s Alexander Hagberg taking all rounds in both the 1/12th and touring car class but he was hardly pressured by Viljami Kutvonen from Finland with Niklas Johansson sitting in 3rd place in the TC class, also matching Viljami’s pace.

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November 17, 2013

Paul Pinkney wins EWS Round 2

Round two of the Essex Winter Series took place this weekend.  With the whole series fully booked months ago, a few drivers were lucky to get places following some last-minute withdrawals. Qualifying got underway and in the Muchmore-sponsored Modified class, UK National Champion Chris Grainger was determined to show his performance at Round One of the championship was just a blip on his radar, as he went quickest in the first round of qualifying.  Alan Bickerstaff made his trip from Ireland worthwhile to sit second, with multi-time EWS winner James Hart third.  In the second qualifying round, current EWS Pro-Stock Champion Paul Pinkney proved he can cut it in the Modified class too as he topped the timesheets, with Chris second and nitro specialist Kyle Branson.  Paul was again fastest in round 3, this time from Phil Chambers with Kyle again third.  Kyle then topped the final qualifying round from Stefan Chodzynski, one of the drivers to secure a last minute entry to the event, leaving Paul on pole, with Chris second on the grid and Kyle Branson third.

Continue reading the report here

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November 17, 2013

Korgae Scales wins 1/12th Mod at WCICS Rd3

With the first 2 rounds completed in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, it was time for the first race in British Columbia. Round 3 of the non-profit Western Canadian Indoor Championship Series was held on Remembrance Day weekend amid the beautiful mountains of Penticton, B.C. The Penticton Radio Control Club hosted a great event, with 7 classes and championship points all on the line. In the Team Novak sponsored 1/12th Modified class it was the 2012 WCICS champion, Speed Merchant sponsored, Korgae Scales that took TQ & win with his prototype Rev 8, also boasting the fastest lap of the entire weekend, in any class. Followed by one of the closest battles of the entire weekend for 2nd between WCICS President Josh Carter from Alberta driving his Xray, and British Columbia pan car legend, ROAR National winner, Craig Roberts with his CRC. In a classic foam tire battle, 3rd place qualifier Craig’s car was faster earlier in the race and on a tight, technical track he cleanly passed Josh to take second. Then midway through the race Craig’s car started to fall off, and Josh’s settled in and the chase was on. With just 2 laps to go Josh returned the favor with a clean pass to cross the line just a few tenths ahead taking second place.

Source: WCICS [wcics.ca]

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November 16, 2013

Mike Gee wins Horsham RC Raceway Fall Classic

Last weekend saw the 1st annual Fall Classic held at Horsham RC Raceway, home of the 2013 R.O.A.R. Carpet Nationals. With over 75 entries the track was packed with some of the best talent in the country including 2011 Nationals champion Jeff Cuffs, 2013 IIC 1/12 TQ Donny Lia, Mike Gee and Jon Williams. With a total of 11 races per round, there was never a dull moment in the action and classes included VTA, 17.5 1/12, WGT, 1/10 TC mod, and their signature event 17.5 1/10 TC. In the A Main, fresh off his second place finish as the N.O.R.C.A.R. Halloween Classic Awesomatix team driver Mike Gee got out to the early lead followed closely the Donny Lia and Sal Amato in third. On lap 5 Lia was able to overtake Gee for the lead.  Lia and Gee put on an exhibition and some of the best competitive driving until Lia encountered an unfortunate body tuck leaving the door open for Gee to retake the lead and dropping Lia to fourth place. This caused a reshuffling in the top three divers running order of Mike Gee 1st, Jeff Cuffs 2nd and Jon Williams 3rd. Lia made a great effort to recapture a top three podium postion baring down on Williams for several laps however, Williams was able to hold on to third.

View the finishing order here

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November 15, 2013

Andrea Ciurlante wins Picco memorial race

The Fiorano Modenese track hosted the first edition of the Memoria Gualtiero Picco race that attracted some of the best Italian 1/8 on-road drivers. The weekend was overshadowed by a bit of bad weather but at the end the race went flawless thanks to the great track staff. In qualifying Lamberto Collari took TQ in front of Mirko Salemi and Albert Picco. The final saw the early lead from Collari who was chased by Picco and Salemi. 10 minutes into the race Andrea Ciurlante moved his way up into third spot and shortly after Lamberto had to retire with problems. This handed Albert Picco the lead followed by Cirulante and Marco Vanni. At the 18 minute mark light drizzle stirred things up a bit as the track became very slippery forcing all drivers to change tyres. The conditions gave Andrea and his box stock RX8 the advantage he needed as he easily took the win in front of Marco Vanni and Alberto Picco. The top 5 was completed by Alberto Tedeschi ad Sara Bella.

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]

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November 14, 2013

Maxi Vogl wins at German Open Indoor Masters

This year’s German Open Indoor Masters took place at the “Faszination Modellbau” fair in Friedrichshafen, close to Austria and Switzerland, attracting nearly 80 drivers in the 1/8 and 1/10 200mm on-road classes. Qualifying in the 1/8th scale class was very close with Shepherd’s Maxi Vogl missing the TQ spot by only 0.1 sec with a gap of 0.2 sec to the third placed driver. In the 200mm class Patrick Schäfer qualified 2nd in front of his new team mate Bernd Rausch at his first race for Shepherd.

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November 12, 2013

Lahti Touring Car Challenge 2013 – Report

The Lahti Touring Car Challenge was held in Lahti, Finland in the town’s Fair Centre as part of the Kätevä-Tekevä-Lukeva crafts, hobbies and reading expo that saw around 8,500 visitors throughout the weekend. The race was run in three classes, with the main one being the 28 driver invitational 10.5T blinky ProStock class, run in a spectator friendly format with racing consisting of final type starts with mixed heat and starting order. Seven rounds were held with four seven car heats per rounds of which six rounds counting for the final order. Saturday also saw a supporting blinky 17.5T stock class and on Sunday a FWD class was run, both in a more familiar two qualifying rounds and two final rounds format. The invitational ProStock class gathered a variety of top Finnish national FinTrack-Tour series drivers from the several classes to race each other in a more laid-back fun event. The invitational class also had some interesting names in the mix, especially Christer Andersson who made a one-off comeback with a borrowed Yokomo BD7 after a two year hiatus from the sport. Also one of Europe’s fastest 1/12th scale racers, Vesa Yli made a touring car comeback with the new Serpent car.

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November 12, 2013

RCProf Speedpassion Challenge Rd2 – Report

The 2nd round of the RCProf Speedpassion Challenge was held in Budapest on an indoor carpet track. Beside several other classes including electric buggy also a touring car modified and 13.5T race was held. Qualifying for the touring cars proved to be difficult due to the track conditions as the buggy tyres made for tricky grip conditions. In the Stock class János Birinyi, coming from second on the grid, was able to take the lead in A1 and A2 bringing home an early win for Xray. Viktor Kiss and Tamás Ponghó completed the podium for a 1-2-3 for the Slovakian manufacturer.

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