Red RC

June 9, 2025

Balestri claims 2025 Italian 1:10 Nitro Touring title

Infinity’s Dario Balestri is the new 2025 AMSCI Italian National Champion for 1:10 Nitro Touring Car, the title decided over an annual single race meeting. This year’s race took place at double World Championship host track Gubbio where Balestri took 3 of the four qualifiers to secured the TQ ahead of team-mate and defending champion Carmine Raiola with Matteo Menichetti in third. In the 45-minute final reigning European Champion Balestri pulled clear for a trouble free win as Raiola experienced an early electric issue that dropped him to the back of the field. Coming from P6 on the grid the Xray of Francesco Pierella would finish second as Raiola recovered to claim the final step on the podium with 2024 runner-up Mario Spiniello coming home fourth.

Image: Club Automodellistico 5 Colli [Facebook]

June 9, 2025

Harleman wins Dutch EFRA Large Scale GP

The second round of the 2025 3-race Large Scale EFRA GP series took place in the Netherlands over the weekend where Mecatech driver Marco Harleman took the win. With rain having affected the opening round in Spain, where Bernard-Alain Arnaldi took the win, racing at the Real80 track in Groningen drivers again faced difficult wet weather conditions with qualifying seeing limited running. With the 3rd of the 6 scheduled qualifiers proving the quickest, it was Hessel Roskam who secured pole position. For the wet 30-minute final, a number of drivers would not start the race, leaving 3rd place qualifier Harleman to take a commanding win. The Dutch driver was joined on the podium by Luke Van den Berg and Pieter Netten. The third of the EFRA Large Scale Grand Prix races takes place on September 13/14 in Lostallo, Switzerland, where drivers will be hoping for a break from wet conditions.

Source: Mecatech Racing Components [Facebook]

June 9, 2025

Champlin doubles at INS15 Mid Summer encounter

Round 3 of the 15th season of the JConcepts Indoor National Series, the Mid-Summer Carpet Indoor Nationals, took place at Island Speedway in Iowa, over the weekend where Schumacher’s Broc Champlin completed the double. Attracting almost 300 entries, qualifying would consist of three round with Champlin topping them all in 2WD to TQ ahead of Team Associated pairing Spencer Rivkin and Aydin Horne with Schumacher’s Tom Rinderknecht fourth. Winning A1 & 2 Champlin added his first 2WD win of the 2025 series as the Top 3 line-up on the podium as how they started. In 4WD, it was Rivkin who took the TQ from Champlin with Brennan Schimmel’s Xray third, each driver having posted a TQ run each. While Rivkin opened the finals with a win as Champlin dropped to 4th, Champlin took A2 forcing things to be decided in A3. With Rivkin leading for the first 2-minutes, Champlin forced his way into lead where ge stayed to take the win and with it his second 4WD win of the INS15 season having won at the season opener back in February at Trackside Hobbies in Wisconsin. With Rivkin A3 ending down in P5, it was Schimmel (2nd) and Rinderknecht would completed the podium.

Image: JConcepts [jconcepts.net]

June 8, 2025

Ongaro defends European eBuggy title in Spain

Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro has defended his EFRA European 1:8 eBuggy title winning the 9th edition of the championship at Valladolid in Spain. Qualifying would kick off with Bruno Coelho and his prototype Infinity eBuggy topping the first of the four rounds but fastest in the next three qualifiers it was reigning European Nitro Buggy Champion Juan Carlos Canas who secured the TQ with his Sworkz. Behind the Spaniard it was Ongaro, last year’s Top Qualifier in France, who lined up second ahead of Coelho. Italian Sworkz driver Mattio Polito secured P4 with the Sparko of young French talent Noha Ben Mohamed in fifth as David Ronnefalk completed the Top 6 as the leading Xray. In the first of the 10-minute triple final encounters, late contact between Canas and Ongaro handed Coelho the win. In A2 a mistake from Canas early on saw him give the lead to Ongaro who would lead home Coelho and Ronnefalk. Unfortunately Canas’s hopes of retaking the title he last held in 2022 were over after he suffered a DNF trying to make his way back up the order. While Canas finally delivered a win in A3, second was enough for Ongaro to take his third eBuggy Euros title with Coelho the runner-up as Canas completed the podium. Finishing P4, Ben Mohamed took the European Junior title. A big year for 1:8 Electric Buggy, drivers will now turn their attention to the first ever IFMAR World Championship for the category which takes place in Portugal in August.

Image: EFRA [Facebook]

June 7, 2025

Bittydesign P-GT3R 1:7 Body Shell

Expanding its fleet of P-GT3R body shells offerings, Italian company Bittydesign has released the Porsche GT3R styled body in 1:7 scale for the Arrma Felony. After first releasing the body in 1:10 190mm and then 1:12, the 1.5mm thick genuine polycarbonate Lexan 1:7 shell is the first ever on which everything included in the kit arrives already pre-cut: the body, the wing, the light buckets, the front aero flaps. With everything laser-cut this ensures a perfect finish.

View more images here

June 7, 2025

Wallie Builds Factory Works RC8B4.1 Pro Radio Tray

Best known for its car building services, US based Wallie Builds has released this Factory Works Pro Radio Tray for the RC8B4.1 from Team Associated. With a lot of the conditions in SoCal being loose and rough, Nick Wautlet set out to design an in between weight bias setup. Team Associated currently offers two Chassis’ for the RC8B4.1. The FWB Chassis is the standard that most brands are using (Mugen, Xray, Sworkz) and the RWB Chassis is the same length, but the centre items (Engine, pipe, Radio tray [minus Steering servo], centre diff and fuel tank) all move back 10mm. The FWB chassis in Wallie Builds opinion is the most balanced chassis, but can be a little bit of handful in some cases. The RWB Chassis, feels good but, from their testing has been slower with the same driving effort. In order for the RWB chassis to be fast, you have to drive on the edge the whole time which is difficult to maintain over long main events. Aiming to find the happy medium, they took the existing radio tray and modified it to use the Hump style RX battery in the back near the engine. They also moved the location of the receiver and transponder to the front of the car and found that in doing this, the car became a whole new animal. The resulted in improvements that include higher consistency, lap after lap while conditions worsened, an easy to drive buggy in rough conditions, more on power grip exiting the corners, and a buggy that was less reactive to bumps at high speed.

View additional image here

June 7, 2025

VP-Pro 1:8 GT Body

Following on from its 1:8 GT Bodyshell released earlier this year, the CB-7004, VP-Pro has added second option of bodyshell for the category, the CB-7005. The new body has optimised aerodynamics for improved race performance offering excellent down force and more speed with lower fuel consumption. Made from clear polycarbonate, it is available in 2 different thickness, 0.8mm light and 1.0mm standard. Each option comes with 1.0mm thickness rear wing, mounting hardware, decals and window masks.

View more images here

June 6, 2025

Infinity IFB8 Lightweight Body

Infinity is now offering a lightweight version of the kit body for their IFB8 1:8 Nitro Buggy. Compared to the standard body, the weight is reduced by approximately 13 grams resulting in more nimble handling. The Lightweight body is produced from 0.8mm thick lexan and weighs approx. 60 grams.

Source: Creation Model [creationmodel.net]