Like the off-road event which also bears the Reedy Race of Champions name, the Touring Car competition pits the fastest racers in the world against one another in three randomly sorted heats for twelve rounds of heads-up competition. The Invitational drivers race four times per day, with their ten best scores used to determine the overall finishing order. The drivers know that every point counts, so they push hard for every possible position each time they hit the track
In the first round, defending champion Ronald Völker started off his title defense with a win after starting outside row one. “I got lucky at the start,” said the German, who followed pole sitter Ryan Cavalieri into turn one and was lucky enough to get by the multi-time off-road world champ on the first lap. “The race was very good,” said Völker, who described his Yokomo as being loose at the start but improving after a few laps.
Even though former nitro touring car world champion Meen Vejrak started at the back of the grid, it didn’t take him long to get to the front. He finished lap one in sixth, moved up to third on the next lap, and by the end of lap five had taken the top spot from German driver Christopher Krapp. “I kept safe at the beginning and just tried to find a way through,” said the Thai driver, who described his Yokomo BD7 as working really well despite the low grip
Four-time defending champion Marc Rheinard felt relieved after starting off the weekend with a good race, especially after starting seventh on the grid. “It’s always good to have a good first run,” said the German, who was comfortable with the performance of his Tamiya TRF419. “The race was pretty good,” said Marc, “I got up to the front and controlled it from there.”
With the track further removed from last night’s rain by the time the second round began, the grip had improved and the racers were able to push a bit harder. With more traction, the drivers also felt more comfortable making aggressive pass attempts - which didn’t always work.
Marc Rheinard made the most of his starting position draw, leading from the front row and pacing the field to maintain a gap over the field. He eventually finished 1.4 seconds up on Tamiya teammate Akio Sobue, who started behind the German and ran second uncontested for the duration.
A spectacular first lap for Naoto Matsukura ended with the current world champion moving from third on the grid to the lead, but he dropped to second with a mistake through the infield on lap five and opened the door for Christopher Krapp. The German driver, who switched to Tamiya this year after a few seasons as the lone Kyosho international touring car pilot, pulled away from Matsukura by three seconds to hold on for the win.
Reigning nitro touring car world champion Alexander Hagberg followed RCAmerica’s Ralph Burch Jr., who’s also a nitro touring car world champ, for three laps. Once Burch made a mistake on lap four, Hagberg got by and took off - winning by 1.6 seconds over Singaporean Tamiya driver Nicholas Lee. “It was a little bit better that time after making some setup changes,” said the Swedish driver, who has been trying to find more traction like everyone else. “The race went pretty good - the other guys all had trouble. I had a front row start and I knew I had to win to get good points, so I just tried to stay clean.”
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