UPDATE: LiveRC Weekend Round-Up!

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Mike Garrison

0 Sept. 27, 2011, 6:32 a.m.

XFactory wins BeNeLux Championship! - XFactory Race Report

 

 

Johnson and Speedzone Win USVTA Southern Nationals - Speedzone Race Report

 

 

The USVTA rolled into the Thunder RC facility for the Southern Nationals this past week.  With over 92 entries, competition would be fierce but fun.  Speedzone driver Dave Johnson would use his Speedzone 2S Lipos to take him to the top spot and TQ in both the VTA and 17.5 TC classes. After triples A-mains, Johnson would emerge the winner and 2011 USVTA National Champion.  He also went on to take the win in 17.5 TC.  The USVTA win gives Speedzone its second Nationals Title this year.
 

During the main, the top three checked out on the field and stayed in close contact with one another the event. In the closing laps Mike’s TQ SC slipped into the lead and help off the others to win by just one truck length (officially .15 of a second). Mike described is TQ Truck as “simply phenomenal” throughout the whole event.

Even while developing a new Short Course platform, TQ Racing is proud of Mike and other team drivers still working hard with the old platform and getting the results to show just how competitive the organization be can in engineering quality, fast race vehicles.

TLR swept the final round of the Modelcar-Novamodel Challenge Series this past weekend. The final round was held at the new track of Vilela (Paredes), in north Portugal. TLR driver Ricardo Monteiro already locked up the series championship at the last round taking some pressure off him for the final meeting. Ricardo Monteiro put his TLR 8IGHT 2.0 EU in the number one starting grid position for the 45min A-main after winning his semi-final. On lap three Ricardo experienced some problems early on giving the lead to his TLR teammate Joao Lopes, the young tiger, to take the win at the final round of the championship with his TLR 8IGHT 2.0 EU buggy. TLR driver, Nuno Rebelo, was second and Carlos Cardoso took the third spot for a TLR podium sweep with their TLR 8IGHT 2.0 EU buggies. TLR placed a total of seven vehicles in the expert 1/8th buggy main proving the continuing dominance of the TLR 8IGHT 2.0 EU throughout Europe. 



Apolara and Lemieux dominate ROAR 1/10 Gas Nationals - Contact Tyres Race Report
 
 

Contact Tyres have taken TQ and second qualifying spot at the prestigious USA ROAR 1/10th Gas Nationals at the weekend. Contact drivers Paul Lemieux and DJ Apolara dominated the event with Paul taking TQ and DJ second qualifier. In the finals DJ came through to take the win ahead of Paul in second. A fantastic result from both of them, making Contact ROAR National Champs.


Dakotah Phend takes a double win at the Proving Grounds - TLR Race Report

 

 

The format for this event was different from any that I had been to before. Saturday was day 1 and it began with our one and only round of practice. During this practice your top 3 consecutive laps were used to seat you into the qualifications. However it was seated differently. Say there was enough people in your class for 4 heats. The fastest person in practice would be in heat 1, second fastest in heat 2, 3rd in 3, 4th in 4, and then 5th fastest back in heat 1, 6th in heat 2, and so on. This created what could be considered pretty ‘even’ heats. Now for qualifications there was 3 rounds. Each round was heads up racing with 4 cars wide and 3 rows deep. At the countdown your pit guy put you down and at the tone all the angry buzzing bees went roaring for the mosh pit. (I say this because 20 ft from the start was a set of whoops that were hard enough to get through when you were alone let alone with 12 cars trying to do it all at the same time. Most starts resulted in over 1/2 the field on their lid at this section and the marshals scrambling to clear the wreckage.) Now in each qualifier you were only racing your own heat race. So if you finished 1st in your heat you got 1 point. 2nd you got 2 and so on. At the end of the 3 rounds they took your best 2 point totals and added them together and ranked you in your heat. If you take the example of your class having 4 heats then only 2 people bumped straight to the A from each heat. The rest were left to bump up, with 4 bump-ups through the lower mains. . Still with me?  Oh, and i forgot to mention. All racing was done by laps instead of time. So for each class there was a predetermined number of laps and once the leader crossed then everyone was done after finishing the lap they were on.

As for me I ran both Pro Nitro buggy and E-Buggy. In E-Buggy my qualifications went decent. I took 2nd in both my first two rounds behind the ‘Peanut’ Travis Amezcua. There was two heats of E-Buggy and I would end up qualifying 4th on the grid for the A-mains (double A’s) on Sunday. In Nitro Buggy I couldn’t of had a more unlucky, frustrating day. As you can possibly tell by my description of the whoops section above I really despised that section. I could never get it figured out in quals and it was basically more than just my demise. In the first round I crashed going into it, (one of the many times) and went cartwheeling into the brick wall on the outside of the track. I hit so hard on my passenger side that it dented and cut the side of my body and it popped off my throttle linkage! In round number two I again crashed in the whoops, (no surprises there right!  and someone came behind me and clobbered me in that same side of the car and again popped the link off! I’ve never had that happen to me let alone twice in two rounds! The damage to my body is proof enough how bad the hits were.

Now for the mains. They were doing double A-mains with both counting and taking your point totals from your finishes. Mains were also done by laps and not time. So the A-mains in Nitro were 35 laps or about 19 minutes and the E-Buggy main was 20 laps or about 11 minutes. In E-buggy in A1 I got out clean and moved up to 2nd. I stayed right behind Amezcua for the first 10 laps or so. Then I had some trouble in the whoops and fell back about 7 seconds. I cleaned it up though and ran clean the rest of the way and caught up and ended up just a half second back at the end to finish 2nd. In A2 I had a few mistakes near the beginning and got put into 3rd. Amezcua and Cavalieri were out not crashing and I had to settle for 3rd. After the tiebreaker with Cav I won it and took 2nd overall for the class.

In Nitro after my wonderful day of qualifiers I ended up in the last main which was the E-main. I was race number 1 of the day! It turned out to be a good thing as I began to bump up each main and made it all the way to the A-main. It was good because the track time is what I needed and it was invaluable to me. In A1 I had a good first half lap but got caught in traffic in the dip and came out last. I then battled with another driver and we proceeded to get into it for half a lap, much of it unnecessary roughness and it was a bit unfortunate. Anyways I had to work my way up from last but I knew my Durango DNX408 was up for the challenge. It felt the best it had all weekend and I began picking off driver after driver I eventually at the end of the main found myself in 3rd!
In A2 I had a good start and kept it clean I worked on a different pit strategy and was going to try to make it on 1 stop instead of two as it looked like I would have enough fuel to do it. Unfortunately on my pit lap I ran out of gas while running in 3rd. I thus fell back but was able to get back out and work my way into 6th even with probably loosing a full lap. Overall for the two mains I took 5th. Not bad coming from the E-main!

This race finished out my stretch of 7 straight weeks of either a 3, 4, or 5 day race. Glad to finally have a week off to recoup, get my cars back in shape, and spend some much needed time with the family! My little girl is learning new words every day so I look forward to being around for a few of them!

Aaron Eastman TQ'd and wins in Pro4 SC class with his Tekin Powered Losi Scte. Aaron chose the Rx8 and 5.5 Sc4x.
 

 

 

No Limit RC Demo at Orllwyn Teifi Vintage Show - HPI Racing Event Report

 

 

This show is definitely vintage as it has been part of the community for over 20 years. It is set in the hills of Ceredigion, and has beautiful views over the Welsh countryside. It is run by volunteers and all monies are given to good causes.

 

When NoLimit arrived on Saturday to set up, it was cold and windy but dry. It wouldn't have been so pretty if it was raining as well. NoLimit was situated just below the main arena and we had been given a huge area plus a couple of scrapper cars. We weren't allowed to ‘smash ‘n' bash' as the fields are used for grazing, but that didn't stop NoLimit putting on a good jumping, bashing and aerobatic display with their HPI 5Bs, 5Ts and Trophy Truggies. We did three half-hour shows each day – Sunday and Monday.

This is a big show and very popular. There is plenty to do here - old vintage steam engine display (full size and miniature), vintage and classic cars, trade stands and car boot sale, entertainment in the main arena. A motorcycle‘Wall of Death' and Tractor Pulling were also on the agenda. NoLimit's Dave had a go at getting his Baja 5B around the motorcycle Wall of Death. It was very impressive, he managed 2 circuits. It must be a weird sensation to be driving an HPI Baja 5B car sideways.

 

On Saturday and Sunday nights there was entertainment in the bar – a country & western band on Saturday and a rock band on Sunday.

On Sunday evening there was a 2 ½ mile road-run to the local pub by all the vintage vehicles – steam engines, cars, tractors etc. NoLimit hitched up their trailer, cable-tied 3 Baja 5B's on top of the trailer + our flag, put Ashley and Dan in there as well and joined in, following one of the steam engines. On the way we went past one of those automatic speed signs, it flashed up ‘Slow Down' – we were only doing about 10mph!

Monday – during the lunchtime break, NoLimit put on a Tractor-Pulling display in the Pulling Arena with their scale sled and HPI Baja 5Ts and Baja 5Bs, which generated a lot of interest and fun. The tractor-pulling commentator was there too, giving a running commentary over the loudspeaker system. . The set 30 foot run was measured out, but that was too easy so that was increased to 40 foot. The Bajas pulled 71kg (156lb), they would have pulled more but we ran out of weights.

This was a really fun weekend with lots to do and see. NoLimit would like to thank Derrick and Carol Davies for inviting us to the show and for all their help in making this such an enjoyable weekend.


For more pictures and information about No Limit RC UK, check out their Facebook page!

 

 

 

 

Jonas Kaerup wins Nordic 2wd Championship - CML Race Report (Courtesy of RedRC)

 

 

The Centro 4.1 notches up another win at the Danish 2wd DRCMU Championships.

After 5 grueling rounds in Denmark, where the weather is always a lottery, the Danish 2wd DRCMU Championships were finally decided.With only 3 rounds of the 5 to count, it was very close all the way up to the final deciding race. As most tracks in Denmark are carpet or astroturf, Losi’s mid motor 22 car looked like the car to beat right from the very first race in Odense, where Lasse Nielsen took his GM powered Losi 22 to TQ and pole.

Midway through the year though, CML made a few prototype C4.1 conversion kits for the Team Associated RC10B4.1, and one kit was made available for double nordic Champion Jonas Kaerup. He duly took the win with his GM-powered AE CML C4.1 car in the very first outing in Viborg on Danish soil, and this race too was run in the wet. With two more wins and a second in the last 3 rounds of the Championship Jonas Kaerup won the Danish National Championship with the AE CML C4.1 car. 2nd and 3rd went to Lars Alex and Lasse Nielsen, both with GM powered Losi 22’s.