September 11, 2024

Welcome to my World (Practice) – Marcus Kaerup

At 16-years of age he is already a double European Champion and 12-months ago on his World Championship debut he made both the 2WD and 4WD finals in Arizona but that’s in 1:10 electric.  This week however Marcus Kaerup is in Spain for the larger and noisier IFMAR 1:8 Offroad World Championship, the power and noise for the Dane’s efforts coming his Ruddog RNX22.3 engine, the German brand also supporting Red RC’s coverage from the event.  In the first of our daily columns following his progress at the spectacular sloping RC Redovan track, we caught up with Marcus to get a quick round up of how the first 3-days of practice has faired for him in his ‘second class’.

Not Marcus’ first rodeo on the biggest 1:8 Buggy stage in the World, having raced at the exact same location 2-years ago, he still classifies himself as a bit of a 1:8 newbie.  Racing since he was just 3-years-old, that very early start was most likely influenced by his dad Jonas being a former 1:10 Electric Touring Car Champion.  While having a very impressive CV in 1:10 Offroad, Marcus explains that while he ‘drives some nitro here & there’, he doesn’t get the time for much nitro testing and so he is ‘pretty new’ to the class.  Still, he competes here in Spain as the recently crowned Danish National Champion and he comes here with strong ambitions, ‘if you don’t go for win why even show up.  I have set myself a pretty high goal.’  Asked what he thinks of his playground for the week, he said ‘It’s an amazing track, really challenging for everyone, even the top guys from the US and Europe are struggling with 10-minutes or 5-minutes without crashing.’

While he normally races with his father by his side, work commitments meaning that’s not the case here, but one could say his ‘stand in’ pitman isn’t too shabby.  That pitman is none other than Team Associated team manager Brent Thielke.  Brent has vast experience of working with young up & coming talents and has been a big contributor to AE’s ever increasing tally of 32 World Championship wins.

38th in Monday’s free practice and 25th in Tuesday’s seeding Marcus finished out practice in positive form.  ‘The last seeding run was pretty good for me.  We are just working and working and working and now I think I have found something I want to drive with for the rest of the event’.  Explaining what he had found he said, ‘Overall pace and comfort in the car, I found that now so I just need to drive it now instead of focusing on one lap’.  Looking to qualifying he added, ‘I think for the qualifying it’s going to be better for me because you focus on the long run and not on every single lap you do, for me its more comfortable driving.’

We will catch up with Marcus again to see how the opening three qualifiers that make up Day 1 of qualifying fair out.

April 26, 2024

2024 Philippine Masters Chassis Focus Index

Last weekend Red RC made our third trip to Manila for the world class offroad event that is the Philippine Masters.  Famed as being Asia’s biggest annual 1:8 Offroad race, the Circulo Verde track is renowned for its difficulty and 3D style build with this year’s 12 edition of the race using a new method to seal the surface.  This resulted in minimal tyre wear even over the 1-hour Main final in which Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro recovered from an early flame out to take his fourth win in the capital city.  The first time Sparko was officially represented at the race, a great driver by Ryan Pavidis netted the American runner-up spot.  Great to see the legendary Atsushi Hara back racing at the the front end.  It was great to once again do a chassis focus with him, Sworkz hooking him up for the event, and it great to see the former World Champion enjoying his racing so much once again.  Attracting 205 entries from 16-nations, we got the chance to photograph buggies from 9 drivers representing 7 different manufacturers as well as the TQ & winning Sworks truggy of Bulgaria visitor Plamen Petrov which we have compiled below in our latest Chassis Focus index.

Davide Ongaro – Team Associated RC8 B4.1 (Overall TQ & Win)

Ryan Pavidis – Sparko F8 (2nd overall)

Atsushi Hara – Sworkz S35-4 EVO (3rd overall)

Joern Neumann – Sworkz S35-4 EVO (Q2 TQ)

Alex Bernadzik – Associated RC8 B4.1 (Q1 TQ)

Ryan Lutz – Kyosho MP10 TKi3

Jayden Jamieson – Xray XB8’24

Jackson Beale – Tekno NB48 2.1

Logan Toia – HB Racing


Truggy

Plamen Petrov – Sworkz S35-T2 (Overall TQ and Win)

 

April 12, 2024

Hara ‘excited’ for Philippine Masters return

A former winner of the Philippine Masters, legend of the sport Atsushi Hara will make his return to the famed Manila based 1:8 Offroad event next week (April 18-21).  The offroad and onroad World Champion, last contested the race in 2019 and will return to the Circulo Verde track at the controls of an Sworkz Buggy, a decade on from when he raced for manufacturer full time during the 2014 season.  Joining the international entry that includes reigning World & Philippine Masters Champion Davide Ongaro, multiple Worlds finalist Kyle McBride, Asian Buggy Championship points leader & PM debutant Ryan Lutz, and another PM debutant Joern Neumann, on his return to the Asia’s biggest annual 1:8 Offroad race former FEMCA Champion Hara said, “I am so excited to be back at Philippine Masters, because Philippine Masters is one of the best organizers in the world.  This time, Sworkz and Cayote have helped me to enter the race!  I am also looking forward to seeing my many friends and fans in the Philippines!  See everybody at the track!”

April 6, 2024

Ongaro late confirmation for Philippine Masters

Having originally looked set to miss this year’s Philippine Masters due to Warm-up Race commitments for the IFMAR 1:8 Buggy World Championships, the cancellation of Brazil hosting the Worlds means reigning back to back World Champion Davide Ongaro will return to Asia’s biggest annual 1:8 Offroad race for a fourth time.   A winner of the event event prior to Covid, the Team Associated star successfully returned to the famous 3D layout Circulo Verde track located in the heart of Manila last year as the Philippine Masters made its return to the international stage after the forced 2 year break.  Taking the TQ ahead of the Mayako of former World Champion Robert Batlle and the win ahead of Sworkz’ Micha Widmaier 12 months ago, this year the Italian’s competition for the April 18-21 event is set to come from an entry list that includes Kyosho pairing Ryan Lutz & Kyle McBride and Sworkz’ Joern Neumann.  The 12th running of the Philippine Masters, the race is also the second round of the ambitious four round Asian Buggy Championships which is currently lead by American Lutz who won the opening round in New Zealand in February.

March 7, 2024

2024 TITC Chassis Focus Index

Last weekend thanks to the support of Hobbywing, Red RC made a return to the TITC for the 20-edition of this legendary Bangkok race.  The biggest one yet, it has truly become the most significant annual electric Touring Car race in the World.  It was extremely positive for the category to see so much manufacturer support for the race.  Of all the major car brands, only Schumacher had no official team presence but here’s hoping the British manufacturer gives us the opportunity to see Michal Orlowski take on the challenging RC Addict track conditions for the first time next year.  Such was the quality of the field, the B-Main was full of World Championship Finalist drivers and it was great to see six different manufacturers represented in the A-Main of Modified.  Call us old school, but putting the iconic Tamiya logo in our results graphic was a nostalgic moment.  In another positive for electric touring car we had three new cars at the race.  We had the latest prototype from Yokomo, the Japanese brand going for a name change as the BD name is dropped in favour of MS for Master Speed.  Nicolas Lee did try to get us permission for a chassis focus but we couldn’t get it across the line.  Kyosho had two prototypes of what is expected to be their TF8.  That news generated massive excitement, so much so Kyosho requested we take down the story we ran on their return to the category.  Finally Ryan Maker debuted his exciting new SP1 that will see him realise the dream of his RC Maker brand becoming a fully fledged car manufacturer.  While both RC Maker and Kyosho allowed us to look at their new creations, we were not granted permission to photograph them for a Chassis Focus which we fully understand given the cars’ designs are still to be fully finalised.  Over the event we did however photograph 12 cars from seven different manufacturers and we have compiled them all here in our latest Chassis Focus index.

 

Alexander Hagberg (2nd Overall) – Xray X4 ’24

Jilles Groskamp – Infinity IF4 II TE

Marc Rheinard (3rd Overall) – Awesomatix A800R

Ronald Volker (Top Qualifer) – Mugen Seiki MTC2R

Kato Kouki – Infinity IF14 TE

Akio Sobue – Axon TC10/3

Bruno Coelho (Champion) – Xray X4 ’24

Souta Goto – Tamiya TRF 421

Naoto Matsukura – Infinity IF14 TE

Lucas Urbain – Awesomatix A800R

Atsushi Hara – Xpress XQ11 “Hara Edition”

 

Open Brushless

Simon Lauter (Top Qualifier & Champion) – Awesomatix A800R

 

March 3, 2024

Chassis Focus – Simon Lauter (Awesomatix)

Chassis – Awesomatix A800R
ESC – Hobbywing G2S Pro XR10
Motor – Hobbywing G4 Bandit 13.5t
Battery – Nosram 6100mah
Tires (handout) – Sweep
Radio/Servo – Sanwa M17/  MKS HBL575 SL
Body – Xtreme Speciale

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