Chassis – Yokomo BD12
ESC – LRP FlowX
Motor – LRP X22 T5.5
Battery – GensAce 4200mAh 2.0
Tires (handout) – Sweep
Radio/Servo – FlySky Noble Pro / Power HD S15-Y
Body – Xtreme Twister Speciale
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After his struggles in seeding practice, Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker bounced back in qualifying to take the opening round at the Foshan Invitational RC Championship in China ahead of the Awesomatix of Vening Zhuo and Xray’s Marco Ma. Finding himself in the second fastest after his lap times dropped by 2-seconds from free practice, Volker had a busy opening qualifying run as he avoided the traffic with late contact with a lapped car costing him some time. Despite this the German was 3-seconds clear of Zhuo as his main rivals Yugo Nagashima and Simon Nicholson both had issues. The Top Seed for qualifying Nagashima lead away the top heat but a mistake by the Japanese driver in the chicane meant his Xpress needed marshalling and with 4.5 seconds lost he finish P4. Starting directly behind Nagashima, Nicholson looked to benefit from the mistake but inside the final 30-seconds the Yokomo drivers pinion came undone and his run was over.
‘I was right about my tyres not being wet enough’, was Volker’s reaction to his TQ run having reported after the seeding round that he believed his drop off in pace was due to a faulty additive bottle. He continued, ‘It was a bit difficult with the traffic. I lost half a second on the last lap with contact and overall it was difficult to stay focused for the run having to watch out for traffic. I don’t know if they will do a regroup or not but it would be better for all of us’. On his car, the former World Champion said he ‘wont change anything’ as he expects the handout Sweep tyre to get better each run adding ‘everyone is going to improve and get faster’.
Zhuo said his car started really good but after 2-minutes started to lose grip. Overall he said it was clean run, but the Chinese driver feels there is more time to come by improving the consistency of the car over 5-minutes and he will discuss with his mechanic what changes they can make to reduce the drop off in grip.
18-year-old Ma said he had ‘some mistakes’ in his opening effort adding his car felt a little unstable at times. Chinese National Vice Champion in Modified Touring Car and National Champion in 1:8 GT, the promising Chinese racer plans to make changes for Q2 to try improve the car while also trying to tidy up his driving. In terms of outright pace Ma’s fastest lap was just 1/100th of second of Volker.
Clearly frustrated with his crash after riding the dots too much and flipped his XQ11, something he was quick to point out was ‘my mistake’, Nagashima said the Q1 track conditions didn’t suit his car like in seeding practice and he struggled with a lack of grip. The 28-year-old said he we wasn’t sure if he would change the car for Q2 feeling he might just need to work on his driving having made changes to his ESC yesterday which he might need to adapt more too.
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Chassis – Xpress Execute XQ11
ESC – Zombie TZ-01
Motor – Zombie EVO II 5.5T
Battery – Fido 4200mah
Tires (handout) – Sweep
Radio/Servo – Sanwa M17 / Power HD S15
Body – Xtreme Twister Speciale
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Xpress factory team driver Yugo Nagashima is the top seed at the inaugural Foshan Invitational Championship in China, the Japanese driver topping the single seeding round ahead of Yokomo’s Simon Nicholson. The biggest international RC event to be held in China post Covid attracting 129 entries to the newly opened GDC Indoor track, drivers faced tough conditions this morning with Ronald Volker struggling significantly having set the pace in free practice yesterday. Low traction and brand new hand out Sweep tyres saw most drivers out their drifting skills to the test. Making it a good start to the event for Xpress, Hong Kong driver Eric Lam completed the Top 3 ahead of newly crowned Chinese National Champion Rocket Zhang as the driver now face into four rounds of qualifying, with two to count.
Having over half a second of an advantage on Nicholson over his fastest 3-consecutive laps, Nagashima was pleased with how his car working in the challenging conditions. Having run a prototype car from Xpress in yesterday’s practice, he reverted to the Hong Kong manufacturer’s standard production car this morning saying ‘it was really good and suited the conditions’. Describing himself as ‘a fan of carpet tracks’ he admitted to finding the right side of the GDC track layout no to his liking saying it is ‘difficult to get the throttle right in that section’. Asked about changes for Q1, he said ‘there is a big difference between new tyres and the following runs so I will make no changes for now’.
Fresh from his ZeroFive race win over Volker in Hong Kong last weekend, Nicholson described controlled practice as ‘OK’. He continued ‘on new tyres its hand but hopefully it gets better’. The Australian Champion said the track layout is ‘fun’ but like Nagashima said, ‘the right side chicane is difficult, its high speed and its a fine line through it’. Looking to qualifying he plans to leave his car set-up unchanged saying, ‘I’ll leave it and see what second run tyres feel like and then go from there with any changes I might need to make’.
Lam described his Top 3 performance as ‘lucky’ saying it was an above par result for his driving level. The 34-year-old said his car set-up was perfect for the conditions describing it as ‘stable’ with his fast laps ‘so so’ in terms of outright pace. Planning to keep his car the same for Q1 he said the plan is to ‘get it done and then see where everything is at over the 5-minutes’.
Summing up his P4 in seeding performance with ‘so far so good’, Zhang said he took a gamble for the seeding that paid off. Having tested a carbon chassis on his Awesomatix yesterday but found it left him with no grip, he arrived at the track this morning ready to race with an alu chassis. Watching the groups running ahead of him complete their seeding run he could see conditions were difficult so he decided to take the gamble and go back to a carbon chassis ‘just to find some grip, and it worked’. Planning to stick with the carbon chassis for Q1, he plans to make a small set-up change which he hopes with the tyres improving on the second run will give him a good car over the 5-minutes.
Looking like it was his first day driving an RC car or that he is contemplating a switch to RC drifting Volker was clearly shocked by how bad his car was for seeding. The Mugen Seiki driver said, ‘Yesterday I was running 12.4 second laps, today I can only do 14.4. I know the car is great so I hope thing automatically sort themselves out. The balance was terrible’. Asked what caused the huge drop off in performance, the German said, ‘I think I had a bad bottle (of additive) because when I looked at everyone else’s tyres they were much wetter than mine even though I was trying to apply more additive. We have just one set of tyres for the event I hope that was the reason for it being so bad’.
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Last weekend 1:12 concluded the 2023 IFMAR World Championship calendar in Cocoa, Florida. While the entry may have been small, at the front of the field things were ultra competitive as some of the biggest names in the sport battled it out to win the smallest scale and the original electric World Championship. A beautifully presented track, Beachline Raceway was the battle ground with the TQ going to Awesomatix’ Kemp Anderson ahead of Marc Rheinard and Michal Orlowski – each taking 2 TQ runs from the six rounds. In the finals we witnessed next level driving skills as painted was swapped in battle before Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski finally became a World Champion. In 1:12 Spec, Awesomatx’ Max Machler did the double taking the TQ and the manufacturer’s first ever World title. With the Schumacher team running a different front end on their car specifically to suit the black carpet in use, we didn’t get to take our traditional ‘World Champion Chassis Focus’. Over the event however we did however photograph 10 cars from four of the six different manufacturers represented at the 21st running of the championship and we have compiled them all here in our latest Chassis Focus index.
Kemp Anderson (Top Qualifier) – Awesomatix
Marc Rheinard (2nd overall) – Awesomatix
Alexander Hagberg (3rd overall) – Xray
Donny Lia – Awesomatix
Hayato Ishioka – Roche
Sam Isaacs – Awesomatix
Kazuki Yamashita – Roche
Keven Hebert – Xray
1:12 Spec Cars
Max Machler (TQ & Champion) – Awesomatix
Frank Calandra – CRC
He has been a heavy weight in electric onroad and offroad for the last decade but today was the day he finally took the sport’s biggest prize, Michal Orlowski is the 2023 IFMAR 1:12 World Champion. Having secured the overall TQ at the previous edition of the sports oldest World Championship category but missing out on the win to Marc Rheinard, today the Schumacher switched the 2020 order taking victory at Beachline Raceway ahead of Rheinard and 2018 World Champion Alexander Hagberg. With Top Qualifier Kemp Anderson winning A1, ahead of Rheinard and Orlowski, a win in A2 by the Polish ace set the stage for an A3 title showdown. With a highly anticipating crowd looking on having experienced some mental defying display of racing skills in the first two A-Mains, A3 was to start with a bang literally. On the tone Anderson’s car didn’t leave the line and starting directly behind Rheinard a huge impact in the rear of the stricken car. The race effectively decided on the spot as No.2 starter Orlowski was able to break clear followed by Hagberg who did have the pace to mount a challenge for the lead. While Rheinard tried to continue his car was badly tweaked and he eventually pulled up. Unfortunately for Anderson, despite showing his massive talents in qualifying and A1, the A3 DNF together with his A2 DNF meant he goes into the IFMAR history books as the 6th place finisher.
Reacting to finally achieving the greatest prize on offer in the sport, Orlowski said, ‘I don’t know what to say. I am lost for words. All my life I came back from Worlds and said to my dad ‘It never clicks and comes together for me’. I have been on World podiums 3 times, I have always been close, like the last time in 1:12, but there are always problems. I though it was going to continue today when I was passing Kemp in A1 and my car shoot off into the boards but I kept my head down’. On A3, the 22-year-old said, ‘I was feeling good before the run. We made a small change after A2 and in the warm-up it felt perfect. Then at the start my Christmas came early. It was tough luck for Marc and Kemp on their side but I have had the same luck before. I was so relieved to get to the finish, winning a World title is a huge weight off my shoulders’. After making a call home to his father, who was an instrumental figure in nurturing Michal into a world class racer, Michal wanted to thank Schumacher designer Andy Murray and his team-mate Ollie Payne for their input into the event. ‘I had other commitments in other classes so they came to US 2-weeks early when I couldn’t. Ollie built me a completely new car and prepared 8 bodies of which I destroyed all but one’. With this event marking his 34th racing weekend of the year, he said it’s a nice way to wrap up the season and he’s looking forward to a break for Christmas and the New Year.
‘I didn’t even see him, I just drove straight’, was how Rheinard described the start line chaos. The outgoing Champion continued, ‘the car was completely tweaked but I feel more sorry for Kemp. He was right there all week and he doesn’t even get a podium’. Having watched Orlowski come up the ranks from seeing him for the first time racing a plastics chassis Tamiya in the early days of the ETS when he himself was leading the all conquering Tamiya TRF team, Rheinard said, ‘I’d still have preferred to beat him or at least have made him work for it in A3 but he’s a deserving World Champion. I look forward to beating him next time’.
Pleased to turn around the event and get on the podium Hagberg said, ‘we didn’t quite have the speed to challenge for the win today but I did the best I could with what I had’. Having struggled at the beginning of the week, finding himself seeded in the fastest heat for Day 1 of qualifying before getting promoted to the top heat for Day 2, the Xray driver added, ‘with the humidity today we couldn’t get the speed I had yesterday. Half way through qualifying I thought we had a chance but with the changing conditions it was hard to cope. Like I said before, in 1:12 things can change very quickly so I’m happy I could finish on the podium’.
‘I pulled the trigger and nothing happened. I’m not sure what happened’, was Anderson’s response when asked about the start. The 21-year-old continued, ‘After the race in tech it was still powered on and the ESC was on’. Making his mark on the class with his performance throughout the week, he said, ‘I know I had bad luck and there was bad driving from me in A2 but overall I am still proud of myself. There is always the next time’.
While Modified decided its 21st World title, for 1:12 Spec it was only the second time the title was awarded with the ultra popular character ‘Mad Max’ Machler the new World Champion. The Awesomatix driver went into A3 up against team-mate Mark Stiles and with each having a win it was a winner takes all encounter. Starting from the TQ, both drivers each having topped 3 of the 6 rounds of qualifying, Machler led away gapping Stiles only for the British driver to make a big push and close on the German. Machler responded however and pulled clear once again to take the win by over 2-seconds and with it the World title. The two European’s were joined on the podium by US Xray driver Robbie Dodge.
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