July 5, 2016

Track Focus – RC-Redován

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Track Name –RC-Redován
Host Club – Club Radio Control Redován
Country – Spain
Location – Redovan (60km Southwest of Alicante)
Direction – Anti-clockwise
Surface – Dirt/bricks
Previous events hosted – 2014 Spanish National Championship Round

Set against a mountain that looks like it is straight out of the set of a Spaghetti Western, the first thing to hit you upon arriving at the RC-Redován track is the size.  While most tracks quote the length of a lap in metres, the host track of the 36th running of the 1:8 Offfroad European Championships gets to use the metric of the kilometre.  Over 1/2 a kilometre long, 560 metres to be exact, the track is the work of the Baldo family, the brothers Bryan & Oscar two of Spain’s leading offroad racers, and was created in 2014.  With their father Antonio having a long history of running tracks in the area, this impressive facility came about 3-years ago when they had to vacate their previous location when the local authorities require the land for development.  Looking for a new home for the dozen members small club, which Bryan prefers to refer to as ‘family & friends with passion for RC’,  the local government would step in with the offer of the current site on the outskirts of Redován which with a population of seven thousand people is located at the feet of the Sierra de Callosa mountain range.  With the Baldo Family business in Construction, on the new site they built what all racers agree is an impressive facility.  Apart from the track which is built into the natural elevation of the high side site, the other impressive feature of the track is the towering driver stand which is certain to cause discomfort for any driver with vertigo.  Apart from the Euros warm-up race, the other major event to have been run at the RC-Redován was a round of the Spanish National championship the year the track opened.  On a regular basis the track only has 10 to 12 racers with Bryan highlighting that within a 50km radius racers have a choice of 10 tracks.

‘Its still massive’ was the reply of reigning European Champion Elliott Boots when asked about the track, the Kyosho star having attended the Warm-up race in May.  The British driver singled out the height of the rostrum as the big feature of the track saying ‘it gives a strange dept of perception’ adding ‘it took time to get used to it at the warm-up’ and he expects it to ‘take a few runs to get back into it again (this week)’.   With the track ‘good to look at’, he continued ‘its the biggest track I’ve raced on’.  Featuring a large brick section plus a second smaller brick surface area, with a fast lap time being around 53-seconds, when ask what was key to being quick Boots replied, ‘no mistakes’.  Elaborating on this he said due to the size of the track the marshals are very spread out plus its ‘difficult to see a car with all the elevation changes’.  With the 1/2 km lap on runtime, the Reds Racing backed driver said at the warm-up they had very good mileage something he said is helped by there being ‘a lot of airtime and downhill sections which mean you are not on full throttle’.

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May 30, 2016

‘Trophy 98% mine’, Volker set for 3rd Reedy Race title

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Ronald Volker is on target to claim a third Reedy Race of Champions title, the Yokomo driver declaring after finishing 2nd in the penultimate round of racing behind his only challenger Christopher Krapp that ‘the trophy is 98% mine’.  Having calculated that 2nd in Round 11 of 12 would be enough to take back the title he lost to Marc Rheinard last year, a win by Krapp means technically there is a chance his fellow countryman could win overall on tie break.  While the odds are heavily stacked against Krapp winning the iconic race on only his second attempt, if the Tamiya driver was to win and better Volker’s fastest winning time then he has a chance.  Declaring his win is ‘just technically not certain’, Volker did concede he does have ‘one hand on the trophy’.   In the other two races of the round Marc Rheinard won a somewhat fraught race in which he and Associated Juho Levanen clashed.  Expressing his frustration over the incident afterwards with the race referee, the win was an important one for the defending champion as it all but secures him a podium finish as team-mate Akio Sobue dropped back to fourth with a P3 finish in his race.  That same race would be won by Finland’s Viljami Kutvonen, the factory Awesomatix driver adding a second win to his tally as the rookie finished 1-second ahead of Ryan Cavalieri, who continues to be the top American at the Californian based event.

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‘To get second in that last one released a lot of pressure off me’, was Volker’s reaction to the penultimate race of the 19th running of the world famous event that was originally created by Mike Reedy as a way to celebrate his birthday.  Describing the grid draw for his final race as ‘super tough’, he said his Round 11 result means all the pressure is on Krapp.  With his best time being a 25 laps in 5:03.595 compared to Krapp’s fastest win of 25 laps in 5:10.377, he added,  ‘I don’t think track conditions will allow for a quicker time’. Running through his latest race which he started 6th, he said, ‘I was very careful at the start not to get in any trouble and took my time working through the field’.  Running third behind pole starter Randy Caster, he said ‘with a couple of laps Randy made a mistake which gave me the position I needed’.

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‘This one was again a perfect race’ said Krapp.  Starting third he would also run behind Caster for a few laps before a mistake from the Associated driver let him through.  Having crashed his Tamiya in the previous round when he hit the wall at the end of the straight after claiming the closest win of the event from Rheinard, Krapp said his TRF419X was tweaked from the incident and he had to trim it alot in the warm-up. With his TRF mechanic Kiyo Suzuki having checked over the car, he suspects it is the servo mount which has moved slightly and the car should be fine for the concluding race. Asked about the battle for second overall with Rheinard he said it seems pretty sure I will make the podium so I will just do my own race and see what happens’.  Rheinard has the disadvantage of  running in the toughest race as he faces Volker, Naoto Matsukura, Meen ‘Hercules’ Vejrak, Cavalieri and Viljami.

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