August 5, 2014

Chassis Focus – Darren Bloomfield

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Chassis – Agama A8 Evo FR Cup
Engine – Bullitt 219
Tyres – Beat Freeride Super Soft
Fuel – Piranha
Radio/Servos – Sanwa/Hitec
Body – JC Paint Arrow
Remarks – Having only just won the most recent round of the British Nationals, 2012 European Champion Darren Bloomfield comes into the Euros in good form with his updated Agama. While not the full new car, it does sport new parts on the car including lower shock towers and shorter shocks, new rear hub with options for 4 different lower mounting points and new anti-roll bar mounting points on the wishbones. The final car will sport a wider chassis plate and molded radio tray and when it goes on sale around September it will also include the aluminium steering rack as standard. Darren is running a new bodyshell from his painter JC Paint, called the Arrow, one of  three Agama drivers running the shell here in Germany.

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August 5, 2014

Chassis Focus – David Ronnefalk

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Chassis – Kyosho Inferno MP9 TKI3
Engine – Team Orion RS
Tyres – AKA Catapult Soft
Fuel – Runner Time
Radio/Servos – KO Propo
Body – Kyosho Cab forward
Remarks – Reigning European Champion David Ronnefalk of Sweden is running a basic TKI3 here in Germany with the same setup he used to win the warm up race back in May. Choosing not to run the newly released harder front wishbones, preferring to run with what he is familiar with, compared to his standard setup back in Sweden the car uses the next step harder front grey spring on the car as well as laying down the rear shock towers one step. A point of interest on the car is the KO RSX2 servos with their metal case which are strong enough to enable David to run the car with basically no servo saver, the nut tightened down fully on the servo saver spring, with the plastic lever giving some give over the optional metal version.

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August 5, 2014

Track Focus – Steigerwald Ring (Sand am Main)

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Track Name –Steigerwald Ring (Sand am Main)
Club – Motor Sport Club Sand
Country – Germany
Location –  Sand am Main (190km East of Frankfurt)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Surface – Dirt with block & concrete sections plus astro covered jumps

Better known in r/c circles as Sand am Main, Steigerwald Ring this week hosts its second 1:8 Offroad European Championships in just three years, reigning World Champion Robert Batlle having taken the win in 2011.  Featuring a very unique ‘portrait’ layout, the main straight running perpendicular to the drivers stand, the track is also different in that it is built into the face of a hill.  The reason for this is that the track is in fact built on the start/finish line of an old motocross track, the Motor Sport Club having started out as an offroad motorsport club in 1951 before making the transition to radio controlled offroad racing and building the current rc track in 1998.  Thanks to its former motorsport background the club boasts a membership of 150 of which around 60 are active rc racers.  Apart from hosting this year’s Euros, and the warm-up race back in May which was won by reigning Champion David Ronnefalk, the club also annually holds two German National Championship races.

In terms of the track, the surface is mainly dirt with three cobble blocked corners sections,  two concrete areas and astro turf covered jumps.  Compared with the 2011 layout the track has undergone three main changes the biggest of which is the removal of the table top which has been replaced by a double, double, single jump section.  Asked about the track changes Batlle said overall it feels similar to drive as before.  Describing the track as ‘quite small’, a quick lap set to be in the high 20 seconds, he said the biggest difficulty is in fact the weather.  A wet day in Sand Am Main yesterday, it was a damp start to the 34th running of the championship this morning with the Spaniard saying it is going to be hard to predict how traction will be for each of today’s four practice runs.

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July 11, 2014

Track Focus – Outback Raceway

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Track Name – Outback Raceway
Owner – A-Main Hobbies
Country – USA
Location – Chico, California
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt

The 3rd & ‘Summer’ stop on the JConcepts Indoor National Series has travelled to Chico to the Outback Raceway, one of two tracks owned by online r/c retail giant A-Main Hobbies. Situated just 1-mile as the crow flies away from the Silver Dollar Raceway which last September hosted the 1:10 Offroad World Championships, Outback Raceway is situated in A-Main’s distribution centre from where it ships r/c products and soon bicycles to customers all around the world. Originally built as an onroad carpet track in 2008, in 2009 it was converted to offroad.

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The fifth year of the track hosting the JConcepts Summer Indoor Nationals, the event is the biggest race hosted at either tracks with this year attracting a new record of over 300 entries. Built using rice field clay, specially selected for its water retaining qualities and high bite, the track covers an area of 92 X 50 feet with a good 2WD Mod Buggy lap time being a high 15 seconds. Undergoing a full rebuild every 1/4, the track also gets a section modification once a month which Director of Race Events Kevin Jelich, who is responsible for all track works, says helps keep things interesting for racers. Commenting on the latest layout Ryan Maifield, who makes his race debut with TLR this weekend, described the track as ‘pretty cool’. He said the track is ‘really flowing with a lot of technical stuff at the same time’ adding that the ‘surface is better than last year’ too having been very rough previously. Set-up with pit spacing for 85 drivers, the arrival of the JConcepts race has seen Kevin have to extend things into the ‘overflow pits’ which has drivers in part of the warehouse among the vast stock which has been sensibly fenced off!

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Facility Co-ordinator Ruben Benitez, who looks after the day to day running of racing at the track, said while Summer is slow for racing, in the winter months the track attracts around 80 racers for its Friday night club races, a number that he is happy to report is continually increasing each year. Operating a monthly pass system for racers looking to use the track, it is open weekly Tuesday through Sunday. In addition to the JConcepts race, the two other key events on the calendar for Outback Raceway are the ‘Fall Brawl’ and ‘Outback Shoot Out’.

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