July 5, 2016

Track Focus – RC-Redován

tue_track

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’.

Image Gallery

EurosSPPost


May 28, 2016

Chassis Focus – Viljami Kutvonen

Sat-KutvonenA800-1

Chassis – Awesomatix A800
Motor – LRP X20 4.5T
ESC – LRP Flow
Batteries – LRP LCG 5600mAh
Tires – Sweep (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa/Highest
Bodyshell – Protoform LTC-R
Remarks – Runner up at the recent Italian round of the ETS, Viljami Kutvonen started here at the Tamiya Raceway with his car and setup from Riccione but has since made some small adjustments. Running less droop, he also changed to higher front roll centres to get more steering. In terms of car he is using new rear suspension arms with built-in rear toe as well as upper arm mounts that reduce caster flex. The Finn is also using revised thicker shock parts that remove bad flex into the car’s innovative shocks.

Image Gallery

ReedyTCFoot


February 22, 2016

Cavalieri denies Maifield in epic DNC final

sun_ryanCwinner

Ryan Cavalieri denied long standing arch rival Ryan Maifield from retaining his Dirt Nitro Challenge buggy title reversing the outcome of last year’s final to win an epic 45-minute encounter at the Fear Farm.  Starting 3rd on the grid, Cavalieri would take a late lead and see off a final corner lunge by Maifield to claim his first DNC title at the Fear Farm by 1.151-seconds, his last win coming in 2010 when the race was held at the Nitro Pit.  With both Cavalieri and Maifield hitting trouble in Saturday’s Truggy Main when they ran out of fuel, in Buggy it was the new Truggy Champion Ty Tessmann who was to have the bad luck as he was robbed of the race lead just after the halfway mark when a stone got caught up in a rear wheel.  The race’s most winning driver, Tessmann would drag his HB back to pits and while a repeat of his 2014 double was done the Canadian would still finish on the lead lap to complete the podium at the 17th running of the Joey Christensen event.

sun_cavalieripit

Trying to best judge the difficult track conditions Cavalieri ‘made a last minute tyre change’ going from soft to super soft AKA Impacts and while he made a ‘clean start’ he took a few laps to get a proper feel for his MX powered RC8B3.  Running one lap more than Maifield between stops he said this benefited him as he was able then to drive that lap by himself which he felt put him in a good position as they did their final stops.  With his car particularly good through the front section he said he over drove through there to get Maifield to do the same looking to force an error, and it would, as with 3-minutes to go Maifield got out of shape leaving him with not enough speed for the step-up allowing Cavalieri to go to the front.  Once in front Cavalieri said ‘once I got the lead I felt I was at my best pace’.  Admitting ‘its been a while’ since his last DNC win he added ‘its a good start in a Worlds year and now we got to try keep it going’.

sun_finmai

‘Nothing really to be upset about’ was Maifield’s reaction to an action packed race, the TLR driver adding it was ‘the gnarliest track I have ever raced on’.  Top Qualifier in all three classes at this year’s DNC, he said ‘I was the fastest guy but I just couldn’t stop crashing, it was the craziest track to drive’.  ‘I tried to cut out the crashes but I had to push to catch Ryan and crashed more.  At the end I sent it in to try an out jump Ryan but ended up hitting him and running wide.  Without his problem Ty would have won as he had the mileage we didn’t’.  Summing up his home nitro event he said ‘it was a good weekend, I TQ’d all three, took one win and should have won Truggy and so I showed my shit is fast’.

sun_tydisap

Tessmann said he was ‘not to disappointed as everything held up’ with the rock in his wheel something you cant account for.  Choosing Pro-Line’s X3 Holeshot tyre for the final, the World Champion said they where a good choice with his OS speed powered D815 both ‘fast and easy to drive’.  ‘Just trying not to make any mistakes’, the 23-year-old said when he got a lead over his rivals he ‘didn’t feel (he) was driving hard’.  With a rock jamming up his back wheel he said he ‘limped’ back to the pitlane where it took his dad a while to figure out the problem.  Rejoining in 4th, he said ‘at this level you can’t make up 14-seconds’, his deficit to the leader Maifield. Having been on target to run one less stop than his rivals this ‘got screwed up’ due to his unplanned stop during which they fuelled the car.

sun_finronne

Top foreign visitor at ‘The Dirt’ would be Tessmann’s HB team-mate David Ronnefalk, the Swede finishing 4th after getting by one time race leader Dakotah Phend on the last lap.  Describing the race as ‘pretty messy’, last year’s Truggy Champion said he ‘got a good start up to the Step-up’ getting collected and coming out of it in last place.  Overcoming getting ‘taken out a couple of times’, he said mid race he was only 15-seconds off the lead but then his car would stop on track.  Thinking he had suffered an engine flame it would turn out that his mini deans plug had cut the cars electric with It coming back to life and him able to continue on his way.  With only himself and Phend managing 39-second lap times in the race, the 19-year-old who started 7th said ‘I was one of the fastest out there but had a shit start and thats why a good qualifying is so important’.

DNC16BugFinal

View our complete image gallery here.

PostBDNC


February 22, 2016

Pit Focus – Joseph Quagraine

qua_PF9

Team: ARMA Energy JQ Racing
Neighbours: Jay Smoker (Left)
Charger: LRP Quadra Competition
Tools: MIP/AKA
Setup Tools: JQ Racing setup board, PSM camber gauge, GHEA ride height gauge
Car Stand: Upgrade Reedy Race
Transport Bag: AKA
Features: CRC brake cleaner, Dremel, ARMA Energy drink, bunch of parts, LRP fuel bottle, Ansell HiFlex gloves, Sidewinder fuel and ARMA Energy girl.

Image Gallery

PostBDNC