December 13, 2013

Track Focus – HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex

Fri-Track-4

Track Name – HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex
Country – USA
Location – Omaha, Nebraska
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt
Previous key events hosted – 2009 ROAR 1/10 Offroad Nationals, 2011 ROAR 1/8 Electric Offroad Nationals

The JConcepts Indoor National Series is in Omaha, Nebraska this weekend with the impressive HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex facility hosting the Finals of the popular five event tour of America.  Situated about 45-minutes from Lincoln where the HobbyTown franchise all began, the Hobby Plex facility will soon celebrate 10 years of business having opened its doors here in 2004.  Housing an impressive hobby store, an indoor carpet track and a now indoor offroad track it occupies a total space of 32,000 sq feet.

Originally the offroad track was outdoor but when rain affected proceedings while hosting the 2009 ROAR 1:10 Offroad National Championships, owner Ken Kailen decided he didn’t want this to happen again and so decided to enclose the offroad track.  After 2-years of going through planning it was completed just in time for its second ROAR Offroad Nationals when it hosted the 1:8 Electric classes in 2011.  Luckily for drivers this weekend he made that decision as outside there is a covering of snow on the ground.  The Onroad carpet track, which is in the same area in which all drivers pit, hosted the 2008 ROAR Carpet Nationals and will again host the event in February so they are no strangers to hosting key events.

As a race venue Hobby Plex caters for around 200 racers each week on its offroad track with dedicated nights of racing for Dirt Oval and Short Course with Saturdays set aside for the regular 1:10 classes.  Such is the size of the track they also  run 1:8 Nitro with the latest round of their Winter Championship attracting over 90 drivers.

Store Manager Alex Sturgeon, who is also responsible for the maintenance of the offroad track and who it is great to see is racing himself this weekend, has built and presented a very nice track for the JConcepts Indoor National Series finals.   The layout of the large track, which is producing circa 22-sec lap times in 2WD Buggy, looks relatively easy but with a lot of elevation up towards the rather tall drivers stand it is proving a little more challenging.  A nice touch is the blue painted infield which really helps define the track layout.

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October 11, 2013

1/8 Finals Update

Silvio Hachler

Young Swiss driver Silvio Hachler is just one race away from making it through to the main day at the 1:8 Onroad World Championship in Japan after he won the first of the 1/8 finals at the KeiTune Racing Speedway. Starting from third on the grid the Mugen driver took the win over Flavio Elias, the Brazilian driver bumping up for a second time having started the day in the morning’s opening 1/16 final. Italian driver Nicola Marrone, the owner of Hot Race tyres starting 3rd finished third and his Serpent progresses to the days final round of races, the 1/4 finals. The 20 minute encounter saw the end of the round for former Electric Touring Car World Champion Andy Moore. The 1:8 debutant was set to start on pole position but flamed out and had to start from the pitlane. Making his way up the order, the HB driver’s event ultimately ended when he ran out of fuel on lap 33. The 1/8 B Final also saw Team Shepherd boss Patrick Schafer go out of the event.

Satoshii Ishii

In the 1/8 B Final, Japanese Mugen driver Satoshii Ishii took the win from Hideki Iriguchi, who was incorrectly credited with setting the fastest time of Q3 due to a bug in the timing software. It was an all Japanese affair in terms of bump ups as pole starter Takahito Komuro finished third. Unfortunately for France’s Stephane Bouche he just missed the cut finishing fourth while it was also the end of the road top Dutch racer John Ermen. Pushing wide on the opening lap he clipped the curbing resulting in a rear shock being knocked off his Xray. While his mechanic was able to fixed the car, the lost time meant he was out of contention to bump up.

View the event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

October 11, 2013

‘Race Control’ – Day 6

Wet track

Its a wet start to the penultimate day of the 1:8 Onroad World Championships in Japan following overnight rain in the Chiba area.  The orginal timetable for Day 6 (Friday) included just under three hours of racing with race officials anticipating rain which unfortunately has arrived earlier than expected.  With a wet track, which is currently being dried with towels, the planned 09:00 start time has been delayed while the JMRCA team work on getting the track ready for the 1/16 finals. Once underway the action will hopefully continue through to & including the 1/4 finals, however there is a chance of further rain for the earlier part of the day.

View our event image gallery here.

October 9, 2013

Chassis Focus – Jilles Groskamp

Wed-GroskampVelox-2

Car: Shepherd Velox V8
Engine: Maxima
Fuel: Maxima
Tires: Hot Race Tyres
Bodyshell: Protoform R18
Radio/Servos: Sanwa

Current European Champion Jilles Groskamp is running a pretty standard Velox V8 from Shepherd, the same car he used to win his title in Halifax with. In terms of changes from the kit car he has added 145 grams of brass to the chassis plate around the fuel tank to get it as low down as possible, while on the rear he has chosen for Mugen rear bodymount height adjusters as they allow him to set the body higher than the standard part. His car is set very soft in terms of the anti-roll bars, and shock springs, the TC World Champion using the company’s touring car green spring all round, while using harder shock oil to help deal with the bumps.

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September 29, 2013

Hartson is World Champion following thrilling A3

Hartson

Steven Hartson is the 2013 4WD Electric Buggy World Champion, the American claiming the 15th IFMAR title in a thrilling 5-minutes of racing at the Silver Dollar R/C Raceway in Chico, California.  Having been a surprise winner of the opening A-Main from fifth on the grid, the factory Team Associated driver was one of five drivers in with a shot of the title going into the deciding third A-Main but came out on top to win ahead of Naoto Matsukura and Ty Tessman, the same order as how they would line up on the final podium.  Once again Top Qualifier Joern Neumann would drop out of an early lead, a problem with the front shock leaving the German with a very difficult buggy, and the 2011 Runner-up would only end up 7th for the leg to finish 4th overall ahead of outgoing champion Ryan Cavalieri.

Hartsons

A driver who much prefers to do his talking on the track, Hartson’s reaction to becoming World Champion was what one would expect had he just won a club race but the 21-year said making his first World A-Main and winning it felt ‘really good’.  Having won A1 and then finishing 5th in A2, he said he knew he had to win or beat Matsukura to win the title and that’s exactly what he did.   Fourth at the end of lap one, he soon found himself shadowing the leader Cavalieri and Tessmann.  Knowing he had a faster car he said he played a waiting game and that paid off first as Cavalieri had a bobble just as they came up to complete lap 7 and then two laps later when Tessman landed badly off the quad at the end of the straight.  Getting down the inside of the HB driver, Hartson looked to have the race under control but two laps later traction rolled allowing Tessman back to the front and into a title winning position.

Tessmann

Unfortunately for the Canadian on the next lap, just as it was announced 10-seconds remained, he too would traction roll right in front of the rostrum.  While he pulled off an impressive save, Hartson was through as was the fast charging Matsukura both of them just crossing the line ahead of the 5-minutes, Tessmann and Cavalieri missing the cut, to set up a last lap shoot out for the World title.   Running behind Hartson and with the sport’s biggest prize on the line Matsukura went for it trying to jump over the Associated but the buggies collided in the air both landing on their roofs.  Hartson got going first but it was for a parade run to the finish and Associated’s 27th World title as the Yokomo was broken.  Such was the intensity of the race afterwards when asked about the traction roll that almost cost him the title Hartson said he had no recollection of it.  Having missed out on the 1:8 Buggy World Championship, finishing runner-up in Argentina, while holding the reign of US Champion and to come so close to the title today as reigning electric Champion, Tessmann was understandably emotional after the race.

Joern

Having come very close to his first World title in Finland and looking on target for reparation of that motor failure, Neumann again had to deal with mechanical failure.  The former European Champion, said in the warm-up his DEX410 ‘felt perfect’ but in the opening lap his front right side spring managed to push over the spring retainer.  Causing the front of the buggy to drop a number of millimeters resulting in the nose diving bobble that cost him the race lead on lap 2.  Commenting on the earlier Legs, he said the wind caused him ‘big problems’.

View our event image gallery here.