January 10, 2014

Volker sets early pace at DHI Cup

fri_ronald2

Ronald Volker has set the early pace on the opening day of the DHI Cup in Denmark, the Team Yokomo driver topping the first timed practice from last year’s event winner Adrian Berntsen.  A four time winner of the event, Volker posted a time of 37.377 for his 3-fastest consecutive laps compared to Berntsen’s 37.423 with Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard third over 3/10ths of a second further a drift.

fri_volker2

Running his BD7 2014 for the first time in Europe, having debuted the car late last year at the Yatabe Arena in Japan, Volker summed up his practice runs by saying it was ‘going good so far’.  ‘Still working on some details of the set-up’, the Euro Touring Series Champion said that despite three rounds of practice now completed, the day kicking off with two 5-minute free practice runs, the traction levels are still low but he expects them to increase as the day goes on.

fri_adrian

The defending Champion having ended Volker’s hunt for a fourth straight win of the DHI Cup last year, Bernsten said his Xray is fast over a single lap but struggling over 5-minutes.  Describing his car as ‘too aggressive’, he will motor down for the second timed practice going from a 4.5 to a 5.0 ORCA motor.  Hoping the traction will improve for the run the Norwegian plans to leave the chassis set-up as is.  His first international win, asked if this years race brought any extra pressure he said he was just treating it like any other race.  Having recently just started college, where he will study Business Management, he said this has curtailed his racing activities.  Having not raced since the opening round of the 2013/14 ETS back in November, he said if he can come away with a Top 5 finish on Sunday evening he will be happy.

fri_reinhardbody

Rheinard described his performance as ‘Average’.  A 2-time winner of the DHI Cup, he said his TRF418 is not consistent.  Having run two cars during the free practice runs he chose his ETS car for the first timed run but he said the lack of traction made it hard to differentiate what the key differences were.  Sharing similar thoughts to Volker that the track layout is a little too open, he said for the next & final practice he does not know whether to go with running the other car or to make changes to the set-up of his ETS car which could be a risk should the traction suddenly come up.

fri_kutvonen

Setting the fourth fastest time was Viljami Kutvonen.  The factory Awesomatix driver described his A700 EVO as ‘OK’ adding that with a little more steering he was confident of a good run.  Having struggled last year with some of the bumpy areas on the track he said with the new car he is no longer affected by these.  Planning to adjust his front set-up of the Russian designed car’s unique dampers, he said this should give him the extra steering he needs to put him in the mix.

fri_alex

Alexander Hagberg took his Xray to the 5th fastest time, the Swede describing his run as ‘not too bad’.  Having switched over to a set-up used by Martin Hudy when the Xray designer was faster than him at the Charity Race in Italy, Hagberg said he has changed very little on his car since the opening practice preferring instead to wait for the traction to come.  Hoping the track comes to him he said he was feeling confident about the weekend ahead.

fri_patrick

Completing the Top 6 was Danish National Champion Patrick Hornum.  The Serpent driver, who started the event with a brand new S411, described the car as ‘hard to drive.  Planning to stiffen up his set-up for the final practice he hopes this will give him a better feeling with the car.

fri_fischer

Team-mate & lead Serpent factory driver Marc Fischer was just 2/100ths off the Dane.  The German said his Viper powered S411 is a little loose in the rear.  Planning to go from 2.5 to 3mm toe he will also change front spring which he said while not different in hardness should make it easier to drive.  Also racing in the offroad part of the event, running Serpent’s 2WD Spyder, asked about how that was going he said he had no idea what he was doing.  Having raced 4WD Buggies over 10-years ago, he said 2WD is totally different and so after each of his runs he goes to Joern Neumann to find out what he needs to be doing to the car which he emphasised he is ‘just racing for fun’ this weekend.

Former top international Danish racer Steen Graversen completed the Top 8 with his self modified belt driven Awesomatix followed by Martin Hudy and fast Swede Magnus Vässmar.

View our event image gallery here.

January 10, 2014

Track Focus – DHI Stadium Arena Fyn

fri_tracks1

Host Club – Odense R/C Minirace
Country – Denmark
Location – Odense
Venue – Stadium Arena Fyn
Track type – Temporary
Surface – Carpet (Onroad), Carpet & Wood (Offroad)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise (Onroad), Clockwise (Offroad)
Previous races hosted – 14

An event that has become the traditional international season opener for electric touring car, this year is the 14th running of the famous Danish event.  Created by Kim Moldt Bendiksen who named the event after his r/c business Dansk Hobby Import (DHI), the first event took place in 2001 when it was won by now AME/ORCA frontman Andreas Myrberg.  Starting out more as a club race in a small hall, the event quickly established itself with international teams and drivers with an impressive list of past winners that includes three World Champions – Atsushi Hara, Jilles Groskamp and Marc Rheinard.  Moving to its current location in 2008, the impressive Stadium Arena Fyn, the event has since doubled up with 1:10 Electric Offroad being added in 2012.  The running of the two different categories has resulted in the creation of a rather unique temporary track by the Odense R/C Minicar Club, drivers sharing the driver’s stand standing back to back as they run on their respective onroad or offroad tracks.

A club of around 55 members, they are normally found racing outdoors in the Summer just 5-minutes from the Arena while for their Winter club racing the have a hall they use for both onroad and offroad 20-minutes away.  Acquiring such an impressive and large venue, that would under normal circumstances be prohibitively costly to rent for an r/c event the club in fact gets free use of the venue.  With the city of Odense, the third largest in Denmark, providing funding for the building of the Arena part of the deal is that a select number of days are made available for local organisations such as the r/c club to hold events.

While initially the event was run by Kim, as the event grew each year so did the input of the Odense club who would eventually take over the full organisation of the event.  With the DHI title having become so established with drivers & teams the club have maintained the name. Headed by Ulrich Rasmussen, it takes a crew of around 25 volunteers to build the double track set-up.  The addition of offroad to the event came about after a slow down in touring car entries and 2014 is looking like a come back event with both events attracting a good international entry.

In terms of the track layouts defending offroad champion Joern Neumann described the layout of the medium sized track as nice but after early practice the Durango driver said the traction is loose particularly on the black coloured carpet sections compared with the traditional grey indoor racing carpet jumps.  The driver with the most DHI wins in Touring Car, having won the title first in 2007 and then three years in a row from 2010, Ronald Volker described the track as ‘fast and flowing’.  The Yokomo ace said the layout is ‘maybe a little too wide open’ but that should make for close racing.  In terms of traction he said based on previous experience of the event he expects it to be ‘high’.

A DHI Cup fact – 5 drivers have contested all 14 DHI Cups.  Two of those are two of Denmarks top former international drivers Steen Graversenn and former European Touring Car Champion Jonas Kaerup.  The other three drivers never to have missed a year of racing are Soren Jeppesen, Soren Boy Holst and Jens Otte Frederiksen.

Image Gallery

View our event image gallery here.

January 10, 2014

‘From Race Control’ – Day 1 at DHI Cup

fri_opening

Red RC kicks off its 2014 event coverage this weekend at the DHI Cup in Odense, Denmark.  Now in its 14th year, today’s opening day of action will see two rounds of free practice, followed by two timed practices which will determine the seeding of the heats for the qualifying.  A dual discipline event with offroad having been added to the long running international touring car event in recent years, Day 1 of the event will end with a single round of qualifying for the touring car drivers and two round of qualifying for the 2WD offroad competitors.

October 12, 2013

Perfect race nets Sahashi World title

Winner

A perfect 60-minute display of driving netted Tadahiko Sahashi the 1:8 Onroad World title this evening in Japan.  Making his World Championship final debut, the Serpent driver cruised to victory to becomes the 11th driver to lift the biggest prize in the sport’s oldest category taking a comfortable win over the Mugen/OS pairing of Takaaki Shimo and Atsushi Hara.  The 19th running of the World Championship, Sahashi’s win marks Italian manufacturer Picco’s first World title in the sport’s Formula One category and the first title for Serpent since 1997.  In the pitlane it was Picco’s Eduardo Picco and Serpent designer Michael Salven who ensured perfect fuel & tyre stops en route to the 24-year-old taking a hugely popular win.

Tadahiko Crew

Commenting on the race Sahashi, the younger of the famous racing brothers, said he was ‘super happy’ to win especially in front of a home crowd.  Making two tyre stops, the first for just new ZAC tyres on the left side and the second for a full fresh set, he said everything went perfectly.  Complimenting the handling of his 977,  and the performance & run time of his engine, he was particularly thankful to his pit crew for their faultless stops. Running 5-minute fuel stops, he said once he got the gap over Shimo to above 10-seconds he started to control his pace.  Unable to hold back his emotions braking into tears as he drove his final lap, all his rivals paid tribute to his flawless drive.

Podium

Shimo was frustrated by not being able to take the challenge to his fellow countryman.  The pre-event favourite, said a wrong choice of set-up for the final left the rear end of his MRX-5 loose preventing him from staying in contact with Sahashi.  Happy with every other aspect of the final, doing two stops to change all four tyres each time, he said ultimately Sahashi did the perfect job including getting his set-up right for the track conditions and is the deserving winner.

Hara

Not called a legend of the sport for no reason, Hara’s third place finish continues a run of World Championship podiums.  Starting from fifth on the grid having qualified in the 1/4 finals, the former Electric Touring Car and 1:8 Offroad World Champion made it four consecutive World Championship podium finishes having finished 2nd in both the nitro and electric touring car Worlds and 3rd in the 1:8 Offoad last year.  Declaring himself ‘maximum happy’, he said while everything in the final came together including his partnership with former champion Kenji Osaka, he said he lacked pre-event track time to be a title contender.  Adapting his driving style more to how most 1:8 drivers race he said this helped a lot, highlighted by him recording the fastest lap of the race.  Making three tyre stops in the race, the first and third only being to change the left side, he said the strategy from Osaka was a good one.

Yokoyama

Finishing fourth, having started from seventh on the grid, Mugen driver Shinnosuke Yokoyama was disappointed to lose out on a podium finish by just 2-seconds.  The 21-year-old, who was a 200mm Worlds finalist in 2010 where he also just missed out on the Top 3,  said his MRX-5 was really good in the race but engine flame outs during both his tyre stops cost him the place.

Carmine

Taking the honour of being the best non-Japanese driver, Xray/Max driver Carmine Raiola ended the race in fifth having started 4th.  Making his first World’s final, the Italian National Champion said he was happy with result adding that having to make three more fuel stops than his rivals finishing any higher was always going to be a tall order.  Doing two tyres stops, changing all four tyres on each occasion, the 22-year-old said he was pleased with his race pace which saw him set the second fastest lap time to Hara.

Finalists

Making his Worlds debut and putting himself in the final having bumped up from the 1/8 finals, Swiss driver Silvio Hachler was happy to finish in the Top 6 saying he gave his best.  The 21-year-old described the pace of the final ‘as incredible’ saying but for one mistake he felt he drove the perfect race but still it left him in 6th position such was the pace of the leaders.  Making three tyre stops, the first and last only for replacing the outside tyres, he said he was happy with that strategy.

Teemu

Flaming out on the start line leaving him a lap down, HB’s Teemu Leino would finish recover to finish 7th on his and the R8 Worlds debut.  Describing 1:8 Onroad as the Formula 1 of r/c racing, he said he was happy to make the Main, with 1:8 Offroad now the only class he has failed to reach the final at a World Championship.  Following his flameout, he said he knew he needed to try something if he was to salvage anything from the race.  Starting the race with Protoform’s R18 which on new tyres worked well but then starting pushing as the tyres worn down, he changed to an R15.  Giving him more steering he said he declared himself happy with his overall performance in Japan.

Groskamp

Unfortunately having put in a stunning recovery drive in the semi final to make the Main, we never got to see European Champion Jilles Groskamp take the fight to the Japanese.  The Team Shepherd/Maxima driver was the only one to serious threaten the chance of a Japanese winner over the week, but a flame-out just 2 and half minutes into the race was the start of a troubled race for the Dutch ace.  Working his way back up to as high as third, in the second half of the race after changing all four tyres on his Velox V8 the engine suffered the first of a series of flameouts.  Pushing hard to try and make up time with around 5-minutes to go he hit a curb and with the car not feeling right he decided to pull in so as not risk interfering with the other drivers who where battling over podium placings.  Watching the final few minutes of the race from the rostrum he said looking at Sahashi driving he said even had everything ran faultlessly it would have been hard to beat the Japanese driver.

View the event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

October 12, 2013

Tadahiko Sahashi is 2013 World Champion

Sahashi

Final Result
1.(1) Tadahiko Sahashi (JPN) – Serpent/Picco – 202/1:00:10.891
2.(2) Takaaki Shimo (JPN) – Mugen/OS Speed – 201/1:00:02.178
3.(5) Atsushi Hara (JPN) – Mugen/OS Speed – 200/1:00:09.866
4.(7) Shinnosuke Yokoyama (JPN) – Mugen/OS Speed – 200/1:00:12.069
5.(4) Carmine Raiola (ITA) – Xray/Max – 199/1:00:11.554
6.(8) Silvio Hachler (CH) – Mugen/Novarossi – 196/1:00:17.373
7.(6) Teemu Leino (FIN) – HB/OS Speed – 190/1:00:15.105
8.(10)Charlee Phutiyotin (THA) – KM Racing/OS Speed – 187/1:00:07.416
9.(3) Meen Vejrak (THA) – KM Racing/OS Speed – 179/59:31.609
10.(9)Jilles Groskamp (NL) – Shepherd/Maxima – 178/56:13.274