February 8, 2025

Volker and Zalewski top seeding at MIBO International

Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker and Xray’s Bartek Zalewski are the top seeds at MIBO International, both drivers laying down the fastest 3-consecutive laps of their respective tracks in the Czech Republic.  On the onroad track the battle between the races 2 previous champions continued with Volker maintaining his slightest of advantages over the Schumacher of Michal Orlowksi, 4/1o0ths of a second all that separates them.  Behind them the Xray of former MIBO Stock Champion Adam Iszay set the third fastest time ahead of the Yokomo of Christopher Krapp and new 2025 Mugen Seiki signing Patrick Gollner.  On the offroad side of the event, defending 4WD Champion Zalewski pulled off the double topping seeding in both 2WD and 4WD.  In 2WD it was recent EOS winner Marcus Kaerup who was his closest rival, the Team Associated driver over 2/10ths off with a similar gap back to the Schumacher of Daniel Kobbevik in P3.  It was the Sworkz of Micha Widmaier who got closest to Zalewski in 4WD with Kaerup completing the P3.

‘A good day so far’, was Volker’s reaction to taking the top seed honours ahead of the day’s 4 rounds of qualifying.  Winner of the inaugural MIBO International in 2023, the German has been making small changes to his pre-production MTC3 every run to get a better understand of the car adding it seems to work well not matter what changes he makes.  Making a diff set-up change for the final practice run, he said this resulted in the car being less consistent over the 5-minutes so he will go back to his CP1 diff for Q1.  Having a revival in form since the switch to the MTC3, which is expected to go on sale in April, Volker said he is enjoying racing here against Orlowski adding it is nice to be challenging him but knows he needs to keep finding more from the car to maintain that status.

Orlowski said, ‘Me and Ronald are having a nice battle, we are very close on pace and I am looking forward to battling with him for the rest of the weekend.  He is very competitive with the new car.’  On his own car, the 1:12 World Champion said, ‘we are testing a lot of things on the car.  I am really enjoying the track layout and the grip.’  The only concern for the defending Touring Car Champion going into qualifying is traffic.  He cautioned, ‘there is a lot of traffic so I hope myself and Ronald don’t have too much trouble with it.’

Making the step up to Modified this year as well as continuing to complete here in Pro Stock, of which he is the Top Seed ahead of Martin Hudy, Iszay said he needs to find more steering to close the gap on the front guys.  Changing the car each run the 22-year-old from Hungary said it is getting better every time and for Q1 he hopes a further change will have the desired effect in terms of delivering more steering.

‘Everything is working well, I am extremely happy with my speed’, was how Zalewski summed up his morning performance.  While making small set-up changes to each of his buggies, he said the focus this morning has been on his ESC settings.  Joining electronics newcomers Team Cayote for 2025, he said the adjustments to the speedo have brought the biggest improvement in how the buggies feels to drive.  His closest 2WD rival, Kaerup described the morning as having gone ‘alright’ saying they made a lot of changes focused on getting the cars good for 5-minutes.  While happy with his 2WD, he said they need to improve the 4WD.  ‘A bit stuck in the corner’, he said they need to get more rotation dialled in.

Fastest in 2WD after yesterday’s five rounds of free practice, ending seeding 3rd fastest Kobbevik said, ‘it will be interesting to see the true pace of everyone in qualifying.’  The Norwegian said they continue to make small changes to both buggies but admitted, ‘we are still a bit stronger in 2WD and need bigger changes in 4WD.’

Second fastest in 4WD, Widmaier said they had spent the morning working on 5-minute pace and the consistency of the buggy but added he expects a difficult qualifying given the challenges of the track.  In 2WD he said while his buggy is ‘not too bad to drive, its not too fast’ and he is ‘looking for more pace’ admitting ‘there are lots of fast guys here.’  Team-mate Neumann, the defending 2WD Champion said his buggy was edgy in the first seeding round and then had understeer in the second one and finding a good balance for used tyres will be challenging.

February 8, 2025

Volker, Kobbevik & Neumann set pace on Day 1 of MIBO International

It is the biggest MIBO International race yet and kicking off the third edition of the combined Czech onroad & offroad indoor event it was Ronald Volker in Modified Touring Car, Daniel Kobbevik in 2WD Buggy and Joern Neumann in 4WD Buggy who set the pace in free practice.  With both tracks opening up to racers late afternoon, to give them the Friday morning to travel to the Sports V Hotel in Hrotovice, Day 1 of the event consisted of 5 rounds of practice.  On the black carpet onroad track it was the Mugen Seiki of inaugural MIBO Champion Volker and the Schumacher of defending Champion Michal Orlowski would were the bench mark, Yokomo’s Christopher Krapp completing the Top 3.  On the grey carpet offroad track, onroad & offroad drivers standing back to back on the central drivers stand, 2WD Buggy saw Kobbevik’s Schumacher have the edge on MIBO debutant Marcus Kaerup’s Team Associated with Xray’s Bartosz Zalewski posting the third fastest time.  In 4WD, it was the Sworkz of the defending 2WD Champion Neumann that produced the fastest three consecutive laps ahead of the teenagers Kaerup and Zalewski, the later taking the win here 12-months ago.

Summing up his evening’s work at the FlySky controls of his soon to be released MTC3, which the German said hasn’t change much since its pre production debut at the ISTC World Championship in November, Volker said ‘It’s going very good so far’.  After his recent return to the podium at ETS, the former World Champion said he started out with the same set-up and has just made very small adjustments over the the 5 runs.  Despite having to stand on his radio’s carry case to get the right height on the drivers stand, asked about the track he described it as ‘very fast and very following’ concluding he is feeling ‘confident’ about the weekend ahead.

Originally set to race both onroad and offroad, a challenge at the best of times, Orlowski said he just didn’t have the energy to take racing three different cars as he enters into his fifth consecutive weekend of racing after which he will have a quick turn around before heading to Thailand to make his debut at the legendary TITC race.  Opting to run just touring car and with his offroad engineer Trish Neal here as his mechanic and support team-mate Kobbevik’s offroad efforts, asked to sum up practice the Pole replied, ‘not bad’ adding ‘we are using the track time to test some ideas to finish off the winter season of touring car’.  He concluded, ‘getting to race just one class, my plan is to enjoy the weekend.’

Runner up in 2WD last year, Kobbevik was very confident about his 2WD performance and how his buggy is dealing with the track layout.  In 4WD however the Norwegian admitted he was struggling a little but said the track is challenging everyone in terms of trying to make a clean 5-minute run.  In the final practice run of the day he would break his 4WD on the first lap on positive of which was allowing him to watch how his rivals are tackling the track.  While ending up P5 behind Sworkz’s Micha Widmaier, he concluded that they would ‘get there’ with getting the 4WD to work as well as the 2WD.

For Neumann the issue was the opposite.  He said, ‘My 4WD is very good.  The 2WD can be fast but it’s difficult to drive.’  Asked his thoughts on this year’s track layout the German responded with ‘challenging’.  He added, ‘it’s fun to drive but you can make mistakes many places and also gain time in many spots’.

Another driver who is in the middle of a busy schedule having done the EOS last week and is off the the UK next week for the Milton Keynes British Off Road Grand Prix, Kaerup said his first impressions of MIBO International were ‘great’ adding ‘I’m having fun.’  ‘Feeling pretty confident’ and ‘looking forward to tomorrow’, with 4 of the 5 rounds of qualifying on the schedule, the Dane said the carpet and how it feels is ‘quite different’ to other carpet tracks but he is enjoying the challenge of getting the car to do what he wants it to do.

Catching a quick word with Zalewski about his first evening on track, the 18-year-old reported the grip levels as being ‘very low’.  Having struggled with the set-up he started out, expecting much higher grip, he said by the end of the evening they were at a ‘good’ point with both buggies.  Asked about defending his 4WD title, the Polish racer laughed and said, ‘It will be difficult.  Marcus is very quick.’

January 29, 2025

Xray confirms Champions return for MIBO International

Xray has confirmed that two of its MIBO International Champions will return to the third annual running of the Czech indoor onroad/offroad race early next month.  Inaugural Pro-Stock Champion Adam Izsay returns and the recent GP3F winner will not only look to retake the Pro-Stock title Xray has won at the previous two editions but he will also step up to compete in the Modified class against the likes of Schumacher’s reigning Champion Michal Orlowski and the Mugen Seiki of inaugural Champion Ronald Volker.  In Offroad, defending 4WD Champion Bartek Zalewski, who really made a name for himself at last year’s MIBO International, heads the Slovakian manufacturer’s quest for a third consecutive 4WD title on the offroad track.  Bruno Coelho was the winner at the first running of the event that is organised by former top international Czech touring car racer Michal Bok and his well known RC company Mibosport.  A sell-out event, the 2025 MIBO International will be very much a family affair for Xray with company founder Juraj Hudy one of 5 of the Hudy family’s three generations who will be racing at the Sport V Hotel based event on February 7-9th.

December 11, 2024

2024 FEMCA ISTC Championship Chassis Focus Index

The 2024 FEMCA ISTC Championship was completed last weekend (December 7-8th) at the GDC Indoor track in Foshan, China were Bruno Coelho took the win.  While it was the World Champion who dominated proceedings to add a first FEMCA title to his CV, the very fact he and former World Champion Naoto Matsukura were there racing against Asia’s top drivers was a huge boost for those racers who don’t normally get such an opportunity.  While Coelho impressed his rivals on track, even Marc Rheinard, Atsushi Hara and Jilles Groskamp dropping by and watching him set the pace, the hosts impressed Coelho and the rest of the international visitors with a very impressive opening ceremony.  Red RC’s first time to attend the FEMCA ISTC Championship, having previously attended the FEMCA 1:8 Offroad Championship, it was an opportunity to photograph the cars of some of the regions leading drivers for our Chassis Focus.  With the championship attracting close to 100 entries, we featured 10 cars including the Xray of Chinese National Champion Jerry Dai. We got to put cars from 6 different manufacturers in front of our camera to share the details with touring car fans around the world and now have complied them all into one handy index.

Bruno Coelho – Xray (TQ/FEMCA Champion)

Naoto Matsukura – Infinity (Q2/P2)

Shin Sawada – Xray (Q3/P3)

Kenrick Fong – Axon (TQ/FEMCA Champion 17.5 Blinky)

Kouki Kato – Infinity (A-Main)

Jerry Dai – Xray (Chinese National Champion – A-Main)

Rocket Zhang – Awesomatix (A-Main)

Maxim Laverychev – Awesomatix (A-Main)

Lo Lo – Serpent (A-Main)

Eric Lam – Xpress

December 8, 2024

Coelho adds FEMCA title to CV

Bruno Coelho has added a FEMCA title to his racing CV, the multiple World and European Champion now official the Champion of Asia in Electric Touring Car.  Securing the overall TQ at the event hosted at the GDC track in Foshan, China, the Xray driver continued his dominant form into the finals.  Cruising to the win in A1 ahead of former World Champion Naoto Matsukura, he sealed the deal in A2 with another text book race this time ahead of team-mate Shin Sawada.  A3 would then decide which side Matsukura and Sawada would stand next to Coelho on the events impressive podium presentation, the entire race weekend taking RC events to a very high level in terms of presentation.   Leading away the field in the closing race, Matsukura would see off a determined challenge from his fellow Japanese driver even surviving heavy contact with the boards to win A3 and claim the runner-up spot, the same result he achieved on his only other previous FEMCA ISTC Championship appearance.  With racing on carpet somewhat an alien experience for Sawada, he completed the podium.  Qualifying fourth, Japanese Offroad Champion Kouki Kato would finish in that position ahead of the Awesomatix of Maxim Laverychev who went one better this year than he achieved on his first visit to the GDC track last year.

Reacting to his FEMCA title win Coelho said, ‘It was a very good race and it was very nice to be here. I have never been to a FEMCA Championship before so it is very nice to attend. This kind of race in Asia is very important for me as I have many sponsors here so it is always nice to come here to say thank you to them and also show my image here and not only on the other side of the world.   It was a very nice race and it gave us the chance to test many things together with our sponsor who where here like Hobbywing.  The have a new speedo and it was nice to work with them trying to find out new things on the speedo.  The race ran really well for us even when the traction went down a little bit we were able to change the set-up and get the car working well.  Today the grip came back up again and I was able to do the same lap times as I was doing in practice 2-days ago when the track was really really good which means the car was on point.’  While the touring car race is done, today’s win doesn’t mark the end of Coelho’s stay in China.  Next weekend he will make the switch to offroad for the SIGP in Xiamen.  First however he will do a little more sightseeing tomorrow with race organiser Gavin Kwok for he is very grateful for his and the Hongyu Group’s hospitality throughout the race.  Asked if he was looking forward to SIGP, Coelho said, ‘Yes but for sure it will be tough cause Ongaro is coming, the World Champion is coming, which will make things for sure super tough but I will have the help of my team-mate David Ronnefalk and we will try to get Ongaro for sure.’

Another driver very grateful to Kwok for the hospitality, both he and Coelho enjoying doing a photo & video shoot at a local tourist site ahead of the Championship, Matsukura said while second overall was ‘OK’, given his last Electric Touring Car race was the TITC back in March, he always wants better.  Summing up his weekend, the 2014 ISTC World Champion said, ‘with the tyre here every time in practice it was getting better traction but then when the race started sometimes the track had low traction and that was challenging.  Sometimes you needed more traction like this morning but then after in the final too much traction, so this result is not bad after a long break from touring car.’

Like Matsukura, Sawada wasn’t content with his result.  Asked if was happy with his podium finish the 20-year-old said, ‘I wanted more’.  The Japanese did however enjoy his battles in the finals with Matsukura despite being unable to get by, his 2nd place in A2 coming when his rival touched the curbing and traction roll.  With little or no carpet tracks in Japan Sawada unable to test said these FEMCA Championships where challenging due to surface with the changing tractions level further compounding that challenge.  Winner of the Hobbywing Cup here in China earlier this year on asphalt, struggling to know which direction to go with his set-up, he did try the same set-up as team-mate Coelho but with a different driving style he would still have to learn to adjust that to his liking.

View our event image gallery here.

December 8, 2024

Chassis Focus – Naoto Matsukura (Infinity)

Chassis – Infinity IF14-MID
ESC – ORCA OE1 MKII
Motor – ORCA M3 5.0T
Battery – ORCA 4290mAh
Tires – Rush (handout)
Radio/Servo – Futaba T10PX / CT702
Body – Xtreme Twister

Image Gallery