December 10, 2016

Tebo tops 4WD seeding at JConcepts Finals

Jared Tebo topped seeding practice at JConcepts Indoor National Series Finals in Mooresville, North Carolina, the Kyosho driver fastest over 3-consecutive laps of the Speed RC track.  With just a single round of seeding practice, the Kyosho driver was over a 1-second fastest than his close rivals with Spencer Rivkin and Alex Kosciuszek recording an identical time of 49.660.  The JConcepts Indoor National Series’ first visit to the track of ex Formula 1 and Nascar racer Scott Speed, the event is set to decide this year’s overall 4WD champion with the three winners from the season’s previous four events, Rivkin, Kosciuszek and Max Flurer. Winner of the 4th round in Boston back in October, Flurer would struggle in his seeding round setting the 5th fastest overall behind Matt Cline with Daimon Borkowicz completing the Top 6.

Describing his seeding run as ‘really good’ and also managing the best 5-minute time, Tebo said his new ZX6.6 ‘might be a little soft’.  Planning to ‘go up in the shock oil a little’ for tomorrow’s opening qualifier, the former World Champion felt his 5-minutes was probably better than his 3-laps’ adding he is feeling confident going into qualifying. Running Pro-line’s Electron tyre on the front and Positron on the rear, he said of the combination ‘I like it a lot and with stick with’.

Running in the heat before Tebo, Rivkin felt he ‘lost a lot of time with traffic’ adding ‘Tebo had a cleaner run than me’.  Running JConcepts’ all new Octagon tyre on his B44.3, the 18-year-old said while the car and tyres where ‘pretty good’ he ‘didn’t drive that disciplined’.  Feeling the car is gong to get better as the tyres get more laps, the winner of Rounds 2 and 3 of the series plans to leave the car unchanged for Q1 but will ‘freshen up’ shocks as this should make the car ‘a little smoother through the turns’.

‘The car was really good that time’ was Kosciuszek reaction after the seeding run.  The Team Associated driver said work to his JConcepts Octogan tyres had improved the car from the earlier practice.  Thinking about qualifying, the winner of the season opener at SmacTrac in St.Louis will change his rear shock set-up on his B44.3 to improve it through the corners and to soak up the ‘random bumps better’.  Describing the grip from the dirt as ‘good’, he concluded, ‘I like the track a lot’.

Having rebuilt his shocks ahead of the seeding round, Cline said his B44.3 was really good.  The Ohio driver is another driver who likes the track layout describing it as ‘smooth and consistent’. For qualifying the 22-year-old said he will ‘probably leave the car alone’ and instead focus on driving ‘more consistent’.

With Speed RC his home track, Flurer will be looking for improvement tomorrow.  The TLR driver described his seeding performance as ‘pretty bad’ adding his car ‘pushed like a dump truck’.  Running on JConcepts’ Spacebar tyre he said the handling was probably down to tyres and he ‘work on tyres tonight’ as well as ‘go through the car’ which he said ‘hasn’t been looked at for a while’.

View our event image gallery here.

December 10, 2016

Chassis Focus – Max Flurer

Chassis: TLR 22 3.0
Motor: Orion VST2 7.5T
ESC: Orion Vortex R10.1
Batteries: Orion 4500mAh
Tires: JConcepts Spacebars
Radio/Servo: Sanwa/Spektrum
Remarks – Local ace Max Flurer is running the latest 22 3.0 2wd buggy from Team Losi Racing. Using the same setup as he had on the buggy at the last round of the JConcepts series at RC Excitment he has been playing with tire setup, switching between JConcepts Spacebars and slicks feeling that when the track grooves up more the slicks will work best. Choosing to run the JConcepts front wing mounted behind the front shock tower, he had tried the forward mounted front wing but felt it made the car too aggressive while no wing caused it to push.

Image Gallery

December 9, 2016

Track Focus – Speed RC

Track Name – Speed RC
Host –  Scott Speed
Country – United States
Location – Mooresville, North Carolina
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt

The JConcepts Indoor National Series has travelled to North Carolina for the Series Finals with Speed RC the location for the fifth & final stop on the 2016 calendar.  Located in Mooresville, around 25 miles north of Charlotte, the track is owned by ex Formula 1 and Nascar driver Scott Speed.  A keen RC racer, on switching from a Nascar programme of 38 weekends to a Global Rallycross Programme of 12 weekends, it was having ‘a lot of free time’ that led him to set up Speed RC which has a lot of motorsport neighbours the biggest of which is NASCAR team Richard Petty Motorsports.  Getting into RC through ‘a few friends in Nascar (who) were doing it’, Speed opened the doors to Speed RC a year & half ago filling a void left by the closure of the area’s previous track 5-years ago.   Also featuring an outdoor dirt track for 1:8, the 90 by 50 foot indoor track caters for around 40-60 racers each Wednesday night and Saturday with a monthly trophy race attracting over 100 drivers.  In terms of layout the track is changed every three months but the Spring will see the entire track move to a new building. Originally part of a bigger business plan that was focused on online retail, Speed said ‘as everyone has sponsorship now it is almost impossible to compete as a retailer’ and to keep the track viable they will move to a smaller building as they ‘don’t need the retail area’ anymore.

Asked about his own RC racing exploits Speed, who is racing this weekend in what is the biggest event his track has hosted, joked, ‘I beat Max Flurer once and retired after that.  I got one fluke chance to beat him and knew after that I had reached my max’.  The current back to back Global Rallycross Champion in his Andretti Autosport Volkswagen Beetle, Speed’s big focus now is on his 15-year-old stepson Rex racing RC saying ‘I try to help and get more enjoyment in that’. Having become good friends with Jared Tebo, even sponsoring the Kyosho star through Speed RC, he said Jared, who is pitting next to him this weekend, has been a huge help in teaching Rex how to prepare the car and tyres adding ‘there is no book on how to do it so working with Jared is great guidance to have’. Comparing driving RC to 1:1 racing, the 33-year-old said his biggest issue is, ‘I look at the apex rather than the car as that’s how I do it when I’m inside a car racing but Jared looks at his car with the apex of the corner in his peripheral vision’.

Along with Tebo, another offroad star racing in the JConcepts Indoor National Series Finals at Speed RC is World Champion Spencer Rivkin.  The Team Associated driver’s first time at the track he said, ‘It’s small but fun’ adding ‘It is a little bit difficult to get consistent laps’.  Elaborating the Arizona driver said, ‘the breaking point at the end of the straight is really difficult’.  Describing the dirt as ‘unique’, he continued, ‘the way the tyres grip the dirt is not like west coast dirt’ and ‘it going to come down to tyres and finding comfort in the tyres’.

Image Gallery

October 9, 2016

Ronnefalk hits jackpot to become World Champion in Vegas

sat_trophyronnefalk

David Ronnefalk is the new 1:8 Offroad World Champion, the Swede finally delivering on the promise he has shown ever since being crowned European B Champion in 2009.  Starting from 3rd on the grid, the HB Racing driver would win the 1-hour encounter in convincing style once he got passed pole sitter & defending champion Ty Tessmann, his HB Racing team-mate eventually finishing up third.  Making it a European 1-2 in the American’s own backyard, 2012 World champion Robert Batlle would take the runner-up spot recovering from some big early mistakes.  With Ronnefalk claiming the sport’s greatest prize, RC Tracks of Las Vegas would put the spotlight on his replacement as nitro offroad’s next star of the future as David Ongaro, despite his age, mixed it with the biggest names in RC with ease and confidence.  A back pressure pipe would deny him from finishing his first Worlds final as Vice Champion leaving the Italian 6th behind Ryan Cavalieri.  With many feeling the first running of a Worlds final under floodlights would favour the American drivers, it would be Top Qualifier Jared Tebo who would be the best US finisher taking fourth 2.2-seconds up on Cavalieri.

sat_winningteam

A driver who has never lacked the belief that he would one day be World Champion, his preparations for the 16th running of the Worlds well highlighted on his Facebook page, Ronnefalk said, ‘This has been my goal since starting racing’.  He continued, ‘ever since I teamed up with Adrien (Bertin) I have had a super good relationship and we won this together.  I want to thank my family, my girlfriend and all the racers back in Sweden for being super supportive and letting me do what I love’.  On the race he said, ‘From the start I had a good race.  When Cavalieri flamed out I had a big enough gap to Ty which meant I had less pressure on how I could take the first few jumps. Ongaro also showed good patience behind me’.   He continued, ‘I have no idea how long I was behind Ty but my goal for the race was to makes as few mistakes as possible.  In the Semi I was just trying to survive out there so I knew I had more speed but after I got the lead others started making mistakes behind me and I pulled away slightly every lap. I think my biggest gap was 28-seconds.  With 2 stops left I knew everyone’s tyres would go off so I could control the race although I had a couple of mistake coming home’.  One of those mistakes was at the end of the last lap, it stopping Bertin in his tracks as he prepared to celebrate his protege’s win, with the 20-year-old saying ‘on the last lap my mind was somewhere else’.  With his goal reached Ronnefalk said his new goal is the electric offroad Worlds which run next year.  A podium finisher at the last 1:10 Worlds in Japan, he said, ‘now our attention will be on developing two cars for the Worlds next year in China and I will do a lot of practice at my own track where he will host a race in 2-weeks time.

sat_finbatlle

‘From hospital to 2nd, I’m super happy’, was Batlle’s reaction to coming from 8th on the grid to finish runner-up after a late battle with Tessmann.  The Spaniard, who on arriving in the US for the event ended up in hospital with painful kidney stones, added, ‘Given how the week started if you had told me on Tuesday I could have second I would have said OK’.  On his race the Mugen driver said, ‘my car was loose at the beginning and I had 2 or 3 big mistakes that lost me a lot of time, but the car improved and was then very good letting me get into some huge battles.  I’m super happy with how the race turned out but David deserved the win for sure.  I’m I happy to have a World and now a Vice World Champion trophy.’

sat_finty

Summing up his race Tessmann said, ‘It started good and the tyres were really good at the start but the last 3/4 of the race they got worse & worse’.  Running Pro-Line Fugitive Lights on his OS powered D815V2, the Canadian continued, ‘In the Semi practice I ran them and they faded but that was in the day and I thought at night they wouldn’t’.   Losing out on making it a HB Racing 1-2 by just 2.2-seconds, he said, ‘David drove great and everything worked good for him. Well done to him on the win.  We’ll try again in 2018’.

sat_fincav

‘I go screwed from start’ was how a less than happy Cavalieri summed up his race after finishing 5th.  Having for a few moments held pole for the final but then lost his win for contact with Tessmann on the final corner of that 30-minute encounter as the battled for the win, he continued, ‘starting from pit lane irritated me and I drove bad’.  With his RC8 flaming out as the cars waited to be placed down causing the start to be aborted some confusion followed over him retaking his P2 starting position with it soon clarified he must start from pitlane. Having been on the podium at the previous Worlds, he said, ‘I tried to recover but couldn’t put it together.  It wasn’t my day which sucks’.

sat_presongarino

‘Happy’ with his sixth but adding ‘second would have been better’, Ongaro said nerves led to a couple of early mistakes.  With his MBX7R getting better as the race progressed he was able to recover the lost time and get up to second.  With the race producing a number of intense battles for the podium places at various stages over the 60-minutes, the fuel pressure pipe coming off would ruin his spectacular showing.  Having to nurse the engine for a lap & a half to get to his next scheduled stop, that stop would be lengthy as they refitted the tubing, with a crash on the entry to the pits compounding the lost time’.  Behind Ongaro, Renaud Savoya would be the best of the TLR drivers finishing ahead of team-mate Ryan Maifield, who for a time looked on target for at least a podium. Despite how rough the track was to become for the finals, all 12 cars would go the full distance with the order completed by ninth place Ryan Lutz, Elliott Boots, Dakotah Phend and Kyle McBride.

vegasmainresults

View our event image gallery here.

vegaspostfooter